It was because of my great interest in the West, and my belief that its development would be assisted by the interest I could awaken in others, that I decided to bring the West to the East through the medium of the Wild West Show.
Having secured my Indian actors, I started for Baltimore, where I organized my combination, and which was the largest troupe I had yet had on the road.
I thought I was benefiting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.
The first trip of the Pony Express was made in ten days - an average of two hundred miles a day. But we soon began stretching our riders and making better time.
But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.
Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.
I had the best buffalo horse that ever made a track.
The audience, upon learning that the real Buffalo Bill was present, gave several cheers between the acts.
The greatest of all the Sioux in my time, or in any time for that matter, was that wonderful old fighting man, Sitting Bull, whose life will some day be written by a historian who can really give him his due.
The cholera had broken out at the post, and five or six men were dying daily.
My great forte in killing buffaloes was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the herd and shooting their leaders. Thus the brutes behind were crowded to the left, so that they were soon going round and round.
Frontiersmen good and bad, gunmen as well as inspired prophets of the future, have been my camp companions. Thus, I know the country of which I am about to write as few men now living have known it.
After crossing the Smoky Hill River, I felt comparatively safe as this was the last stream I had to cross.
So for twelve miles I rode with Sherman, and we became fast friends. He asked me all manner of questions on the way, and I found that he knew my father well, and remembered his tragic death in Salt Creek Valley.
My debut upon the world's stage occurred on February 26, 1845, in the State of Iowa.
My wife was delighted with the home I had given her amid the prairies of the far west.
It was my effort, in depicting the West, to depict it as it was.
I was persuaded now that I was destined to lead a life on the Plains.
My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war was bound to come, but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.
The Indians were well mounted and felt proud and elated because they had been made United States soldiers.
