Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer
OR,
THE STRANGER IN CAMP
BY
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
Author of the celebrated "Buffalo Bill" stories published in the BorderStories. For other titles see catalogue.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1908
By STREET & SMITH
Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreignlanguages, including the Scandinavian.
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY
(BUFFALO BILL).
It is now some generations since Josh Billings, Ned Buntline, andColonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friends of Colonel William F. Cody,used to forgather in the office of Francis S. Smith, then proprietor ofthe New York Weekly. It was a dingy little office on Rose Street, NewYork, but the breath of the great outdoors stirred there when theseold-timers got together. As a result of these conversations, ColonelIngraham and Ned Buntline began to write of the adventures of BuffaloBill for Street & Smith.
Colonel Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846. Beforehe had reached his teens, his father, Isaac Cody, with his mother andtwo sisters, migrated to Kansas, which at that time was little more thana wilderness.
When the elder Cody was killed shortly afterward in the Kansas "BorderWar," young Bill assumed the difficult role of family breadwinner.During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War, Cody lived thearduous life of a pony-express rider. Cody volunteered his services asgovernment scout and guide and served throughout the Civil War withGenerals McNeil and A. J. Smith. He was a distinguished member of theSeventh Kansas Cavalry.
During the Civil War, while riding through the streets of St. Louis,Cody rescued a frightened schoolgirl from a band of annoyers. In trueromantic style, Cody and Louisa Federci, the girl, were married March 6,1866.
In 1867 Cody was employed to furnish a specified amount of buffalo meatto the construction men at work on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It wasin this period that he received the sobriquet "Buffalo Bill."
In 1868 and for four years thereafter Colonel Cody[Pg 2] served as scout andguide in campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. It wasGeneral Sheridan who conferred on Cody the honor of chief of scouts ofthe command.
After completing a period of service in the Nebraska legislature, Codyjoined the Fifth Cavalry in 1876, and was again appointed chief ofscouts.
Colonel Cody's fame had reached the East long before, and a great manyNew Yorkers went out to see him and join in his buffalo hunts, includingsuch men as August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, Anson Stager, andJ. G. Heckscher. In entertaining these visitors at Fort McPherson, Codywas accustomed to arrange wild-West exhibitions. In return his friendsinvited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing his first play in themetropolis that Cody conceived the idea of going into the show business.
Assisted by Ned Buntline, novelist, and Colonel Ingraham, he started his"Wild West" show, which later developed and expanded into "A Congress ofthe Rough-riders of the W