Buffalo Bill by Roger Pocock (1928)

Name: Buffalo Bill
Author: Roger Pocock

In 1857, when the United States government sends an army against the Mormons of the Great Salt Lake, who refuse to sell provisions to the troops, a herd of beef cattle bound for the soldiers is attacked on the Platte by Indians on the war-path. Retreating on foot along the riverbank, the drovers are pursued after dark, and nine-year-old Billy Cody, falling behind the others, shoots and kills an Indian who is spying over the bank, earning praise from the party's leader, Frank McCarthy. Later, when Mormons burn a government wagon train and turn its teamsters loose in the mountains, young Billy nearly starves before setting out for home. Riding a mule with Simpson, the wagon boss, and teamster George Woods to overtake a train ahead, he is caught in an Indian charge. Simpson shoots the three mules to form a triangular breastwork, and the small party beats off repeated charges, an arrow wound, and a grass fire before a relief train arrives and the Indians withdraw. By twelve, Cody is riding for the pony express, a two-thousand-mile relay line to California with one hundred ninety stations, closed in 1861. On one occasion, finding his relief rider dead from a drunken brawl, he rides the round trip of three hundred twenty-two miles back to Red Buttes without a mishap, the longest recorded pony express journey. On another ride, warned that a large sum of money is expected aboard, he hides the treasure in his saddle blanket and fills the official pouches with rubbish; when two road agents stop him, he throws the decoy pouches, shoots one robber's gun arm, and rides down the other to escape, and both robbers are later hanged by vigilantes. In a further adventure he is ambushed by mounted Indians led by a chief in an eagle-plume war bonnet; as the chief draws an arrow, Cody shoots him with his revolver and outruns the rest to the next relay station, his pony only slightly wounded. At twenty-two, during a new round of Indian wars, Cody serves as a scout alongside Pawnee Indian scouts. Given leave to hunt buffalo alone after a party of twenty Pawnee bag thirty-two head, he kills thirty-six on a half-mile run on his pony Buckskin Joe, earning the name Buffalo Bill. That summer, leading a cavalry squadron against six hundred Sioux, he kills the war leader Tall Bull at four hundred yards; Tall Bull's widow is said to be proud her husband fell to so famous a warrior as Prairie Chief, Cody's name among the Indians. A brief anecdote tells of a new general ordering proper sentry etiquette, which the Pawnee sentries flout with their own defiant call until made to stop. After General Custer's force is destroyed by the Sioux in 1876, with only the boy scout Billy Jackson escaping in disguise, Buffalo Bill helps round up a scattered section of the Sioux army. Challenged by a decorated war chief to single combat, Cody kills the chief's horse with a rifle shot; his own horse falls in a gopher hole at the same moment, and on foot the two men exchange fire. Cody kills the chief, scalps him, and as Company K rides to his rescue, holds up the scalp and war bonnet, crying "The first scalp for Custer." Sitting Bull and Spotted Tail flee north with about three thousand warriors. They demand supplies from a small fort, are invited in, and find only two visible men before discovering the buildings loopholed with hidden rifles, forcing a retreat. Later, camped near the Sioux at Wood Mountain, the hostile Blackfeet nation is kept from battle by thirty white men holding the fort between them; when the Sioux accuse the Blackfeet of stealing fifty horses, six of the white men drive off one hundred fifty Blackfoot horses in a gallop through the camp, only to be fined a month's pay each for insulting the Blackfeet. By summer, the thirty men deliver three thousand Sioux prisoners to American troops at the Canadian border, establishing the reputation of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Sitting Bull, having defeated Custer and surrendered to thirty Canadian soldiers, later travels to Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and is afterward killed by United States troops in the massacre at Wounded Knee. Buffalo Bill tours Europe and America with his show for twenty-six years, using his earnings to found Cody City, Wyoming. The narrator recalls visiting the show camp in its later years, and describes Cody, on the final tour, riding with two broken bones in splints after being thrown by a horse at Bristol, still backing his mount from the ring with his old grace. Cody returns to build a costly irrigation ditch for his frontier city, after which newspapers report that the Buffalo Creek Gang of robbers attacked his bank and shot the cashier.

By Roger Pocock · First published 1928 · Genre: Biography, Western, Adventure · 3,368 words

First lines

A. D. 1857

The Mormons are a sect of Christians with some queer ideas, for they drink no liquor, hold all their property in common, stamp out any member who dares to think or work for himself, and believe that the more wives a man has the merrier he will be. The women, so far as I met them are like fat cows, the men a slovenly lot, and not too honest, but they are hard workers and first-rate pioneers.

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Buffalo Bill is listed on Textopian as a novella by Roger Pocock, dated 1928 CE.

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Work type: Novella
Author: Roger Pocock
Date: 1928 CE
Language: English
Genres: Biography, Western, Adventure, Historical Fiction, Military History
Length: 3,368 words
Structure: 1 section, 40 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Biography — The work is a detailed account of Buffalo Bill's life from childhood through adulthood, chronicling his major accomplishments and personal development across decades.
Western — The narrative is set in the American frontier during the 1857-1876 period, featuring typical Western elements such as cattle drives, Indian conflicts, gunfights, and cavalry scouts.
Adventure — The text is filled with action-packed episodes including ambushes, battles, dangerous journeys, and narrow escapes that define the adventure genre.
Historical Fiction — While based on real events and a real person, the work presents Buffalo Bill's story through a narrative lens with dramatized anecdotes and first-person accounts that blend historical fact with storytelling conventions.