2:01

He was making enough money to employ

2:03

a full-time butcher and a camp staff

2:05

to help him process the meat, cure

2:07

the hides, and transport hundreds of tons

2:10

of buffalo. Bill

2:12

had tried his hand at all kinds of

2:14

jobs, hoping to make enough money to settle

2:16

down with his family, and his prospects had

2:18

never seemed better. And then,

2:21

things fell apart. The

2:23

railroad reached Sheridan, Kansas, a tiny speck

2:25

of a place in the northwest corner

2:28

of the state, and the

2:30

Kansas Pacific informed Bill that their coffers

2:32

were empty and his services were no

2:34

longer required. His wife,

2:36

who didn't want to be married to a hunter

2:39

anyway, had taken their daughter and moved back to

2:41

St. Louis to be with her family. She

2:44

agreed to meet him in Leavenworth, Kansas, but

2:46

the couple had an awful fight. Bill

2:49

said later, I didn't think that we

2:51

would ever have another meeting. We

2:53

had kind of mutually agreed that we were

2:56

not suited to each other. She

2:58

was as glad to go back to her home as

3:00

I was to go to the plains. It

3:03

was a lonely crossroads for Buffalo Bill

3:05

Cody. He lost his father

3:08

and older brother before the Civil War. He

3:10

lost his mother to illness during the war,

3:13

right before he left to fight. After

3:15

the war, he failed in several business ventures

3:18

before finding the one thing he was good

3:20

at, buffalo hunting. But

3:22

then he lost that job, which was

3:25

followed immediately by losing his wife and

3:27

daughter. With nothing better to

3:29

do, Bill wandered into Fort

3:31

Hayes on the Kansas prairie and accepted

3:33

a job as a detective. He

3:36

helped local lawmen track down deserting soldiers

3:38

and the stolen horses and mules they

3:40

took with them. He

3:42

was surprised when the deputy marshal from Junction

3:44

City showed up to lead the outfit, and

3:47

he found the man to be his old

3:49

friend, James Butler Hickock. The man

3:52

they now called Wild Bill. From

4:02

Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old

4:04

West. I'm your host, Chris

4:06

Wimmer, and this season we're telling the

4:08

story of William F. Cody, known as

4:10

Buffalo Bill, the man who turned the

4:13

American frontier into the Wild West. This

4:15

is episode 2, Frontier Hero.

4:28

Old Bill had been in and out of Bill

4:30

Cody's life many times. Hickok's

4:33

parents had been abolitionists, and Hickok had

4:35

been involved in the Free State Kansas

4:38

movement at about the same time as

4:40

Cody's father, Isaac. Hickok

4:42

was then riding with Free State leader Jim

4:44

Lane, and young Bill Cody

4:46

might have met him when he delivered

4:48

messages to his father who sought the

4:51

safety of Lane's militia. Cody's

4:53

sister, Julia, remembered Hickok visiting the

4:56

family after Isaac's death, when

4:58

Bill was only 12. Bill

5:00

Cody had always looked up to Hickok, seeing

5:03

him as something between an older brother and

5:05

the father he had lost. Now

5:08

at what must have seemed like the lowest point

5:10

of Cody's life, Hickok came riding

5:12

in once more. It would

5:14

prove to be a turning point. A

5:17

Harper's Monthly article about Hickok had

5:19

turned the handsome lawman into a

5:21

larger-than-life folk hero, mixing elements of

5:23

his real history with the tall

5:25

tales he told the reporter. Within

5:28

months, dime novels about the frontier adventures

5:31

of Wild Bill were printed, and readers

5:33

who had never left their hometowns knew

5:36

who was the law in Kansas. Wild

5:39

Bill played into the attention, growing his

5:41

hair long, showing off his skills with

5:43

pistols to anyone who would watch, and

5:45

making sure his face was the first

5:47

visitors saw when they stepped off their

5:49

trains at the local station. And

5:52

so, like boys have done since time out

5:54

of mind, Bill Cody started

5:56

to imitate Wild Bill. Cody

6:03

grew out his hair, wore fringed

6:05

buckskins, and adopted the wide-brimmed hats

6:07

favored by the older man. Cody

6:11

started finding work in Hickok's chosen

6:13

profession as a scout. Hickok

6:15

was a lawman, but most of the

6:17

money he earned was from serving as

6:20

a guide for parties, both military and

6:22

civilian, moving across the wilderness in the

6:24

American West. In Hickok's

6:26

case, giving tourists the version

6:28

of himself they expected from the

6:30

Harper's monthly story made financial sense.

6:34

Bill Cody took note and learned the

6:36

lesson well. Within

6:38

months, Cody was hired as a scout

6:40

for the 10th U.S. Cavalry for $60

6:42

a month. By

6:44

September of 1868, he was doing the same

6:47

job out of Fort Larned for $75 a

6:49

month. Cody

6:52

excelled as a scout, and

6:54

General Eugene Carr said, "...he

6:56

never seemed to tire and was always

6:58

ready to go in the darkest night

7:00

or the worst weather. His

7:02

eyesight is better than a good field glass, and

7:04

he is the best trailer I ever heard of.

7:07

He is always in

7:09

the right place, and his information is

7:11

always reliable." As

7:13

Cody's reputation grew, so did

7:16

the estimation in which he was held by the

7:18

top military brass. He rode

7:20

65 miles to Fort Hayes

7:22

in one day in 1868 with

7:25

a dispatch for General Phil Sheridan. Sheridan

7:28

read the dispatch and learned that a

7:30

group of Comanche and Kiowa were en

7:32

route and were likely to attack local

7:34

settlements. Sheridan needed someone

7:36

to take an urgent dispatch to Fort

7:38

Dodge to warn them of the danger.

7:42

Bill Cody volunteered to ride the 95

7:44

miles to Dodge through some of the

7:46

most dangerous terrain on the frontier. And

7:49

then he doubled back to Fort Larned

7:51

with another dispatch. He

7:53

rode 350 bone-jarring miles

7:56

in just under 60 hours. Sheridan

7:59

was in a very difficult position. was impressed with Bill's

8:01

endurance and abilities and appointed him

8:03

as chief of scouts for the

8:05

5th Cavalry. In the

8:07

fall of 1868, Bill

8:09

went north with the 5th from Fort

8:11

Hayes. They fought

8:13

Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors

8:16

under Chief Tallbull of the

8:18

fabled Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. The

8:21

5th pursued Tallbull's men throughout the fall but

8:23

lost track of them near the end of

8:25

October 1868. Cody

8:28

followed the cavalry to Fort Wallace and

8:30

then Fort Lyon in Colorado where he

8:32

spent the winter of 1868. That

8:36

winter, Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild

8:38

Bill Hittock convinced a passing wagon

8:40

master to trade his cargo, several

8:42

barrels of beer, for a share

8:44

in the profits they intended to

8:47

make selling the beer to soldiers

8:49

in camp. Cody said,

8:51

this is one of the biggest

8:53

beer jollifications I ever had the

8:55

misfortune to attend. Cody

8:58

and Hittock and some of their scouts got

9:00

into a fight with some of the Mexican

9:02

and Mexican American scouts. The

9:05

commanding officer, General Eugene Carr, was

9:07

not happy that his soldiers were

9:09

drunk and his scouts were fighting.

9:12

He was also upset that the soldiers

9:14

were hungry and suffering from scurvy. So

9:17

he sent Bill Cody out on a

9:19

mission. There was certainly a need but

9:21

there also might have been a little

9:23

punishment in it. There also may be

9:25

an opportunity for redemption after the beer

9:28

jollification. If there was

9:30

in fact an element of challenge to

9:32

it, with the possibility of redemption, Bill

9:35

Cody passed with flying colour. When

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11:52

No car sent Bill out with 20

11:54

wagons to kill and butcher fresh meat.

11:56

4 days out from

11:58

the fort, buffer Bill found a herd

12:01

of bison. Over the next four

12:03

days, he killed nearly 20 animals.

12:05

His shoulder was so black and

12:07

blue from the butt of the rifle kicking

12:10

back with every shot that he had to

12:12

ask for help putting on his coat. The

12:15

troops were well fed, and despite

12:17

the incident with the beer and the fight between

12:19

the scouts, General Carr was

12:21

impressed with the services of Buffalo Bill

12:23

Cody. When the

12:25

campaign ended, the other scouts

12:28

were dismissed, but Bill was kept on.

12:30

He requested leave to go to St. Louis

12:33

to visit his wife and daughter for the

12:35

first time since his big fight with Louisa.

12:38

The couple reconciled, and Louisa was happy to

12:40

hear that her husband was earning a respectable

12:42

wage of $125 per month for his service

12:44

as a scout. It

12:48

was less money than he had made as a Buffalo

12:50

hunter, but it was a position

12:53

that commanded much more respect from her

12:55

family, her neighbors, and her social circle.

12:58

Bill also told her that the Fifth

13:00

Cavalry was being moved to Fort McPherson

13:03

near North Platte, Nebraska. He

13:05

invited Louisa and their daughter, Artha, to meet

13:07

him there, where they would try to rebuild

13:09

their family at a new home. In

13:16

May of 1869, Bill

13:19

and the Fifth Cavalry left their

13:21

former headquarters at Fort Lyon, Colorado,

13:23

and marched toward Fort McPherson, Nebraska.

13:26

The Fifth fought two skirmishes with Sue

13:29

and Cheyenne warriors before they reached their

13:31

new home, and Bill earned

13:33

high praise and a $100

13:35

bonus for his actions in both

13:37

engagements. And while Bill

13:39

and the Fifth were leaving southern Colorado

13:41

and skirmishing on their way to Fort

13:43

McPherson, tall Bull Cheyenne

13:46

dog soldiers were carrying out a

13:48

war against settlers in northern Kansas.

13:51

They were joined by several bands

13:53

of Sue and Arapaho warriors, and

13:56

they attacked crews working on the

13:58

Kansas Pacific Railroad, burned home instead

14:00

and killed several settlers. In

14:03

one of their raids, the dog soldiers abducted

14:05

two German women and the infant child of

14:07

one of the women. As

14:10

they fled, the dog soldiers killed the

14:12

baby and left it behind. General

14:15

Phil Sheridan knew the warriors had the two

14:17

white women and knew they were headed north.

14:20

He sent word to Fort McPherson and

14:23

ordered the fifth cavalry to pursue. Bill

14:26

Cody was chief of scouts and was joined

14:28

by brothers Frank and Luther North, who were

14:30

charged with commanding the 150 or so Pawnee

14:32

Scouts who

14:35

joined the 400 soldiers of the fifth

14:37

cavalry. The combined force

14:39

pursued the Cheyenne for several weeks but

14:42

grew exhausted as they endured a forced

14:44

march across the sand hills, where the

14:46

lack of grass and water slowed the

14:49

pursuit. On July 11th, 1869, Cody and

14:51

a few of the best

14:54

Pawnee Scouts were sent to track the

14:56

dog soldiers and soon brought word that

14:58

they had found the village. General

15:05

Carr divided his command into three

15:07

columns and gave orders that were

15:09

quickly becoming standard operating procedure for

15:12

attacks on Native American villages. One

15:15

column would go for the horses and drive

15:17

them away from the village so the warriors

15:19

couldn't get to their mouth. One

15:21

column would attack the camp directly and

15:24

the last column would circle around behind

15:26

the camp and cut off avenues of

15:28

escape. The wind howled

15:30

as the three columns raced toward Tall

15:33

Bowles Village. It masked

15:35

the sounds of the pounding horses and

15:37

the tall sand hills hid the soldiers from

15:39

view until they were just half a mile

15:42

from the camp. As

15:44

a result, the villagers had virtually no

15:46

warning that they were in danger. Several

15:49

prominent warriors with great names like

15:51

Black Sun, Lone Bear and Pile

15:54

of Bones took up defensive positions

15:56

but they were quickly overrun. with

16:00

members of his family and a group of

16:02

warriors, found cover in a ravine, but

16:05

they too were quickly overwhelmed by

16:07

the assault. Paul Bull

16:09

was killed during the attack and both

16:11

Buffalo Bill and Frank North claimed to

16:13

have been the killer. The

16:16

engagement was done in a matter of minutes and

16:18

it was a complete rout by the cavalry. According

16:22

to General Carr's report, 52

16:24

villagers were killed and 17 women

16:27

and children were captured along with 300 horses

16:29

and mules. As

16:32

a military engagement, it was a

16:35

cavalry success. Only one

16:37

trooper was injured and none were killed.

16:40

As a rescue mission, it was only

16:42

half successful. One of

16:44

the two German women was murdered by the

16:46

Cheyenne right before the battle began and

16:49

the other was shot but survived. The

16:52

fight would go down in history as the

16:54

Battle of Summit Springs and it

16:56

would be a story that Bill Cody loved to tell,

16:59

both in the immediate aftermath and in the

17:01

years to come. 14

17:04

years in the future, he would heavily

17:06

embellish the action and make it the

17:08

finale of his Wild West show. Despite

17:17

Cody's claims, no one knows for

17:19

sure who killed Chief Tall Bull.

17:22

The two most likely suspects are Frank

17:24

North and Buffalo Bill Cody, but

17:27

it's also possible that another soldier or

17:29

a Pawnee scout fired the fatal shot.

17:32

In Cody's version, of course, from the day

17:34

it happened through the run of his Wild

17:36

West show, he was the hero. When

17:40

the Fifth Cavalry returned to North Platte,

17:42

Cody told the tale to the man who would

17:44

soon be one of his closest friends. The

17:48

man was a former Confederate scout

17:50

and spy turned trail driving cowboy

17:53

called Texas Jack Omajundo. Texas

17:56

Jack was working as a saloon keeper in

17:58

a bar of a local ranch. named

18:00

Lou Baker and the joint

18:02

with Bill's favorite watering hole. Bill

18:05

and Jack were in the bar that August,

18:07

a few weeks after the Battle of Summit

18:09

Springs, when they struck up a

18:11

conversation with a visitor who would change their

18:14

lives forever. He

18:16

was a popular newspaper writer,

18:18

a traveling novelist, and a

18:20

sometime temperance speaker named Ned

18:22

Buntline. And he was

18:24

also a liar, a cheater, a

18:27

philanderer, and a rabble-rouser of the

18:29

highest order who had already helped

18:31

foment two deadly riots. Ned

18:38

Buntline, whose real name was Edward

18:40

Zane Carroll Judson, was one of

18:42

the most successful and widely read

18:44

writers of his day, second

18:46

in readership only to Mark Twain.

18:49

He was returning east from a temperance

18:52

lecture trip to California when he stopped

18:54

in North Platte. Buntline

18:56

had read the Harper's Monthly piece on

18:58

Wild Bill Hickok and was thinking about

19:01

writing a novel about the gunslinger. But

19:04

when Buntline had found Hickok drinking in

19:06

a bar, he rushed toward him shouting,

19:08

there's my man, I want you. Hickok

19:11

had drawn his revolver on the writer, before

19:13

letting him know that he wouldn't be granting

19:15

an interview. Shaken,

19:18

Buntline was now drinking in Lou

19:20

Baker's saloon, where he happened upon

19:22

Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack. Hickok

19:26

had refused to give the novelist a

19:28

story, but these two men seemed happy

19:30

to fill the writer's ear with tales

19:32

of cattle stampedes and Indian skirmishes, including

19:35

Bill's latest encounter with Tall Bull

19:37

and the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. The

19:41

next day, Buntline tagged along with Buffalo

19:44

Bill on a hunt. And

19:46

when Buntline left North Platte, Nebraska the

19:48

next week, he had already written and

19:51

shared his first short story about Buffalo

19:53

Bill by the time the train arrived

19:55

in Des Moines, Iowa. Within

19:57

six months, a longer serialized

20:00

Dime novel titled Buffalo Bill, King

20:02

of the Bordermen, was published in

20:04

the New York Weekly. The

20:07

increased exposure from newspaper accounts of

20:09

his involvement in the campaign against

20:12

the dog soldiers and Buntline's dramatic

20:14

stories meant more people sought

20:16

out Buffalo Bill as a hunting guide and

20:18

a scout. Just like

20:20

tourists arriving in Kansas had looked for

20:22

Wild Bill Hickok a few years earlier,

20:25

new arrivals in North Platte, Nebraska

20:27

began to seek out Buffalo Bill

20:29

Cody. The newfound

20:31

success also meant that his wife Louisa

20:33

and their daughter Arta were arriving in

20:36

a much better situation at their new

20:38

home in Nebraska than the one they

20:40

had left in Kansas. Within

20:42

a month or so, Bill's sisters

20:44

Helen and May joined Bill, Louisa

20:47

and their daughter and reunited the

20:49

family Bill had lost several years

20:51

earlier. Soon, Louisa

20:53

Cody was pregnant with a son. Bill

20:57

toyed with the idea of naming

20:59

the boy Elmo Judson Cody after

21:01

Ned Buntline, but eventually

21:03

settled on naming his son Kit

21:05

Carson Cody after the famous scout.

21:09

Because of the attention focused on him

21:11

by Ned Buntline's dime novels, reports

21:14

on Buffalo Bill's frequent encounters with

21:16

native warriors began to appear in

21:18

eastern newspapers like the New York

21:20

Times. Buffalo

21:22

Bill was almost always accompanied by his

21:25

friend Texas Jack on both his scouts

21:27

and hunting trips and everyone

21:29

seemed to want in on the action. They

21:32

chased Sioux horse thieves and led

21:34

hunting parties with General Phil Sheridan

21:37

as well as New York newspaper publishers. Bill

21:40

and Jack were the celebrities of the Frontier

21:42

Prairie and they were about to

21:44

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nine. Turn some conditions apply. In

24:02

the winter of 1872, train

24:04

schedules were cleared as a

24:06

special train full of top

24:08

military brass and foreign dignitaries

24:10

sped toward the Nebraska frontier.

24:13

Grand Duke Alexei Alexandranov, son

24:16

of Tsar Alexander II of

24:18

Russia, was on the train,

24:20

enjoying the opulence of his specially

24:23

designed Pullman sleeper car. In

24:26

America, to solidify diplomatic ties between

24:28

the two countries, the Grand

24:30

Duke was heading for Nebraska to hunt

24:32

buffalo. Commanding General

24:34

of the United States Army, William

24:37

Tecumseh Sherman, selected General

24:39

Sheridan to accompany the Duke on

24:41

the hunt, and Sheridan was joined

24:43

by General Edward Ord and Lieutenant

24:46

Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Buffalo

24:49

Bill and Texas Jack planned the hunt. They

24:52

coordinated with Sioux Chief Spotted Tail, who

24:54

had been by Red Cloud's side just

24:57

four years earlier as the two leaders

24:59

waged war against the U.S. Army in

25:01

Wyoming. Now, Red Cloud

25:03

and Spotted Tail lived on reservations,

25:05

or agencies as they were called

25:07

back then, in the northwest

25:10

corner of Nebraska, about 150

25:12

miles from Cody's home in North

25:14

Platte. When the

25:16

Grand Duke arrived at, quote, Camp Alexei,

25:18

headquarters for the hunt and named in

25:21

his honor, he was

25:23

pleased to see 265 Sioux

25:25

teepees stretching across the horizon.

25:32

Maybe because Bill had recently led

25:34

New York Herald publisher James Gordon

25:37

Bennett on a buffalo hunt, the

25:39

reporter from the Herald who was sent

25:41

to cover the Grand Duke's hunt painted

25:44

Buffalo Bill as the foremost scout on

25:46

the American frontier. Returners

25:49

could now read the real-life exploits of

25:51

Buffalo Bill Cody in their newspapers in

25:53

the morning, and then the fantastic stories

25:55

of the fictionalized version in Ned Buntline's

25:58

dime novel, The Grand Duke. that

26:00

night. Readers knew that some

26:02

of what they were reading was true and some

26:04

was fiction, but they never

26:06

quite knew where the line was between

26:08

reality and imposture. Under

26:11

the watchful eye of Buffalo Bill, Grand

26:14

Duke Alexei used his favorite rifle, a

26:16

.50 caliber Springfield he

26:18

dubbed Lucretia Borgia after the

26:20

famous play to take down

26:23

his first Buffalo. Newspaper coverage

26:25

secured Alexei's place as a bona

26:27

fide hunter, and Buffalo Bill's

26:29

place as a legend of the American

26:31

West. By the spring of 1872,

26:33

Buffalo Bill added a medal of

26:37

honor to his list of accolades. A

26:40

band of many Kanju Sioux

26:42

warriors raided McPherson Station, the telegraph

26:44

post nearest to Fort McPherson,

26:46

and escaped with a small

26:48

herd of government horses. The

26:51

army went in pursuit, with Buffalo Bill

26:53

and his partner Texas Jack as the

26:55

scout. The two scouts

26:57

tracked the raiders across the Nebraska prairie

27:00

until they discovered the camp. They

27:03

split the military force into two, with

27:05

Bill taking the smaller group to circle

27:07

around the Sioux and Texas Jack staying

27:09

back with the main force. Before

27:12

Bill could get his men into position, gunfire

27:15

erupted. Buffalo Bill was

27:17

aiming at one of the warriors with

27:20

his rifle when he felt a sudden

27:22

searing pain streak across his scalp. He

27:25

reached up and could feel blood pouring

27:27

from a wound. He jerked

27:29

his rifle in the direction the shot had come

27:31

from, and saw the man who had shot him.

27:34

The warrior was clutching his chest in

27:36

agony as he fell to the ground.

27:38

125 yards away, smoke rose from the barrel of Texas

27:43

Jack's rifle. Jack had

27:45

seen the warrior aiming for Cody, and

27:48

in a single motion, had raised and

27:50

fired his weapon. Texas

27:53

Jack's lightning-fast shot had knocked the

27:55

warrior off his mark at the

27:57

perfect moment, and the bullet that

27:59

was intended to to kill Buffalo Bill only

28:02

grazed his scalp. When

28:04

all was said and done, the horses

28:06

were recovered, most of the

28:08

warriors were captured, and Buffalo

28:10

Bill was awarded a Medal of Honor

28:12

for gallantry in action. And

28:15

then, inevitably, the storytelling took

28:18

over. News accounts

28:20

of the events and letters from Buffalo

28:22

Bill and Texas Jack to their friend

28:24

Ned Buntline were printed in dime novels.

28:28

They further blurred the line

28:30

between frontier fiction and factual

28:32

reality, and they set the

28:34

literal stage for what happened next. That

28:42

February, just after his hunt with

28:44

the Grand Duke, Buffalo Bill

28:46

found himself in New York City for the

28:48

first time. Far away

28:50

from the Nebraska frontier, Bill

28:52

was the guest of honor for some of the same

28:55

men he had guided on hunts. Men

28:57

like Professor Henry Ward, New

28:59

York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett,

29:02

and Ned Buntline. They

29:04

had asked Bill to come to the city before, but

29:07

he had protested that he would have to wait

29:09

until his wife could make him a suit of

29:11

clothes which were suitable for the Big Apple. In

29:14

New York, Bill was the center of attention.

29:17

Men, women, and children who had

29:19

read the combination of the action-packed

29:22

dime novels and equally action-packed newspaper

29:24

accounts of his adventures were anxious

29:26

to lay their eyes on Buffalo

29:28

Bill, chief of scouts and

29:31

king of the border men. Bill

29:33

enjoyed the attention for the most part, but

29:36

on his 26th birthday, Bill

29:38

Cody experienced one of the worst nights of

29:40

his life. Ned Buntline's

29:43

Buffalo Bill dime novel had been

29:45

adapted into a stage play. A

29:48

famous actor named JB Studley played

29:50

the part of Buffalo Bill on

29:52

Broadway, and the real Buffalo

29:55

Bill Cody was invited by Ned Buntline

29:57

to view the performance on its opening

29:59

night. The

30:05

play was a success, but

30:07

before the curtains closed, Studley called

30:09

the real Buffalo Bill to the

30:11

stage, where he was greeted by a

30:13

hail of applause from the audience and asked

30:15

to speak. Buffalo

30:17

Bill later wrote, I

30:20

found myself standing behind the footlights and in

30:22

front of an audience for the first time

30:24

in my life. I looked

30:26

up, then down, then on

30:28

each side, and everywhere I saw

30:30

a sea of human faces and

30:33

thousands of eyes all staring at me.

30:36

I confessed that I felt very much

30:38

embarrassed, never more so in my life,

30:40

and I knew not what to say. I

30:43

made a desperate effort and a few

30:45

words escaped me, but what

30:47

they were I could not for the life of me

30:49

tell, nor could anyone else in the

30:52

house. My utterances were inaudible,

30:54

even to the leader of the orchestra, who

30:56

was sitting only a few feet in front

30:58

of me. Bowing to

31:00

the audience, I beat a hasty retreat into

31:03

one of the canyons of the stage. I

31:06

never felt more relieved in my life than

31:08

when I got out of view of that

31:10

immense crowd. The

31:12

theater director offered Bill the enormous

31:14

sum of $500 a week

31:16

to portray himself on stage, but

31:19

the experience of standing in front of the

31:21

crowd was enough to convince Bill he couldn't

31:23

do it. He wrote later,

31:26

I told him that it would be useless for me

31:28

to attempt anything of the kind, for

31:30

I never could talk to a crowd of people like

31:32

that, even if it was to save my

31:34

neck and that he might as well

31:37

try to make an actor out of a government mule.

31:40

Bill quickly returned to Nebraska. Ned

31:43

Buntline sent letter after letter, begging

31:46

Bill to try his hand at acting,

31:48

and promising that it would make him

31:50

and his family rich beyond their wildest

31:52

dreams. Bill and

31:55

Louisa discussed the situation. She

31:57

agreed with Bill that he might not be qualified.

32:00

as an actor, but she was hesitant

32:02

to turn down the promise of untold

32:04

riches for what seemed like minimal effort.

32:08

Bill continued to debate the idea,

32:10

until, according to Louisa, Texas

32:12

Jack roamed down to the house, heard

32:15

that Will was seriously considering the

32:17

Bunt Line proposition, and immediately

32:20

decided that he would like to go on

32:22

stage himself. Will,

32:24

wavering, was strengthened. Buffalo

32:27

Bill didn't think he could make it as a stage

32:30

actor on his own, but with the

32:32

encouragement and involvement of his scouting partner,

32:34

Texas Jack, he was willing

32:36

to give it an honest effort. By

32:39

December of 1872, the pair were on a train bound

32:41

for Chicago, where

32:44

they would trade their lives as frontier

32:46

scouts for a chance for fame and

32:48

fortune as actors. Next

32:54

time on Legends of the Old West, Buffalo

32:57

Bill takes the plunge into acting with his friend

32:59

Texas Jack. They're not

33:01

the best actors, and the play won't

33:03

win awards, but audiences love all three.

33:06

Cody recruits Wild Bill for the

33:09

show, then suffers another tragedy, then

33:11

rejoins the army as a scout

33:13

after the Little Bighorn, and finds

33:15

himself in his most famous battle.

33:17

That's next week on Legends of the Old

33:20

West. Original

33:47

music by Rob Valier. I'm

33:49

your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If

33:52

you enjoyed the show, please leave us a

33:54

rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or

33:56

wherever you're listening. Check out

33:58

our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. for more

34:00

details and join us on social media.

34:03

We're at Old West Podcast

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34:08

and all of our episodes are available

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on YouTube. Just search for Legends of

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