olver, but he felt against his
head the cold muzzle of a weapon, and heard the stern tones:

"Bent, I guess I'll save Buffalo Bill from killing you, by hanging you
to the nearest tree."

The speaker was Wild Bill, who had stood behind the chair of the
desperado.

All knew him, and that he was an officer of the law, and would keep his
word.

Buffalo Bill said nothing, and the crime-stained wretch was dragged out
of the saloon, a rope put around his neck, and he was hanged for his
many red deeds, thereby escaping death at the hands of the scout.

CHAPTER XXIX.

BILL'S STORY OF HIS BECOMING AN ACTOR.

As Buffalo Bill in the past few years has become known as an actor, and
appears as such with his Dramatic Combination, during the winter months,
when he is not on the plains, it will not be by any means uninteresting
to my readers to learn how he came to go upon the stage, and the story I
give in his own words, in relating his experience to a reporter who had
called upon him for some jottings regarding his life.

He said:

"It was in the fall of '71, that General Sheridan came to the plains
with a party of gentlemen for the purpose of engaging in a buffalo-hunt,
to extend from Fort McPherson, Nebraska, to Fort Hayes, Kansas, on the
Kansas Pacific Railroad, a distance of 228 miles, through the finest
hunting country in the world. In the party were James Gordon Bennett of
the New York _Herald_, Lawrence and Leonard Jerome, Carl Livingstone,
S.G. Heckshire, General Fitzhugh of Pittsburg, General Anson Stager of
the Western Union Telegraph Company, and other noted gentlemen. I guided
the party, and when the hunt was finished, I received an invitation from
them to go to New York and make them a visit, as they wanted to show me
the East, as I had shown them the West. I was then Chief of Scouts in
the Department of the Platte. And in January, 1872, just after the Grand
Duke Alexis's hunt, which, by the way, I organized, I got a leave of
absence, and for the first time in my life found myself east of the
Mississippi river.

"Stopping at Chicago two days, where I was the guest of General
Sheridan, I proceeded to New York, where I was shown the 'elephant.'
During my visit I attended the performance at the Bowery Theater, in
company with Colonel E.Z.C. Judson (Ned Buntline), and witnessed a
dramatization of Judson's story, entitled 'Buffalo Bill, King of Border
Men.' The part of 'Buffalo Bill' was impersonated by J.