Pecks Bad Boy with the Cowboys | Page 2

never saw such a change in a man as there has been in pa, since
the circus managers gave him a commission to go out west and hire an
entire outfit for a wild west show, regardless of cost, to be a part of our
show next year. He acts like he was a duke, searching for a rich wife.
No country politician that never had been out of his own county,
appointed minister to England, could put on more style than Pa does.
The first day after the show left us at St. Louis we felt pretty bum,
'cause we missed the smell of the canvas, and the sawdust, and the
animals, and the indescribable odor that goes with a circus. We missed
the performers, the band, the surging crowds around the ticket wagon,
and the cheers from the seats. It almost seemed as though there had
been a funeral in the family, and we were sitting around in the cold
parlor waiting for the lawyers to read the will. But in a couple of days
Pa got busy, and he hired a young Indian who was a graduate of
Carlisle, as an interpreter, and a reformed cowboy, to go with us to the
cattle ranges, and an old big game hunter who was to accompany us to

the places where we could find buffalo and grizzly bears. Pa chartered a
car to take us west, and after the Indian and the cowboy and the hunter
got sobered up, on the train, and got the St. Louis ptomaine poison out
of their systems, and we were going through Kansas, Pa got us all into
the smoking compartment.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I want you to know that this expedition is
backed by the wealth of the circus world, and that there is nothing
cheap about it. We are to hire, regardless of expense, the best riders, the
best cattle ropers, and the best everything that goes with a wild west
show. We all know that Buffalo Bill must soon, in the nature of things,
pass away as a feature for shows, and I have been selected to take the
place of Bill in the circus world, when he cashes in. You may have
noticed that I have been letting my hair and mustache and chin
whiskers grow the last few months, so that next year I will be a dead
ringer for Bill. All I want is some experience as a hero of the plains, as
a scout, a hunter, a scalper of Indians, a rider of wild horses, and a few
things like that, and next year you will see me ride a white horse up in
front of the press seats in our show, take off my broad- brimmed hat,
and wave it at the crowned heads in the boxes, give the spurs to my
horse, and ride away like a cavalier, and the show will go on, to the
music of hand-clapping from the assembled thousands, see?"
The cowboy looked at pa's stomach, and said: "Well, Mr. Man, if you
are going to blow yourself for a second Buffalo Bill, I am with you, at
the salary agreed upon, till the cows come home, but you have got to
show me that you have got no yellow streak, when it comes to cutting
out steers that are wild and carry long horns, and you've got to rope 'em,
and tie 'em all alone, and hold up your hands for judgment, in ten
seconds."
Pa said he could learn to do it in a week, but the cowman said: "Not on
your life." The hunter said he would be ready to call pa B. Bill when he
could stand up straight, with the paws of a full- grown grizzly on each
of his shoulders, and its face in front of pa's, if Pa had the nerve to pull
a knife and disembowel the bear, and skin him without help. Pa said
that would be right into his hand, 'cause he use to work in a slaughter
house when he was a boy, and he had waded in gore.
The Indian said he would be ready to salute Pa as Buffalo Bill the
Second, when Pa had an Indian's left hand tangled in his hair, and a

knife in his right hand ready to scalp him, if Pa would look the Indian
in the eye and hypnotize the red man so he would drop the hair and the
knife, turn his back on pa, and invite him to his wigwam as a guest. Pa
said all he asked was a chance to look into the very soul of the worst
Indian that ever stole a horse, and he would make Mr. Indian penuk,
and beg for mercy.
And we all agreed