Excitement was plentiful during my two years' service as a Pony Express rider.
Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.
But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.
But the love of adventure was in father's blood.
I had many enemies among the Sioux; I would be running considerable risk in meeting them.
The greatest of all the Sioux in my time, or in any time for that matter, was that wonderful old fighting man, Sitting Bull, whose life will some day be written by a historian who can really give him his due.
Stations were built at intervals averaging fifteen miles apart. A rider's route covered three stations, with an exchange of horses at each, so that he was expected at the beginning to cover close to forty-five miles - a good ride when one must average fifteen miles an hour.
The audience, upon learning that the real Buffalo Bill was present, gave several cheers between the acts.
The cholera had broken out at the post, and five or six men were dying daily.
The Confederates had suspected Wild Bill of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him closely.
The first presentation of my show was given in May, 1883, at Omaha, which I had then chosen as my home. From there we made our first summer tour, visiting practically every important city in the country.
It was my effort, in depicting the West, to depict it as it was.
The Free State men, myself among them, took it for granted that Missouri was a slave state.
My great forte in killing buffaloes was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the herd and shooting their leaders. Thus the brutes behind were crowded to the left, so that they were soon going round and round.
The Indians kept increasing in numbers until it was estimated that we were fighting from 800 to 1,000 of them.