Beadles Boys Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. | Page 2

the incident which I will now relate.
The circumstance to which I refer, and that made a boy hero of him in
the eyes of the neighbors for miles around where his parents lived,
showed the wonderful nerve that has never since deserted him, but
rather has increased with his years.
The country school which he attended was some five miles from his
father's house and he was wont to ride there each morning and back in
the afternoon upon a wiry, vicious little mustang that every one had
prognosticated would some day be the death of him.

Living a few miles from the Cody ranch was a poor settler who had a
son two years Billy's senior, who also attended the same school, but
whose parents were too poor to spare him a horse from the farm to ride.
This boy was Billy's chum, and as they shared together their noonday
meal, the pony was also shared, for the boy rode behind my hero to and
from school, being called for each morning and dropped off near his
cabin on the return trip.
Owing to the lawlessness of the country Mr. Cody allowed his son to
go armed, knowing that he fully understood the use of weapons, and his
pistol Billy always hung up with his hat upon reaching the log cabin,
where, figuratively speaking, the young idea was taught to shoot.
The weapon was a revolver, a Colt's, which at that time was not in
common use, and Billy prized it above his books and pony even and
always kept it in perfect order.
One day Rascal, his pony, pulled up the lariat pin which held him out
upon the prairie and scampered for home, and Billy and Davie Dunn,
his chum, were forced to "hoof it," as the western slang goes, home.
A storm was coming on, and to escape it the boys turned off the main
trail and took refuge in a log cabin which was said to be haunted by the
ghosts of its former occupants; at least they had been all mysteriously
murdered there one night and were buried in the shadow of the cabin,
and people gave the place a wide berth.
It was situated back in a piece of heavy timber and looked dismal
enough, but Billy proposed that they should go there, more out of sheer
bravado to show he was not afraid than to escape a ducking, for which
he and Davie Dunn really little cared.
The boys reached the cabin, climbed in an open window and stood
looking out at the approaching storm.
"Kansas crickets! but look there, Davie!"

The words came from Buffalo Billy and he was pointing out toward the
trail.
There four horsemen were seen coming toward the cabin at a rapid
gallop.
"Who be they, Billy?" asked Davie.
"They are some of them horse-thieves, Davie, that have been playing
the mischief of late about here, and we'd better dust."
"But they'll see us go out."
"That's so! Let us coon up into the loft, for they'll only wait till the
storm blows over, for they are coming here for shelter."
Up to the loft of the cabin, through a trapdoor, the boys went quickly
and laid quietly down, peering through the cracks in the boards. The
four horsemen dashed up, hastily unsaddled their horses and lariated
them out, and bounded into the cabin through the window, just as the
storm broke with fury upon forest and plain.
As still as mice the boys lay, but they quickly looked toward each other,
for the conversation of the men below, one of whom was kindling a fire
in the broad chimney, told them that, if discovered, their lives would be
the forfeit.
In fact, they were four of a band of outlaws that had been infesting the
country of late, stealing horses, and in some cases taking life and
robbing the cabins of the settlers, and one of them said plainly:
"Pards, when I was last in this old ranch it was six years ago, when we
came to rob Foster Beal who lived here; he showed fight, shot two of
the boys, and we wiped the whole family out; but now let us get away
with what grub we've got, and then plan what is best to do to-night. As
for myself, I say strike old Cody's ranch, for he's got dust."
The boys were greatly alarmed at this, but, putting his mouth close to

Davie Dunn's ear, Billy Cody whispered:
"Davie, you see that shutter in the end of the roof?"
"Yes, Billy," was the trembling reply.
"Well, you slip out of there, drop to the ground and make for your
home and tell your father who is here."
"And you, Billy?"
"I'll just keep here, and if