Last of the Great Scouts

H >> Helen Cody Wetmore >> Last of the Great Scouts


One golden September day Eliza and I set out after wild flowers,
accompanied by Turk and mother's caution not to stray too far, as wild
beasts, 'twas said, lurked in the neighboring forest; but the prettiest
flowers were always just beyond, and we wandered afield until we reached
a fringe of timber half a mile from the house, where we tarried under
the trees. Meantime mother grew alarmed, and Will was dispatched after
the absent tots.

Turk, as we recalled, had sought to put a check upon our wanderings, and
when we entered the woods his restlessness increased. Suddenly he began
to paw up the carpet of dry leaves, and a few moments later the shrill
scream of a panther echoed through the forest aisles.

Eliza was barely six years old, and I was not yet four. We clung to
each other in voiceless terror. Then from afar came a familiar
whistle--Will's call to his dog. That heartened us, babes as we were,
for was not our brother our reliance in every emergency? Rescue was
at hand; but Turk continued tearing up the leaves, after signaling his
master with a loud bark. Then, pulling at our dresses, he indicated the
refuge he had dug for us. Here we lay down, and the dog covered us with
the leaves, dragging to the heap, as a further screen, a large dead
branch. Then, with the heart of a lion, he put himself on guard.

From our leafy covert we could see the panther's tawny form come gliding
through the brush. He saw Turk, and crouched for a spring. This came as
an arrow, but Turk dodged it; and then, with a scream such as I never
heard from dog before or since, our defender hurled himself upon the
foe.

Turk was powerful, and his courage was flawless, but he was no match for
the panther. In a few moments the faithful dog lay stunned and bleeding
from one stroke of the forest-rover's steel-shod paw. The cruel beast
had scented other prey, and dismissing Turk, he paced to and fro,
seeking to locate us. We scarcely dared to breathe, and every throb of
our frightened little hearts was a prayer that Will would come to us in
time.

At last the panther's roving eyes rested upon our inadequate
hiding-place, and as he crouched for the deadly leap we hid our faces.

But Turk had arisen. Wounded as he was, he yet made one last heroic
effort to save us by again directing the panther's attention to himself.

The helpless, hopeless ordeal of agony was broken by a rifle's sharp
report. The panther fell, shot through the heart, and out from the
screen of leaves rushed two hysterical little girls, with pallid faces
drowned in tears, who clung about a brother's neck and were shielded in
his arms.

Will, himself but a child, caressed and soothed us in a most paternal
fashion; and when the stone of sobs was passed we turned to Turk.
Happily his injuries were not fatal, and he whined feebly when his
master reached him.

"Bravo! Good dog!" cried Will. "You saved them, Turk! You saved them!"
And kneeling beside our faithful friend, he put his arms about the
shaggy neck.

Dear old Turk! If there be a land beyond the sky for such as thou, may
the snuggest corner and best of bones be thy reward!



CHAPTER III. -- THE SHADOW OF PARTISAN STRIFE.

OWING to the conditions, already spoken of, under which Kansas was
settled, all classes were represented in its population. Honest,
thrifty farmers and well-to-do traders leavened a lump of shiftless
ne'er-do-wells, lawless adventurers, and vagabonds of all sorts and
conditions. If father at times questioned the wisdom of coming to this
new and untried land, he kept his own counsel, and set a brave face
against the future.

He had been prominent in political circles in Iowa, and had filled
positions of public trust; but he had no wish to become involved in the
partisan strife that raged in Kansas. He was a Free Soil man, and there
were but two others in that section who did not believe in slavery. For
a year he kept his political views to himself; but it became rumored
about that he was an able public speaker, and the pro-slavery men
naturally ascribed to him the same opinions as those held by his brother
Elijah, a pronounced pro-slavery man; so they regarded father as a
promising leader in their cause. He had avoided the issue, and had
skillfully contrived to escape declaring for one side or the other, but
on the scroll of his destiny it was written that he should be one of the
first victims offered on the sacrificial altar of the struggle for human
liberty.

The post-trader's was a popular rendezvous for all the settlers round.
It was a day in the summer of '55 that father visited the store,
accompanied, as usual, by Will and Turk. Among the crowd, which was
noisy and excited, he noted a number of desperadoes in the pro-slavery
faction, and noted, too, that Uncle Elijah and our two Free Soil
neighbors, Mr. Hathaway and Mr. Lawrence, were present.

Father's appearance was greeted by a clamor for a speech. To speak
before that audience was to take his life in his hands; yet in spite of
his excuses he was forced to the chair.

It was written! There was no escape! Father walked steadily to the
dry-goods box which served as a rostrum. As he passed Mr. Hathaway,
the good old man plucked him by the sleeve and begged him to serve out
platitudes to the crowd, and to screen his real sentiments.

But father was not a man that dealt in platitudes.

"Friends," said he, quietly, as he faced his audience and drew himself
to his full height,--"friends, you are mistaken in your man. I am sorry
to disappoint you. I have no wish to quarrel with you. But you
have forced me to speak, and I can do no less than declare my real
convictions. I am, and always have been, opposed to slavery. It is
an institution that not only degrades the slave, but brutalizes
the slave-holder, and I pledge you my word that I shall use my best
endeavors--yes, that I shall lay down my life, if need be--to keep this
curse from finding lodgment upon Kansas soil. It is enough that the
fairest portions of our land are already infected with this blight.
May it spread no farther. All my energy and my ability shall swell the
effort to bring in Kansas as a Free Soil state."

Up to this point the crowd had been so dumfounded by his temerity that
they kept an astonished silence. Now the storm broke. The rumble of
angry voices swelled into a roar of fury. An angry mob surrounded the
speaker. Several desperadoes leaped forward with deadly intent, and one,
Charles Dunn by name, drove his knife to the hilt into the body of the
brave man who dared thus openly to avow his principles.

As father fell, Will sprang to him, and turning to the murderous
assailant, cried out in boyhood's fury:

"You have killed my father! When I'm a man I'll kill you!"

The crowd slunk away, believing father dead. The deed appalled them;
they were not yet hardened to the lawlessness that was so soon to put
the state to blush.

Mr. Hathaway and Will then carried father to a hiding-place in the long
grass by the wayside. The crowd dispersed so slowly that dusk came on
before the coast was clear. At length, supported by Will, father dragged
his way homeward, marking his tortured progress with a trail of blood.

This path was afterward referred to in the early history of Kansas as
"The Cody Bloody Trail."

It was such wild scenes as these that left their impress on the youth
and fashioned the Cody of later years--cool in emergency, fertile in
resource, swift in decision, dashing and intrepid when the time for
action came.

Our troubles were but begun. Father's convalescence was long and
tedious; he never recovered fully. His enemies believed him dead, and
for a while we kept the secret guarded; but as soon as he was able to be
about persecution began.

About a month after the tragedy at Rively's, Will ran in one evening
with the warning that a band of horsemen were approaching. Suspecting
trouble, mother put some of her own clothes about father, gave him a
pail, and bade him hide in the cornfield. He walked boldly from the
house, and sheltered by the gathering dusk, succeeded in passing the
horsemen unchallenged. The latter rode up to the house and dismounted.

"Where's Cody?" asked the leader. He was informed that father was not at
home.

"Lucky for him!" was the frankly brutal rejoinder. "We'll make sure work
of the killing next time."

Disappointed in their main intention, the marauders revenged themselves
in their own peculiar way by looting the house of every article that
took their fancy; then they sat down with the announced purpose of
waiting the return of their prospective victim.

Fearing the effect of the night air upon father, though it was yet
summer, mother made a sign to Will, who slipped from the room, and
guided by Turk, carried blankets to the cornfield, returning before his
absence had been remarked. The ruffians soon tired of waiting, and rode
away, after warning mother of the brave deed they purposed to perform.
Father came in for the night, returning to his covert with the dawn.

In expectation of some such raid, we had secreted a good stock of
provisions; but as soon as the day was up Will was dispatched to
Rively's store to reconnoiter, under pretext of buying groceries.
Keeping eyes and ears open, he learned that father's enemies were on the
watch for him; so the cornfield must remain his screen. After several
days, the exposure and anxiety told on his strength. He decided to leave
home and go to Fort Leavenworth, four miles distant. When night fell
he returned to the house, packed a few needed articles, and bade us
farewell. Will urged that he ride Prince, but he regarded his journey
as safer afoot. It was a sad parting. None of us knew whether we should
ever again see our father.

"I hope," he said to mother, "that these clouds will soon pass away,
and that we may have a happy home once more." Then, placing his hands on
Will's head, "You will have to be the man of the house until my return,"
he said. "But I know I can trust my boy to watch over his mother and
sisters."

With such responsibilities placed upon his shoulders, such confidence
reposed in him, small wonder that Will should grow a man in thought and
feeling before he grew to be one in years.

Father reached Fort Leavenworth in safety, but the quarrel between the
pro-slavery party and the Free Soilers waxed more bitter, and he decided
that security lay farther on; so he took passage on an up-river boat to
Doniphan, twenty miles distant. This was then a mere landing-place, but
he found a small band of men in camp cooking supper. They were part of
Colonel Jim Lane's command, some three hundred strong, on their way West
from Indiana.

Colonel Lane was an interesting character. He had been a friend to
Elijah Lovejoy, who was killed, in 1836, for maintaining an anti-slavery
newspaper in Illinois. The Kansas contest speedily developed the
fact that the actual settlers sent from the North by the emigrant-aid
societies would enable the Free State party to outnumber the ruffians
sent in by the Southerners; and when the pro-slavery men were driven to
substituting bullets for ballots, Colonel Lane recruited a band of hardy
men to protect the anti-slavery settlers, and incidentally to avenge the
murder of Lovejoy.

The meeting of father and Lane's men was a meeting of friends, and he
chose to cast his lot with theirs. Shortly afterward he took part
in "The Battle of Hickory Point," in which the pro-slavery men were
defeated with heavy loss; and thenceforward the name of Jim Lane was a
terror to the lawless and a wall of protection to our family.

The storm and stress of battle had drawn heavily on what little strength
was left to father, and relying for safety upon the proximity of Colonel
Lane and his men, he returned to us secretly by night, and was at once
prostrated on a bed of sickness.

This proved a serious strain upon our delicate mother, for during
father's absence a little brother had been added to our home, and not
only had she, in addition to the care of Baby Charlie, the nursing of
a sick man, but she was constantly harassed by apprehensions for his
safety as well.



CHAPTER IV. -- PERSECUTION CONTINUES.

MOTHER'S fears were well grounded. A few days after father had returned
home, a man named Sharpe, who disgraced the small office of justice of
the peace, rode up to our house, very much the worse for liquor, and
informed mother that his errand was to "search the house for that
abolition husband of yours." The intoxicated ruffian then demanded
something to eat. While mother, with a show of hospitality, was
preparing supper for him, the amiable Mr. Sharpe killed time in
sharpening his bowie-knife on the sole of his shoe.

"That," said he to Will, who stood watching him, "that's to cut the
heart out of that Free State father of yours!" And he tested the edge
with brutally suggestive care.

Will's comment was to take down his rifle and place himself on the
staircase leading up to father's room. There was trouble in that quarter
for Mr. Sharpe, if he attempted to ascend those stairs.

But the justice, as mother surmised, had no notion that father was at
home, else he would not have come alone. He ate heartily of the supper,
which Will hoped would choke him, and passing from drowsiness to drunken
slumber, soon tumbled from his chair. This so confused him that he
forgot his pretended errand, and shambled out of the house. He was
not so drunk that he could not tell a good bit of horseflesh, and he
straightway took a fancy to Prince, the pet pony of the family. An
unwritten plank in the platform of the pro-slavery men was that the Free
Soil party had no rights they were bound to respect, and Sharpe remarked
to Will, with a malicious grin:

"That's a nice pony of yours, sonny. Guess I'll take him along with me."
And he proceeded to exchange the saddle from the back of his own horse
to that of Prince.

"You old coward!" muttered Will, bursting with wrath. "I'll get even
with you some day."

The justice was a tall, burly fellow, and he cut so ridiculous a figure
as he rode away on Prince's back, his heels almost touching the ground,
that Will laughed outright as he thought of a plan to save his pony.

A shrill whistle brought Turk to the scene, and receiving his cue, the
dog proceeded to give Sharpe a very bad five minutes. He would nip at
one of the dangling legs, spring back out of reach of the whip with a
triumphant bark, then repeat the performance with the other leg. This
little comedy had a delighted spectator in Will, who had followed at a
safe distance. Just as Sharpe made one extra effort to reach Turk, the
boy whistled a signal to Prince, who responded with a bound that dumped
his rider in the dust. Here Turk stood over him and showed his teeth.

"Call off your dog, bub!" the justice shouted to Will, "and you may keep
your little sheep, for he's no good, anyway."

"That's a bargain!" cried Will, restored to good humor; and helping the
vanquished foe upon his own steed, he assured him that he need not fear
Turk so long as he kept his word. Sharpe departed, but we were far from
being rid of him.

About a fortnight later we were enjoying an evening with father, who was
now able to come downstairs. He was seated in a big arm-chair before the
open fire, with his family gathered round him, by his side our frail,
beautiful mother, with Baby Charlie on her knee, Martha and Julia, with
their sewing, and Will, back of mother's chair, tenderly smoothing the
hair from her brow, while he related spiritedly some new escapade of
Turk. Suddenly he checked his narrative, listened for a space, and
announced:

"There are some men riding on the road toward the house. We'd better be
ready for trouble."

Mother, equal to every emergency, hurriedly disposed her slender forces
for defense. Martha and Julia were directed to help father to bed; that
done, to repair to the unfurnished front room above stairs; Will was
instructed to call the hired man and Jane, who was almost as large and
quite as strong as the average man; and the three were armed and given
their cue. They were all handy with their weapons, but mother sought to
win by strategy, if possible. She bade the older girls don heavy boots,
and gave them further instructions. By this time the horsemen had
reached the gate. Their leader was the redoubtable Justice Sharpe. He
rode up to the door, and rapped with the but of his riding-whip. Mother
threw up the window overhead.

"Who's there? and what do you want?" she demanded.

"We want that old abolition husband of yours, and, dead or alive, we
mean to have him!"

"All right, Mr. Sharpe," was the steady answer. "I'll ask Colonel Lane
and his men to wait on you."

The hired man, who had served in the Mexican War, here gave a sharp word
of command, which was responded to by trampling of heavy boots upon the
bare floor. Then, calling a halt, the pretended Colonel Lane advanced to
the window, and shouted to the horsemen:

"Set foot inside that gate and my men will fire on you!"

Sharpe, an arrant coward, had retreated at the first sound of a man's
voice, and after a short parley with his nonplused companions, he led
them away--outwitted by a woman.

As a sort of consolation prize, Sharpe again made off with Prince; but
Will's sorrow in the morning was short-lived, for the sagacious little
creature slipped his halter and came flying home before the forenoon was
half spent.

After this experience, father decided that, for our sakes as well as for
his own, he must again leave home, and as soon as he recovered a measure
of his strength he went to Grasshopper Falls, thirty-five miles west
of Leavenworth. Here he erected a sawmill, and hoped that he had put
so many miles between him and his enemies that he might be allowed to
pursue a peaceful occupation. He made us occasional visits, so timing
his journey that he reached home after nightfall, and left again before
the sun was up.

One day when we were looking forward to one of these visits, our good
friend Mr. Hathaway made his appearance about eleven o'clock.

"It is too bad to be the bearer of ill tidings," said he, "but the news
of your husband's expected visit has been noised about in some way, and
another plot to kill him is afoot. Some of his enemies are camped at Big
Stranger's Creek, and intend to shoot him as he passes there."

Then followed a long and anxious consultation, which ended without any
plan of rescue.

All of which had been overheard by Will, who was confined to his bed
with an attack of ague. In him, he decided, lay the only hope for
father's safety; so, dressing, he presented his fever-flushed face to
mother. As he held out a handkerchief, "Tie it tight around my head,
mother," said he; "then it won't ache so hard."

A remonstrance against his getting out of bed brought out the fact that
he contemplated riding to Grasshopper Falls!

He was almost too weak to stand, a storm threatened, and thirty miles
lay between him and father; yet he was not to be dissuaded from
his undertaking. So Julia and Martha saddled Prince and helped the
ague-racked courier to his saddle.

The plunge into the open air and the excitement of the start encouraged
Will to believe that he could hold out. As he settled down to his long,
hard ride he reflected that it was not yet noon, and that father
would not set out until late in the day. Prince seemed to discern that
something extraordinary was afoot, and swung along at a swift, steady
gait.

Big Stranger's Creek cut the road half-way to the Falls, and Will
approached it before the afternoon was half gone. The lowering sky
darkened the highway, and he hoped to pass the ambush unrecognized; but
as he came up to the stream he made out a camp and campers, one of whom
called out carelessly to him as he passed:

"Are you all right on the goose?"--the cant phrase of the pro-slavery
men.

"Never rode a goose in my life, gentlemen," was the reply.

"That's Cody's boy!" shouted another voice; and the word "Halt!" rang
out just as Will had galloped safely past the camp.

Will's answer was to drive the spurs into Prince and dart ahead,
followed by a rain of bullets. He was now well out of range, and the
pony still strong and fleet.

The chase was on, and in the thrill of it Will forgot his weakness. A
new strength came with the rush of air and the ring of hoofs, and "I'll
reach the Falls in time!" was his heartening thought, as pursurer and
pursued sped through the forests, clattered over bridges, and galloped
up hill and down.

Then broke the long-impending storm, and the hard road became the bed
of a muddy stream. The pursuit was abandoned, and this stimulus removed,
Will felt the chills and weakness coming on again. He was drenched to
the skin, and it was an effort to keep his saddle, but he set his teeth
firmly in his resolve to accomplish his heroic purpose.

At last! A welcome light gleamed between the crystal bars of the rain.
His mission was accomplished.

His ride had been longer by ten miles than that famous gallop of the
friend of his after years--Phil Sheridan. Like Sheridan, he reached the
goal in time, for father was just mounting his horse.

But the ride proved too much for his strength, and Will collapsed.
Father started with him, a few days later, for Topeka, which was
headquarters for the Free State party.

Father acquainted mother of their safety, and explained that he had gone
to Topeka because he feared his life was no longer safe at Grasshopper
Falls.

Party strife in Kansas was now at its height. Thousands came into the
territory from adjacent slave states simply to vote, and the pro-slavery
party elected a legislature, whose first meeting was held at Le Compton.
This election the Free Soilers declared illegal, because of fraudulent
voting, and assembling at Topeka in the winter of 1855-56, they framed
a constitution excluding slavery, and organized a rival government. Of
this first Free-Soil Legislature father was a member.

Thenceforth war was the order of the day, and in the fall of 1856 a
military governor was appointed, with full authority to maintain law and
order in Kansas.

Recognizing the good work effected by the emigrant-aid societies, and
realizing that in a still larger Northern emigration to Kansas lay the
only hope of its admission as a free state, father went to Ohio in the
following spring, to labor for the salvation of the territory he had
chosen for his home. Here his natural gift of oratory had free play, and
as the result of his work on the stump he brought back to Kansas sixty
families, the most of whom settled in the vicinity of Grasshopper Falls,
now Valley Falls.

This meant busy times for us, for with that magnificent disregard for
practical matters that characterizes many men of otherwise great gifts,
father had invited each separate family to make headquarters at his
home until other arrangements could be perfected. As a result, our house
overflowed, while the land about us was dotted with tents; but these
melted away, as one by one the families selected claims and put up
cabins.

Among the other settlers was Judge Delahay, who, with his family,
located at Leavenworth, and began the publishing of the first abolition
newspaper in Kansas. The appointing of the military governor was the
means of restoring comparative tranquillity; but hundreds of outrages
were committed, and the judge and his newspaper came in for a share of
suffering. The printing-office was broken into, and the type and press
thrown into the Missouri River. Undaunted, the judge procured a new
press, and the paper continued.

A semi-quiet now reigned in the territory; father resumed work at the
sawmill, and we looked forward to a peaceful home and the joy of being
once more permanently united. But it was not to be. The knife wound had
injured father's lung. With care and nursing it might have healed, but
constant suffering attended on the life that persecution had led him,
and in the spring of '57 he again came home, and took to his bed for the
last time.

All that could be was done, but nothing availed. After a very short
illness he passed away--one of the first martyrs in the cause of freedom
in Kansas.

The land of his adoption became his last, long resting-place. His
remains now lie on Pilot Knob, which overlooks the beautiful city of
Leavenworth. His death was regretted even by his enemies, who could not
help but grant a tribute of respect to a man who had been upright, just,
and generous to friend and foe.



CHAPTER V. -- THE "BOY EXTRA."

AT this sorrowful period mother was herself almost at death's door with
consumption, but far from sinking under the blow, she faced the new
conditions with a steadfast calm, realizing that should she, too, be
taken, her children would be left without a protector, and at the mercy
of the enemies whose malignity had brought their father to an untimely
end. Her indomitable will opposed her bodily weakness. "I will not die,"
she told herself, "until the welfare of my children is assured." She was
needed, for our persecution continued.