is.

Referees were appointed to follow each man and keep a tally of the
buffaloes slain. Comstock was mounted on his favorite horse, and carried
a Henry rifle of large caliber. Brigham and Lucretia went with Will. The
two hunters rode side by side until the first herd was sighted and the
word given, when off they dashed to the attack, separating to the right
and left. In this first trial Will killed thirty-eight and Comstock
twenty-three. They had ridden miles, and the carcasses of the dead
buffaloes were strung all over the prairie. Luncheon was served at noon,
and scarcely was it over when another herd was sighted, composed mainly
of cows with their calves. The damage to this herd was eighteen and
fourteen, in favor of Cody.

In those days the prairies were alive with buffaloes, and a third herd
put in an appearance before the rifle-barrels were cooled. In order to
give Brigham a share of the glory, Will pulled off saddle and bridle,
and advanced bareback to the slaughter.

That closed the contest. Score, sixty-nine to forty-eight. Comstock's
friends surrendered, and Cody was dubbed "Champion Buffalo Hunter of the
Plains."

The heads of the buffaloes that fell in this hunt were mounted by
the Kansas Pacific Company, and distributed about the country, as
advertisements of the region the new road was traversing. Meanwhile,
Will continued hunting for the Kansas Pacific contractors, and during
the year and a half that he supplied them with fresh meat he killed four
thousand two hundred and eighty buffaloes. But when the railroad reached
Sheridan it was decided to build no farther at that time, and Will was
obliged to look for other work.

The Indians had again become so troublesome that a general war
threatened all along the border, and General P. H. Sheridan came West
to personally direct operations. He took up his quarters at Fort
Leavenworth, but the Indian depredations becoming more widespread, he
transferred his quarters to Fort Hayes, then the terminus of the Kansas
Pacific Railroad. Will was then in the employ of the quartermaster's
department at Fort Larned, but was sent with an important dispatch to
General Sheridan announcing that the Indians near Larned were preparing
to decamp. The distance between Larned and Hayes was sixty-five miles,
through a section infested with Indians, but Will tackled it, and
reached the commanding General without mishap.

Shortly afterward it became necessary to send dispatche