“No.  If it became known that revolvers were loaded with blank cartridges around here we would soon lose some of our most valued citizens.  Everybody in town, from the police judge to dishwashers, carries a pistol.”

“Why?”

“To keep law and order.”

That puzzled my wife.  She said that in St. Louis policemen kept law and order, and wanted to know why we didn’t have them to do it out here.  I informed her that a policeman would not last very long in a town like this, which was perfectly true.

On my return from a hunting trip a few days later I met a man who had come into town on the stage-coach, and whom Mrs. Cody had seen looking over the town site from every possible angle.  He told me he thought I had selected a good town site—­and I agreed with him.  He asked me to go for a ride around the surrounding country with him the next day.  I told him I was going on a buffalo hunt.  He had never killed a buffalo, he said.  He wanted to get a fine head to take back with him, and would be grateful if I would take him with me.  I promised to see that he got a nice head if he came along, and early the next morning rode down to his hotel.  He was dressed in a smart hunting costume and had his rifle.  We started for the plains, my wagons following to gather up the meat we should kill.

As we rode out I explained to him how I hunted.  “I kill as many buffalo as I want,” I said.  “This I call a ‘run.’  The wagons come along afterward and the butchers cut the meat and load it.”  When I went out on my “run” I told him where to shoot to kill.  But when my work was done I met him coming back crestfallen.  He had failed to get his buffalo down, although he had shot him three times.

“Come along with me,” I said.  “I see another herd over there.  I am going to change saddles with you and let you ride the best buffalo horse on the Plains.”

He was astonished and delighted to think I would let him ride Brigham, the most famous buffalo horse in the West.  When we drew near the herd I pointed out a fine four-year-old bull with a splendid head.  I galloped alongside.  Brigham spotted the buffalo I wanted, and after my companion’s third shot the brute fell.  My pupil was overjoyed with his success, and appeared to be so grateful to me that I felt sure I should be able to sell him three or four blocks of Rome real estate at least.  I invited him to take dinner, and served as part of the repast the meat of the buffalo he had shot.  The next morning he looked me up and told me he wanted to make a proposition to me.

“What is it?” I asked.  I had thought I was the one who was going to make a proposition.

“I will give you one-eighth of this town site,” he said.

The nerve of this proposal took me off my feet.  Here was a total stranger offering me one-eighth of my own town site as a reward for what I had done for him.

I told him that if he killed another buffalo I would have to hog-hobble him and send him out of town; then rode off and left him.