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 dispatches from Fort Hayes