dressing-room between acts I sat nervously on a chair while the splendid
Apollo of frontiersmen, in buckskin and beads, sat on his trunk, with
his long, shapely legs sprawled gracefully out, his head thrown back so
that the mane of brown hair should hang behind. It was glistening with
oil and redolent of barber's perfume. And we talked there as one man
to another, each apparently without fear. I was certainly nervous and
timid, but he did not notice it, and I am frank to say he did not appear
to feel the slightest personal fear of me. Thus, face to face, I saw the
man with whom I had trod Ned Buntline's boundless plains and had seen
and encountered a thousand perils and redskins. When the act call came,
and I rose to go, a man stopped at the door and said to him:

"What shall it be to-night, Colonel?"

"A big beef-steak and a bottle of Bass!" answered Buffalo Bill heartily,
"and tell 'ern to have it hot and ready at 11:15."

The beef-steak and Bass' ale were the watchwords of true heroism. The
real hero requires substantial filling. He must have a head and a
heart--but no less a good, healthy and impatient stomach.

In the daily paper the morning I write this I see the announcement of
Buffalo Bill's "Wild West Show" coming two week's hence. Good luck to
him! He can't charge prices too steep for me, and there are six seats
necessary--the best in the amphitheater. And I wish I could be sure the
vigorous spirit of Ned Buntline would be looking down from the blue sky
overhead to see his hero charge the hill of San Juan at the head of the
Rough Riders.

* * * * *