The tryouts continued for another three hours, until it began to get too dark. Because this was an impromptu arena, there were no lights, neither electric nor gas, that could provide enough illumination for it to continue.
Cody got up from the table, stepped out into the arena and, holding a megaphone in front of his mouth, made an announcement to the crowd and the participants.
“Ladies and gents, and all the cowboys who took part today, this ends the performance.”
The crowd applauded.
“I want to thank all of you for coming.” He turned the megaphone toward the group of cowboys who had participated in the auditions. “Now, if you cowboys will just wait around for a bit, we’ll be calling some of you up for interviews.”
Prentiss Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:
The bucking contest was held on the arena in front of a specially built grandstand at noon. It began just as the last stage rolled out of Cinnabar taking tourists to the park, but several tourists remained behind for the show and were part of a crowd of approximately five hundred spectators. Those who were present bore witness to one of the greatest exhibitions of bronco busting this writer has ever witnessed. In order to give the audition the greatest show of honesty, Buffalo Bill chose Falcon MacCallister and this writer as judges of the contest.
It was a magnificent exhibition of horses that had never been ridden trying to throw cowboys who had never been thrown. The horses leaped and spun, reared on first their back legs then their front legs, doing all in their power to get the objectionable weight off their backs. Oft times they were successful, and more than one cowboy suffered the ignominy of finding himself facedown in the dirt as the noble steed pranced around the ring in victory. But, just as often, the cowboys succeeded and it was the horse who found himself humiliated before the large crowd there gathered. Along in mid-afternoon a funny incident occurred. A young man, barely out of his teens, applied for permission to compete. Much younger than the other participants, he also stood out for his dress and appearance. He was wearing cowboy boots and spurs, but no chaps, sombrero or the customary vest. He asked to ride in the tryouts.
Stares, sneers and sniggers were openly directed in his direction but Buffalo Bill Cody said that the boy would be permitted to ride. Some of the cowboys, who were not themselves applicants, selected the wildest of all the horses from the remuda. A cowboy then held the wild horse while the young stranger removed his old and very worn saddle from his own horse, and transferred it to the wild horse that had been selected for him.
Those in the crowd, consisting mostly of tourists from the East, were totally unaware of what they were about to see. They had already seen wonderful exhibition of riding and roping, but they had no idea that this young man was about to mount the wildest horse of all. I could tell by the expression in the faces of some of the cowboys who did know, that they were now having second thoughts and some, I think, would have gone out to stop the rider and thus prevent any injury.
With an expression that was set and determined, the young man climbed aboard.
With that the fun was on. With his head to the ground and back arched like an angry cat’s, the wild cayuse bucked and pitched and sunfished; jumped straight up and came down twisting and then shook himself in an effort to get rid of the man on his back, but it was all for naught.
Unable to unseat his rider, the horse broke into a run down the road. The horse galloped at breakneck speed, going so far down the road that he disappeared.
“Now we have done it,” some of the cowboys said, and expressions of remorse circulated through the cowboys as they appeared truly remorseful over the trick they had pulled on the young rider.
Then a great cheer spread through the crowd as the young man was seen returning, this time riding on a horse that was trotting and well under control. As the young man returned to the arena, he leaped down from the horse on one side, then back on to the horse and leaped down from the other side, and then back on again, all to the appreciative roars of the crowd.
Finally he rode up to the stand where Falcon MacCallister, Buffalo Bill, and I were sitting. Swinging down from the horse he removed his hat and made a sweeping bow.
“Sirs, I present you with a fine horse, tamed and eager to serve his master, but not broken, sir. Never broken. His spirit is as great as it has ever been.”
“Young man,” Buffalo Bill said. “I do not even need a response from the judges, for I make the judgment myself that this is one of the finest rides I have ever seen.”
With that announcement, the cowboy who had practiced every spare moment for a year for the event, but who did not have enough money to purchase a cowboy outfit, got the job.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Look there. MacCallister is leaving,” Slayton said. “And he’s the son of a bitch I want the most.”
“Dewey, you, Slayton, and Taylor follow him. Keep an eye on him and find out where he’s going. When you find out, come back and tell us.”
“How about we just kill him?” Slayton asked.
“No, don’t do anything yet. We’re going to do this right, so we have to plan everything all out,” Ebersole replied.
“He’s going,” Taylor said.
“Come on,” Slayton said. “I don’t intend to let him get away.”
After the audition and judging, Buffalo Bill began interviewing several of the participants to see who wanted to join his Wild West Exhibition, and who in fact he wanted to recruit. Prentiss Ingraham was part of the interviewing process, but Falcon had no particular interest in it, so he decided to take a walk through the small town of Cinnabar. He, Buffalo Bill, and Prentiss Ingraham had made arrangements to stay at the Cinnabar Hotel, which was the only hotel in town. The Cinnabar Hotel was run by George Canfield, who was Sherman Canfield’s father, and he, like Sherman, was an old friend of Buffalo Bill’s.
Nearly every cowboy in Cinnabar, those who had performed well and those who had performed poorly in the tryouts, now seemed bent on getting as drunk as they could. Falcon had no more desire to get drunk than he did to
