"I know you will make a good
squire. You accompany Mr. Woodin and Mr. Snell to North Platte in my
private ambulance. They will go on your bond, and you will be appointed
a justice of the peace."
A number of officers from the Post went to North Platte for this
occasion. After I was duly sworn in, there was a celebration. I arrived
home at three o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Cody still being in
ignorance of my newly acquired honor. I was awakened by hearing her
arguing with a man at the door who was asking for the squire. She was
assuring him that no squire was on the premises.
"Doesn't Buffalo Bill live here?" asked the man.
"Yes," admitted Mrs. Cody, "but what has that got to do with it?"
By this time I had dressed, and I went to the door. I informed my wife,
to her amazement, that I was really a squire, and turned to the visitor
to learn his business.
He was a poor man, he said, on his way to Colorado. The night before a
large bunch of horses was being driven past his camp, and one of his
two animals was driven off with the herd. Mounting the other, he
followed and demanded the horse, but the boss of the herd refused to
give it up. He wanted a writ of replevin.
I asked Mrs. Cody if she could write a writ of replevin and she said
she had never heard of such a thing. I hadn't either.
I asked the man in, and Mrs. Cody got breakfast for us.
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