August 20, 2025 • 27 mins
11 - Chapter 11. Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney Ryley Cooper.
Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswomen who ever lived. She was christened Phoebe Ann Mosey but was called Annie from childhood. Oakley was the stage name that she assumed when she first started to perform with Frank Butler. From obscure and impoverished beginnings, she made herself into the best known woman of her time, propelled by an indomitable spirit and an uncanny shooting ability. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting — a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life and her years as an actress and teacher. Yet with all her many successes she preserved her warmth, dedication and integrity. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West.
Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswomen who ever lived. She was christened Phoebe Ann Mosey but was called Annie from childhood. Oakley was the stage name that she assumed when she first started to perform with Frank Butler. From obscure and impoverished beginnings, she made herself into the best known woman of her time, propelled by an indomitable spirit and an uncanny shooting ability. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting — a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life and her years as an actress and teacher. Yet with all her many successes she preserved her warmth, dedication and integrity. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eleven of Annie Oakley Women at Arms by Courtney
Riley Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Barry Eads, Chapter eleven. When at last the
years had gone and Wilhelm Hohenzhalorn had brought war to
the world, Annie Oakley jotted down her memories of that
(00:21):
visit and the causes which had led her to believe
that sooner or later this man of the Crippled arm
would bring havoc to the universe. The end of the
London season saw a disagreement between Annie Oakley and the
management of the Buffalo Bill wild West, the only rift,
in fact, which arose during the seventeen years of their association.
(00:43):
The forces of jealousy had been at work. Professional antagonism
can as easily exist beneath the canvas of attempted organization
as it can upon the stage, and Annie Oakley had
become too popular for other members of the wild West,
some of whom would like themselves to appear as the
premier feminine crack shot. There had been disagreements, arguments. At last,
(01:07):
the break became apparently unmendable. At the end of the season,
after a tour of the provinces. The Buffalo Bill wild
West sailed homeward, but Frank Butler and his wife remained
in Europe for a time. They contented themselves with private
exhibitions and the winning of shooting matches, finally hieing themselves
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to Monte Carlo, were huge stakes dangled and where a
golden harvest seemed to await them. The purses there ranging
as high as ten dollars to a bird. But the
gentlemen who chose to dot the Mediterranean with the remains
of fast flying pigeons cast forth in the very shadow
of the casino, also had a great desire to take
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no risks with their money. Both Butler and his wife
were barred on the grounds that they were professionals, and
after a period of rest along the Riviera, the two
turned to Berlin for the previously arranged exhibition. Miss Oakley's
memories tell the rest. It so happened that the Emperor
and the Crown Prince were both ill. So it fell
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to young William to conduct the affair. Never in all
my life have I seen so many soldiers. I saw
nothing else. The program was arranged at the Union Club
in Berlin, when we had submitted a program for approval.
William added the shooting of live pigeons to the events,
But when we reached the capital, we discovered that it
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was strictly against the law to shoot pigeons in the city.
So Frank went up to the club to see about it.
The club was inhabited exclusively by majors and captains, field
marshals and conquerors, all in full panoply of war and
bristling with side arms and crosses. Frank ventured to explain
to the secretary that we were plain American folk, who,
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in spite of legends to the contrary, were prone to
obey the law, and that, having discovered the statue against
pigeon shooting, we would like to omit that detail from
the performance. His answer was to push a button, which
summoned an orderly and who presently appeared with no less
a person than the man who was later to be
Kaiser Wilhelm of the World War. The situation was explained,
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and as quickly solved, the bell went into commission again,
this time summoning an orderly of still more imposing aspect.
His Majesty spoke. Next Sunday, Annie Oakley will give an
exhibition at Charlottenburg. You will see that the chief of
police and none other of the police are admitted while
it is going on. This was his manner of doing
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things while he was still the grandson of the reigning monarch.
Fancy what he became after the government fell into his hands.
I remember that at the time I started to say
war mad to my husband, his use of the same
words interrupted me, and our next trip to Germany, after
Wilhelm had actually become emperor, proved our belief be beyond
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any doubt. Back in America, following an order to cancel
an engagement in Paris because of threatened illness, Annie Oakley
announced that she would not again appear with the Buffalo
Bill Show for a time, trap shooting events occupied her
entire attention, during which she won the deciding match of
the event begun with the English champion at the time,
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her hand was injured by the premature springing of a trap. Then,
quite innocently, she took part in one of those queer
little tricks of fate by which the mills of the
gods gained credit for the fineness of their grist. Contracts
had been made for a later date to appear in vaudeville,
and also in a play in which Annie Oakley was
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to become a dramatic star. A space of time intervened
and an offer had come from a newly forming Wild
West company to fill in that time as one of
its stars. The contract was accepted for a larger amount
of money than Annie Oakley had yet drawn, and shortly
before the time for the beginning of rehearsals, Missus Butler
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and her husband journeyed from New York to the Exposition
Grounds to look over their new home in the show world.
It was a disappointing visit. A group of Indians were
camped on the rehearsal grounds, together with a large number
of horses and a small group of men who called
themselves cowboys. But as one led forth a horse to
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attempt an exhibition of riding, Butler shook his head. It's
no go, Missy, he said. We can't afford to be
connected with a failure. There was every indication that the
show would be nothing, but that it was being promoted
by a ferryboat company and a Philadelphia multi millionaire who,
knowing nothing of the Wild West business themselves, had trusted
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to persons who according to Annie Oakley's description, wore imitations
stets and hats, and were as real as their knowledge
of the West as they were in their headgear. The
cowboys could not ride, there was no management. There was nothing,
in fact, to indicate that the show would go farther
than its first performance. Hastily, the pair journeyed to Philadelphia
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in an effort to break the contract. It was useless.
The agreement had been made and they must live up
to it. In the meanwhile, another man was having his troubles.
Back in the opening days of the Buffalo Bill Show.
He had been the one to obtain Pawnee Indians for it,
owing to the fact that he was an honorary member
of the tribe and a teacher of the Pawnees. His
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name was Lily Gordon W. Lily, his nickname that of
Pawnee Bill. A year or so with the Wild West
Show had given him ambitions to own an organization of
his own. Therefore, he had started with much enthusiasm and
little else, fighting his way along from town to town,
often but one jump ahead of the sheriff, but struggling nevertheless,
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And as he struggled, he realized that a great and
powerful foe locked his way, the foe who once had
been his friend. But friendships in the show world last
only as long as there is not a clash of canvas.
With Pawnee Bill's entrance into the wild West amusement business,
there naturally had come an antagonism of the swift growing
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Buffalo Bill organization. The old rule was that a show
must crush or be crushed. Pawnee Bill now was experiencing
the efforts of the steam roller. Fresh from its European triumphs,
and with a bigger show than it ever had known before,
the Buffalo Bill wild West now was throttling everything in
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its path. It was all powerful. The millions were rolling in,
and there must be no impediment to the steady flow
of wealth. Consequently, as it happens even now in the
outdoor amusement world, the agents of the Buffalo Bill show
worked unceasingly that the Pawnee Bill Aggregation might suffer as
much as possible. Time after time, Major Lilly booked his
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struggling aggregation into a town, only to find that the
bill posters of the all powerful Buffalo Bill Exhibition had
covered his paper, that his pasted advertisements of the Buffalo
Bill wild West over those of the Pawnee Bill Outfit
and announced a show on the same date, to which
the patrons would flood, leaving Pawnee Bill to gaze at
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empty seats where otherwise there might have been throngs. Now
the battle was ending, and as Frank Butler boarded a
ferry with one of the backers of the newly forming
Wild West, his eye caught a headline of a proffered
paper in the hands of a newsboy. It stated Pawnee
Bill Show stranded in Pittsburgh. Hastily he read the article,
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which announced the details of an attachment for several thousand
dollars which had formed the final blow against the little aggregation.
The news had been given to the papers, quite strangely
by Major John M. Burke, press agent for Buffalo Bill.
Butler turned her to the wild West impresario. Here's your chance,
he exclaimed, I can see through this thing. The Buffalo
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Bill Outfit has engineered this in some way. It's an
old trick to work up an attachment to get rid
of an opposition amusement. The thing for you to do
is to jump on a train go out there to Pittsburgh.
Free this company of its debt, load it on a
special train and bring it here. Then you'll have a
name to work with, an organization to build on, and
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something to make a show with, instead of that imitation
outfit you've got now. The argument was one the magnet
hurried to Pittsburgh, there to rescue a very lugubrious Pawnee
Bill and his entire outfit and bring them to Staten Island.
Only a week remained to make ready for the opening.
And while the rehearsals were held, they're thundered from the billboards,
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from roadway signs, from the walls of Barnes, and every
other conceivable place. The fighting announcement of the Buffalo Bill Aggregation,
so well known to those who have ended the thrills
of a circus warfare, Wait for the big show. Buffalo
Bill is coming. The date was exactly four weeks after
that of the new Aggregation, which then was rehearsing. Against odds.
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Everything was in a tangle, two sets of Indians, two
sets of bucking horses, two sets of everything, But some
way between Annie Oakley, Frank Butler, and Pawnee Bill, they
managed to straighten it out. Upon one person alone did
the success or the failure of that show. Rest That
was Annie Oakley. The old fighting instinct was strong within
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the girl who had gained much of experience by fighting
in one way or another for the greater part of
her existence. Once the news of her contract with the
other management had been announced, there had come a call
to what was then little less than a throne, the
office of Nate Salisbury. Don't you take that contract, she
was urged. But I've already signed, Then break it or
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will fight you? Just what it was that Annie Oakley
said Following that statement, she never revealed, But when she
was through, Nate Salisbury smiled and rose with the announcement, No, Annie,
you're right, No matter what happens, we won't fight you.
That was said in the personal sense. No promise was
made for the show itself, and Annie Oakley, now that
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she had been threatened, was cast for the Battlefield. She
was the new show's star performer. She the one upon
whom everything depended. The show opened, Annie Oakley performed on
horseback on foot at press agent stunts. She gave interviews.
She displayed the innumerable cups and medals which had come
to her as the result of her shooting prowess both
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in America and abroad. She had become the backbone of
the whole show, the reason for its existence, the recommendation
for it, and she drew the crowds. The show prospered.
Even the overtowering strength of the Buffalo Bill wild West
could not keep the crowds from its gates. Now now
for the sequel. In the formation of that show, Major
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Gordon W. Lilly formed associations which lasted him through the
entire life of his showmanship. Men who would come to
his rescue in times of stress, who would back him
for new ventures, and upon ideas which others might have denied.
It was his true beginning, with the exception of the
time which he spent in southern Kansas as one of
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the boomers of the new state of Oklahoma. His life
for a quarter of a century after that was given
to the wild West business. He met reverses and beat
them steadily. He climbed the impetus given him during the
time Annie Oakley was associated with the show. The possibilities
of the business sent Pawnee Bill higher and higher in
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the amusement world, despite every effort of rival shows to
hold him down. At last, there came the time when rich,
powerful Major Gordon W. Lilly was approached by the executor
of the estate which owned the Buffalo Bill wild West.
The show had passed from the hands of Nate Salisbury,
It had passed from the possession of Buffalo Bill himself.
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Now moneyless in debt, what small interest he held in
the show mortgaged. The millions which had flowed into his
hands gone to the Four Winds. Colonel William Frederick Cody
was a beaten man, and it was Pawnee Bill, the
young showman, whom he had fought nearly a quarter of
a century before, and whom Annie Oakley had rescued As
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stranded broke, he looked over the wreckage of his show
on the lot at Pittsburgh. Who bought the Buffalo Bill Show,
threw it into the old shrewd system of management which
it had known back in the days of Nate Salisbury,
enabled it to make money, and practically gave back to
William Frederick Cody the half interest which had been dissipated
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when Annie Oakley and her husband had saved Pawnee Bill's show,
that it might be used as a weapon of defense
against the Great Buffalo Bill organization. They, in reality began
the upward career of the man who some day could
call himself the true owner of the big show which
once had all but caused his downfall as a showman.
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These days might be called barnstorming ones. For Annie Oakley,
When her short contract with the New wild West expired,
she hurried to a waiting one which called for exhibitions
in vaudeville. Then that done, she went to another, in
which she learned the rather eventful life of a melodrama star.
The life of a stage character had been painted in
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bright colors, principally because the promoter possessed little more than
a play and saw in Annie Oakley a chance to
capitalize a name which now was known throughout America. But
Miss Oakley didn't know that at the time. Little details
like that are sometimes carefully concealed. The contract had been made,
in fact before she gained the slightest inkling of it,
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and the play was in rehearsal. It should have been
worth seeing that play. The name of it, least there
be some belief that it had to do with lavender
and old lace was the he man title of Deadwood Dick.
There were injuns and prospectors and bad men galore. There
was a sweet, innocent, starry eyed child, who, out upon
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the broad prairie, knelt before the footlights and said his
prayers just before the Indians attacked, in a manner which
the management guaranteed to bring tears to an iron hitching post.
There was the inevitable man gone wrong through drink, a fine, stalwart,
rough diamond of a fellow, who, had it not been
for the demon rum, might have made his mark in
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the world. As it was about the only marks he
could make were by becoming crocked to the gunwales and
denting the ground by doing wing dings on his head.
There was the motherly pioneer's wife, the sturdy, silent bearded
man coming into the west to make his fortune. And
then there was Annie Oakley. One review of the play
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read regarding the play, the shooting of Annie Oakley was
very good. As for Miss Oakley's comment, it was crisp going,
but little farther than to still wonder years afterward why
the audiences had refrained from throwing vegetables. After a time,
the suspicion became more than well confirmed that this was
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an outlandish attempt to make money upon a name, a
gambling venture taken upon a shoe string. Miss Oakley so
shaped her affairs that it was possible for her to leave,
and this she did. The show ran a few weeks,
became faulty in the payment of salaries, and suddenly collapsed overnight.
It was about this time that Nate Salisbury and Buffalo Bill,
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planning for the future, remarked to Annie Oakley that perhaps
their differences were not too great for eradication. After all,
Miss Oakley held the same opinion. The Buffalo Bill Wild
West was home to her. There were meetings, a consideration
of the causes which had led her to leave the
show after its London engagement, and then a welcomed announcement
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went forth. It was that the Buffalo Bill Show was
returning to Europe, there to begin its tour by forming
one of the main attractions at the Paris Exhibition of
eighteen eighty nine. Again, Miss Annie Oakley would be its
shooting star. Luck plays its part in more than one success,
especially in the amusement field. Annie Oakley was taken back
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to the fold simply because friendship and worth demanded it.
Nate Salisbury and Buffalo Bill looked upon her as little
less than a daughter. Her affection for the two men
was as deep, and the disagreement had caused pain on
both sides. She was a star who drew the crowds,
and they wanted her for that reason, just as Annie
Oakley was glad to go back because the prestige and
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the background of the Great Wild West enhanced her act.
But had these things not come to a point of
settlement just at this time, and had Annie Oakley not
gone to Europe on the second trip of the Buffalo
Bill wild West, there might have been a different story
of that second tour, and it is highly possible that
the Buffalo Bill show at Paris would have been a failure.
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The place of exhibition was to bax Deniuyi, just outside
the Turnus gates of the Paris fortifications. Today, one would
reach it merely by proceeding along the Avenue de la
Grand Dammy from the Place de Listoi at the end
of the Chanzalize, a scant ten minutes in a careening taxicab.
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From that most American gathering place in the center of Paris,
the Cafe de la bay a most convenient showgrounds. This
and the London representation of the show, The favors of royalty,
the command performance before Queen Victoria, the gathering of practically
every ruler and potentaint during the Jubilee year had caused
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considerable comment on Buffalo Bill's show in Paris. The result
was that the opening day found the President of the Republic,
his wife, artists like Maissonnier de Tayie and others, accompanied
by twenty thousand frenchmen and women crammed in the place
of exhibition with the typically Missourianese attitude of desiring to
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be shown. The grand entree of the show arrived without
as much as a ripple of applause from the audience.
The first acts went on, and still the tremendous mass
of twenty thousand persons sat graven. Buffalo Bill began to
pull at his goatee, a sure evidence of nervousness, while
Nate Salisbury adopted a short, jerky pacing step at the
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rear entrance, with quick glances toward the audience, as though
any instant might change its demeanor. But Paris such of it,
at least that was crowded into the Buffalo Bill amphitheater
gave no evidence whatever of changing in any particular. A cowboy,
fresh from having fought a sun fishing outlaw horse over
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most of the arena, slipped from the arms of his
pickup man, dropped to the ground, made his grand eloquent bow,
and received silence. Shore is cold here in Paris, ain't it,
he asked as he reached the exit. Must be full
ten inches of frost on that audience. As the show progressed,
it became even more frosty. Colonel Cody began to emit
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suppressed bellows of concern somewhat like the rumblings of Vesuvius
heard at a distance. Nate Salisbury turned hurriedly and summoned
an interpreter. Get up into the grand stand. He commanded,
and see what the trouble is. Ask some of those people,
if they're not deaf and dumb, why they don't like
the show. Then, as the interpreter moved away, he switched
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the program slightly that he might send the old deadwood
stage coach careening about the arena with the red flare
glaring and the sue and kaiwas pursuing it in the
approved style. This brought no more enthusiasm than the rest
of the entertainment, and Salisbury hurried forward anxiously at the
sight of the interpreter. What is it, he asked, Well,
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said the interpreter. These people, they do not understand what
it is about. They object to all this pretending, pretending,
asked Cody, and Salisbury in one breath. What pretending? The
bucking horses, for instance, They feel that it is just
a show, because they say that if horses were that mean,
why should anybody try to ride them? They call that pretendant,
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asked Cody, dog my cats, That last cowpuncher came pretty
near being killed. That is exactly the case, said the interpreter.
I told that to the people with whom I talked,
and they asked me, viola, why should he want to
kill himself? But the Indians, interjected Salisbury, you'd think that
they'd get up some interest in the Indians. Don't they
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know that these are actual chiefs and braves who fought
against the United States Army for the possession of the West,
don't they They don't, The interpreter answered, you see, I
brought up that point all, and they answered me by saying, moan,
do do you expect us to believe that they would
actually turn, such fierce savages loose to kill everybody in
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sight if they cared to. It is an imitation, they say.
William Frederick Cody allowed his tongue to sag from the
corner of his lips and wagged his head in solemn despair.
The problem had gone beyond him. Nate Salisbury frowned, stared
about him, then suddenly started forward at the sight of
Annie Oakley just coming forward to make her entrance, followed
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by her attendant with the guns. Missy, he commanded, you've
got to do something. You're the last card. These frenchmen
out here can't tell a comanche from a drug store
or a horse from a walking beam. They think everything
in the show is just an imitation. Get out there
and prove that it isn't. It was about the most
difficult assignment which Annie Oakley ever had received, but there
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was nothing to do except to make an honest attempt
to carry out the commands. Since the audience was giving
but scant courtesy to any performer, Annie Oakley adopted the
same attitude toward the audience and walked into the Great
Bear Arena with a perceptible chip on her shoulder. She
acknowledged the audience, and that was all a scant bob
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of the head, as though she were speaking to a
bare acquaintance. Then she turned with a command to her
assistants and object holders. The guns came forward. Annie Oakley
began to shoot with as little concern for those who watched,
as though she were conducting a rehearsal. One by one
the rifle tricks were gone through, and Annie Oakley heard
the audience with a perceptible russell settle, as with a
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concentration of interest. Before this there had been a constant
current of conversation, the rustle of newspapers, the calling of
gammons one to another. Now, however, that had ceased, and
Miss Oakley, realizing that the audience at last had found
something it could understand, the art of shooting became more friendly. Finally,
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at a difficult pistol shot, there was a sleigh ripple
of applause. Annie Oakley acknowledged it, realizing that her contests
not yet was one. So far, she had done things
which had been seen upon the stage, and which could
be faked by a clever performer. But when she came
to her shotgun work, there was no such possibility. With
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that came the climax. The little Missy lifted a double
barreled shotgun and commanded that two glass balls be thrown
into the air at once. There was a double report
and the objects shattered. While the first real applause of
the premier performance broke forth from the packed stands out
in the entrance. Nate Salisbury turned to his worried partner,
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by God Bill. He exclaimed, She's saved the show dog
my cats as she ain't, answered Buffalo Bill, only to
be interrupted by another burst of applause. Four balls had
gone into the air, working like lightning with two guns.
Annie Oakley had shattered them. All gun work was something
that this French audience knew. Practically every man in the
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audience had served his time in the Standing Army. Many
sportsmen were there, officers, members of the Foreign Legion. Shooting
and its difficulties were well known affairs, but Annie hadn't ceased.
She tried the trick of laying down her gun, jumping
over a table, springing two birds from a trap, and
landing them both before they struck the ground. She did
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her trick of turning around while the objects flew through
the air and getting them before she stopped whirling. Everything
she ever had done to amaze an audience she did now,
finally turning to a trick which she did not often
perform in the ring, that of using three shotguns to
demolish six glass balls thrown into the air, like the
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reports of a machine gun. Came the banging of those shotguns,
one after another. The missiles broke so quickly that it
was almost impossible to follow the destruction with the eye.
Then bowing, she retired, while hats waved, arms went into
the air. Men and women rose from them their seats,
and even the President stood to bow to her. It
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was as though this little woman, by demonstrating feats deemed
impossible by the audience, had given a guarantee of the
reality of the entire show. If this wonderful shooting could
be real, then the Indians were real, and the stage
coach and the riders and the wild horses and everything
else in keeping Annie Oakley strove to retire impossible, the
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show had been stopped by cries of Bravo and Viva
Leannie Oakley. Salisbury pushed her to the entrance. Go back
and give him some more, he commanded, and the laughing
Annie Oakley obeyed, only to be called back again and
again and again to a repetition of her act for
the fifth time before the audience subsided. After that, there
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was no doubt of the success of the Buffalo Bill
Show in Paris. The name of it was on the
tongue of everyone, with the principal emphasis, however, upon the
adjunct that of the little Missy time warned and weather beaten.
There is in the collection left by Annie Oakley one
of the tickets used to gain admission to the Buffalo
Bill wild West show during that engagement. Like all French billets,
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it bears the inevitable advertisements of a partiff's confidential detectives, cafes,
mineral waters and what not. But in one particular it
is different from most admission cards, for it bears a
double announcement which reads, on one side own b a
premier class Buffalo Bill wild West, while on the other
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is a statement which in English would read, this ticket
enables the bearer to see the great Markswoman Annie Oakley.
End of chapter eleven.
Chapter eleven of Annie Oakley Women at Arms by Courtney
Riley Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Barry Eads, Chapter eleven. When at last the
years had gone and Wilhelm Hohenzhalorn had brought war to
the world, Annie Oakley jotted down her memories of that
(00:21):
visit and the causes which had led her to believe
that sooner or later this man of the Crippled arm
would bring havoc to the universe. The end of the
London season saw a disagreement between Annie Oakley and the
management of the Buffalo Bill wild West, the only rift,
in fact, which arose during the seventeen years of their association.
(00:43):
The forces of jealousy had been at work. Professional antagonism
can as easily exist beneath the canvas of attempted organization
as it can upon the stage, and Annie Oakley had
become too popular for other members of the wild West,
some of whom would like themselves to appear as the
premier feminine crack shot. There had been disagreements, arguments. At last,
(01:07):
the break became apparently unmendable. At the end of the season,
after a tour of the provinces. The Buffalo Bill wild
West sailed homeward, but Frank Butler and his wife remained
in Europe for a time. They contented themselves with private
exhibitions and the winning of shooting matches, finally hieing themselves
(01:27):
to Monte Carlo, were huge stakes dangled and where a
golden harvest seemed to await them. The purses there ranging
as high as ten dollars to a bird. But the
gentlemen who chose to dot the Mediterranean with the remains
of fast flying pigeons cast forth in the very shadow
of the casino, also had a great desire to take
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no risks with their money. Both Butler and his wife
were barred on the grounds that they were professionals, and
after a period of rest along the Riviera, the two
turned to Berlin for the previously arranged exhibition. Miss Oakley's
memories tell the rest. It so happened that the Emperor
and the Crown Prince were both ill. So it fell
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to young William to conduct the affair. Never in all
my life have I seen so many soldiers. I saw
nothing else. The program was arranged at the Union Club
in Berlin, when we had submitted a program for approval.
William added the shooting of live pigeons to the events,
But when we reached the capital, we discovered that it
(02:31):
was strictly against the law to shoot pigeons in the city.
So Frank went up to the club to see about it.
The club was inhabited exclusively by majors and captains, field
marshals and conquerors, all in full panoply of war and
bristling with side arms and crosses. Frank ventured to explain
to the secretary that we were plain American folk, who,
(02:54):
in spite of legends to the contrary, were prone to
obey the law, and that, having discovered the statue against
pigeon shooting, we would like to omit that detail from
the performance. His answer was to push a button, which
summoned an orderly and who presently appeared with no less
a person than the man who was later to be
Kaiser Wilhelm of the World War. The situation was explained,
(03:17):
and as quickly solved, the bell went into commission again,
this time summoning an orderly of still more imposing aspect.
His Majesty spoke. Next Sunday, Annie Oakley will give an
exhibition at Charlottenburg. You will see that the chief of
police and none other of the police are admitted while
it is going on. This was his manner of doing
(03:39):
things while he was still the grandson of the reigning monarch.
Fancy what he became after the government fell into his hands.
I remember that at the time I started to say
war mad to my husband, his use of the same
words interrupted me, and our next trip to Germany, after
Wilhelm had actually become emperor, proved our belief be beyond
(04:00):
any doubt. Back in America, following an order to cancel
an engagement in Paris because of threatened illness, Annie Oakley
announced that she would not again appear with the Buffalo
Bill Show for a time, trap shooting events occupied her
entire attention, during which she won the deciding match of
the event begun with the English champion at the time,
(04:23):
her hand was injured by the premature springing of a trap. Then,
quite innocently, she took part in one of those queer
little tricks of fate by which the mills of the
gods gained credit for the fineness of their grist. Contracts
had been made for a later date to appear in vaudeville,
and also in a play in which Annie Oakley was
(04:44):
to become a dramatic star. A space of time intervened
and an offer had come from a newly forming Wild
West company to fill in that time as one of
its stars. The contract was accepted for a larger amount
of money than Annie Oakley had yet drawn, and shortly
before the time for the beginning of rehearsals, Missus Butler
(05:05):
and her husband journeyed from New York to the Exposition
Grounds to look over their new home in the show world.
It was a disappointing visit. A group of Indians were
camped on the rehearsal grounds, together with a large number
of horses and a small group of men who called
themselves cowboys. But as one led forth a horse to
(05:25):
attempt an exhibition of riding, Butler shook his head. It's
no go, Missy, he said. We can't afford to be
connected with a failure. There was every indication that the
show would be nothing, but that it was being promoted
by a ferryboat company and a Philadelphia multi millionaire who,
knowing nothing of the Wild West business themselves, had trusted
(05:48):
to persons who according to Annie Oakley's description, wore imitations
stets and hats, and were as real as their knowledge
of the West as they were in their headgear. The
cowboys could not ride, there was no management. There was nothing,
in fact, to indicate that the show would go farther
than its first performance. Hastily, the pair journeyed to Philadelphia
(06:09):
in an effort to break the contract. It was useless.
The agreement had been made and they must live up
to it. In the meanwhile, another man was having his troubles.
Back in the opening days of the Buffalo Bill Show.
He had been the one to obtain Pawnee Indians for it,
owing to the fact that he was an honorary member
of the tribe and a teacher of the Pawnees. His
(06:32):
name was Lily Gordon W. Lily, his nickname that of
Pawnee Bill. A year or so with the Wild West
Show had given him ambitions to own an organization of
his own. Therefore, he had started with much enthusiasm and
little else, fighting his way along from town to town,
often but one jump ahead of the sheriff, but struggling nevertheless,
(06:55):
And as he struggled, he realized that a great and
powerful foe locked his way, the foe who once had
been his friend. But friendships in the show world last
only as long as there is not a clash of canvas.
With Pawnee Bill's entrance into the wild West amusement business,
there naturally had come an antagonism of the swift growing
(07:16):
Buffalo Bill organization. The old rule was that a show
must crush or be crushed. Pawnee Bill now was experiencing
the efforts of the steam roller. Fresh from its European triumphs,
and with a bigger show than it ever had known before,
the Buffalo Bill wild West now was throttling everything in
(07:37):
its path. It was all powerful. The millions were rolling in,
and there must be no impediment to the steady flow
of wealth. Consequently, as it happens even now in the
outdoor amusement world, the agents of the Buffalo Bill show
worked unceasingly that the Pawnee Bill Aggregation might suffer as
much as possible. Time after time, Major Lilly booked his
(08:00):
struggling aggregation into a town, only to find that the
bill posters of the all powerful Buffalo Bill Exhibition had
covered his paper, that his pasted advertisements of the Buffalo
Bill wild West over those of the Pawnee Bill Outfit
and announced a show on the same date, to which
the patrons would flood, leaving Pawnee Bill to gaze at
(08:21):
empty seats where otherwise there might have been throngs. Now
the battle was ending, and as Frank Butler boarded a
ferry with one of the backers of the newly forming
Wild West, his eye caught a headline of a proffered
paper in the hands of a newsboy. It stated Pawnee
Bill Show stranded in Pittsburgh. Hastily he read the article,
(08:43):
which announced the details of an attachment for several thousand
dollars which had formed the final blow against the little aggregation.
The news had been given to the papers, quite strangely
by Major John M. Burke, press agent for Buffalo Bill.
Butler turned her to the wild West impresario. Here's your chance,
he exclaimed, I can see through this thing. The Buffalo
(09:06):
Bill Outfit has engineered this in some way. It's an
old trick to work up an attachment to get rid
of an opposition amusement. The thing for you to do
is to jump on a train go out there to Pittsburgh.
Free this company of its debt, load it on a
special train and bring it here. Then you'll have a
name to work with, an organization to build on, and
(09:27):
something to make a show with, instead of that imitation
outfit you've got now. The argument was one the magnet
hurried to Pittsburgh, there to rescue a very lugubrious Pawnee
Bill and his entire outfit and bring them to Staten Island.
Only a week remained to make ready for the opening.
And while the rehearsals were held, they're thundered from the billboards,
(09:49):
from roadway signs, from the walls of Barnes, and every
other conceivable place. The fighting announcement of the Buffalo Bill Aggregation,
so well known to those who have ended the thrills
of a circus warfare, Wait for the big show. Buffalo
Bill is coming. The date was exactly four weeks after
that of the new Aggregation, which then was rehearsing. Against odds.
(10:12):
Everything was in a tangle, two sets of Indians, two
sets of bucking horses, two sets of everything, But some
way between Annie Oakley, Frank Butler, and Pawnee Bill, they
managed to straighten it out. Upon one person alone did
the success or the failure of that show. Rest That
was Annie Oakley. The old fighting instinct was strong within
(10:33):
the girl who had gained much of experience by fighting
in one way or another for the greater part of
her existence. Once the news of her contract with the
other management had been announced, there had come a call
to what was then little less than a throne, the
office of Nate Salisbury. Don't you take that contract, she
was urged. But I've already signed, Then break it or
(10:57):
will fight you? Just what it was that Annie Oakley
said Following that statement, she never revealed, But when she
was through, Nate Salisbury smiled and rose with the announcement, No, Annie,
you're right, No matter what happens, we won't fight you.
That was said in the personal sense. No promise was
made for the show itself, and Annie Oakley, now that
(11:19):
she had been threatened, was cast for the Battlefield. She
was the new show's star performer. She the one upon
whom everything depended. The show opened, Annie Oakley performed on
horseback on foot at press agent stunts. She gave interviews.
She displayed the innumerable cups and medals which had come
to her as the result of her shooting prowess both
(11:41):
in America and abroad. She had become the backbone of
the whole show, the reason for its existence, the recommendation
for it, and she drew the crowds. The show prospered.
Even the overtowering strength of the Buffalo Bill wild West
could not keep the crowds from its gates. Now now
for the sequel. In the formation of that show, Major
(12:03):
Gordon W. Lilly formed associations which lasted him through the
entire life of his showmanship. Men who would come to
his rescue in times of stress, who would back him
for new ventures, and upon ideas which others might have denied.
It was his true beginning, with the exception of the
time which he spent in southern Kansas as one of
(12:24):
the boomers of the new state of Oklahoma. His life
for a quarter of a century after that was given
to the wild West business. He met reverses and beat
them steadily. He climbed the impetus given him during the
time Annie Oakley was associated with the show. The possibilities
of the business sent Pawnee Bill higher and higher in
(12:45):
the amusement world, despite every effort of rival shows to
hold him down. At last, there came the time when rich,
powerful Major Gordon W. Lilly was approached by the executor
of the estate which owned the Buffalo Bill wild West.
The show had passed from the hands of Nate Salisbury,
It had passed from the possession of Buffalo Bill himself.
(13:08):
Now moneyless in debt, what small interest he held in
the show mortgaged. The millions which had flowed into his
hands gone to the Four Winds. Colonel William Frederick Cody
was a beaten man, and it was Pawnee Bill, the
young showman, whom he had fought nearly a quarter of
a century before, and whom Annie Oakley had rescued As
(13:29):
stranded broke, he looked over the wreckage of his show
on the lot at Pittsburgh. Who bought the Buffalo Bill Show,
threw it into the old shrewd system of management which
it had known back in the days of Nate Salisbury,
enabled it to make money, and practically gave back to
William Frederick Cody the half interest which had been dissipated
(13:50):
when Annie Oakley and her husband had saved Pawnee Bill's show,
that it might be used as a weapon of defense
against the Great Buffalo Bill organization. They, in reality began
the upward career of the man who some day could
call himself the true owner of the big show which
once had all but caused his downfall as a showman.
(14:10):
These days might be called barnstorming ones. For Annie Oakley,
When her short contract with the New wild West expired,
she hurried to a waiting one which called for exhibitions
in vaudeville. Then that done, she went to another, in
which she learned the rather eventful life of a melodrama star.
The life of a stage character had been painted in
(14:31):
bright colors, principally because the promoter possessed little more than
a play and saw in Annie Oakley a chance to
capitalize a name which now was known throughout America. But
Miss Oakley didn't know that at the time. Little details
like that are sometimes carefully concealed. The contract had been made,
in fact before she gained the slightest inkling of it,
(14:54):
and the play was in rehearsal. It should have been
worth seeing that play. The name of it, least there
be some belief that it had to do with lavender
and old lace was the he man title of Deadwood Dick.
There were injuns and prospectors and bad men galore. There
was a sweet, innocent, starry eyed child, who, out upon
(15:16):
the broad prairie, knelt before the footlights and said his
prayers just before the Indians attacked, in a manner which
the management guaranteed to bring tears to an iron hitching post.
There was the inevitable man gone wrong through drink, a fine, stalwart,
rough diamond of a fellow, who, had it not been
for the demon rum, might have made his mark in
(15:38):
the world. As it was about the only marks he
could make were by becoming crocked to the gunwales and
denting the ground by doing wing dings on his head.
There was the motherly pioneer's wife, the sturdy, silent bearded
man coming into the west to make his fortune. And
then there was Annie Oakley. One review of the play
(15:59):
read regarding the play, the shooting of Annie Oakley was
very good. As for Miss Oakley's comment, it was crisp going,
but little farther than to still wonder years afterward why
the audiences had refrained from throwing vegetables. After a time,
the suspicion became more than well confirmed that this was
(16:20):
an outlandish attempt to make money upon a name, a
gambling venture taken upon a shoe string. Miss Oakley so
shaped her affairs that it was possible for her to leave,
and this she did. The show ran a few weeks,
became faulty in the payment of salaries, and suddenly collapsed overnight.
It was about this time that Nate Salisbury and Buffalo Bill,
(16:42):
planning for the future, remarked to Annie Oakley that perhaps
their differences were not too great for eradication. After all,
Miss Oakley held the same opinion. The Buffalo Bill Wild
West was home to her. There were meetings, a consideration
of the causes which had led her to leave the
show after its London engagement, and then a welcomed announcement
(17:03):
went forth. It was that the Buffalo Bill Show was
returning to Europe, there to begin its tour by forming
one of the main attractions at the Paris Exhibition of
eighteen eighty nine. Again, Miss Annie Oakley would be its
shooting star. Luck plays its part in more than one success,
especially in the amusement field. Annie Oakley was taken back
(17:26):
to the fold simply because friendship and worth demanded it.
Nate Salisbury and Buffalo Bill looked upon her as little
less than a daughter. Her affection for the two men
was as deep, and the disagreement had caused pain on
both sides. She was a star who drew the crowds,
and they wanted her for that reason, just as Annie
Oakley was glad to go back because the prestige and
(17:49):
the background of the Great Wild West enhanced her act.
But had these things not come to a point of
settlement just at this time, and had Annie Oakley not
gone to Europe on the second trip of the Buffalo
Bill wild West, there might have been a different story
of that second tour, and it is highly possible that
the Buffalo Bill show at Paris would have been a failure.
(18:11):
The place of exhibition was to bax Deniuyi, just outside
the Turnus gates of the Paris fortifications. Today, one would
reach it merely by proceeding along the Avenue de la
Grand Dammy from the Place de Listoi at the end
of the Chanzalize, a scant ten minutes in a careening taxicab.
(18:32):
From that most American gathering place in the center of Paris,
the Cafe de la bay a most convenient showgrounds. This
and the London representation of the show, The favors of royalty,
the command performance before Queen Victoria, the gathering of practically
every ruler and potentaint during the Jubilee year had caused
(18:53):
considerable comment on Buffalo Bill's show in Paris. The result
was that the opening day found the President of the Republic,
his wife, artists like Maissonnier de Tayie and others, accompanied
by twenty thousand frenchmen and women crammed in the place
of exhibition with the typically Missourianese attitude of desiring to
(19:14):
be shown. The grand entree of the show arrived without
as much as a ripple of applause from the audience.
The first acts went on, and still the tremendous mass
of twenty thousand persons sat graven. Buffalo Bill began to
pull at his goatee, a sure evidence of nervousness, while
Nate Salisbury adopted a short, jerky pacing step at the
(19:37):
rear entrance, with quick glances toward the audience, as though
any instant might change its demeanor. But Paris such of it,
at least that was crowded into the Buffalo Bill amphitheater
gave no evidence whatever of changing in any particular. A cowboy,
fresh from having fought a sun fishing outlaw horse over
(19:57):
most of the arena, slipped from the arms of his
pickup man, dropped to the ground, made his grand eloquent bow,
and received silence. Shore is cold here in Paris, ain't it,
he asked as he reached the exit. Must be full
ten inches of frost on that audience. As the show progressed,
it became even more frosty. Colonel Cody began to emit
(20:19):
suppressed bellows of concern somewhat like the rumblings of Vesuvius
heard at a distance. Nate Salisbury turned hurriedly and summoned
an interpreter. Get up into the grand stand. He commanded,
and see what the trouble is. Ask some of those people,
if they're not deaf and dumb, why they don't like
the show. Then, as the interpreter moved away, he switched
(20:41):
the program slightly that he might send the old deadwood
stage coach careening about the arena with the red flare
glaring and the sue and kaiwas pursuing it in the
approved style. This brought no more enthusiasm than the rest
of the entertainment, and Salisbury hurried forward anxiously at the
sight of the interpreter. What is it, he asked, Well,
(21:04):
said the interpreter. These people, they do not understand what
it is about. They object to all this pretending, pretending,
asked Cody, and Salisbury in one breath. What pretending? The
bucking horses, for instance, They feel that it is just
a show, because they say that if horses were that mean,
why should anybody try to ride them? They call that pretendant,
(21:26):
asked Cody, dog my cats, That last cowpuncher came pretty
near being killed. That is exactly the case, said the interpreter.
I told that to the people with whom I talked,
and they asked me, viola, why should he want to
kill himself? But the Indians, interjected Salisbury, you'd think that
they'd get up some interest in the Indians. Don't they
(21:48):
know that these are actual chiefs and braves who fought
against the United States Army for the possession of the West,
don't they They don't, The interpreter answered, you see, I
brought up that point all, and they answered me by saying, moan,
do do you expect us to believe that they would
actually turn, such fierce savages loose to kill everybody in
(22:09):
sight if they cared to. It is an imitation, they say.
William Frederick Cody allowed his tongue to sag from the
corner of his lips and wagged his head in solemn despair.
The problem had gone beyond him. Nate Salisbury frowned, stared
about him, then suddenly started forward at the sight of
Annie Oakley just coming forward to make her entrance, followed
(22:30):
by her attendant with the guns. Missy, he commanded, you've
got to do something. You're the last card. These frenchmen
out here can't tell a comanche from a drug store
or a horse from a walking beam. They think everything
in the show is just an imitation. Get out there
and prove that it isn't. It was about the most
difficult assignment which Annie Oakley ever had received, but there
(22:53):
was nothing to do except to make an honest attempt
to carry out the commands. Since the audience was giving
but scant courtesy to any performer, Annie Oakley adopted the
same attitude toward the audience and walked into the Great
Bear Arena with a perceptible chip on her shoulder. She
acknowledged the audience, and that was all a scant bob
(23:14):
of the head, as though she were speaking to a
bare acquaintance. Then she turned with a command to her
assistants and object holders. The guns came forward. Annie Oakley
began to shoot with as little concern for those who watched,
as though she were conducting a rehearsal. One by one
the rifle tricks were gone through, and Annie Oakley heard
the audience with a perceptible russell settle, as with a
(23:37):
concentration of interest. Before this there had been a constant
current of conversation, the rustle of newspapers, the calling of
gammons one to another. Now, however, that had ceased, and
Miss Oakley, realizing that the audience at last had found
something it could understand, the art of shooting became more friendly. Finally,
(23:57):
at a difficult pistol shot, there was a sleigh ripple
of applause. Annie Oakley acknowledged it, realizing that her contests
not yet was one. So far, she had done things
which had been seen upon the stage, and which could
be faked by a clever performer. But when she came
to her shotgun work, there was no such possibility. With
(24:18):
that came the climax. The little Missy lifted a double
barreled shotgun and commanded that two glass balls be thrown
into the air at once. There was a double report
and the objects shattered. While the first real applause of
the premier performance broke forth from the packed stands out
in the entrance. Nate Salisbury turned to his worried partner,
(24:39):
by God Bill. He exclaimed, She's saved the show dog
my cats as she ain't, answered Buffalo Bill, only to
be interrupted by another burst of applause. Four balls had
gone into the air, working like lightning with two guns.
Annie Oakley had shattered them. All gun work was something
that this French audience knew. Practically every man in the
(25:01):
audience had served his time in the Standing Army. Many
sportsmen were there, officers, members of the Foreign Legion. Shooting
and its difficulties were well known affairs, but Annie hadn't ceased.
She tried the trick of laying down her gun, jumping
over a table, springing two birds from a trap, and
landing them both before they struck the ground. She did
(25:23):
her trick of turning around while the objects flew through
the air and getting them before she stopped whirling. Everything
she ever had done to amaze an audience she did now,
finally turning to a trick which she did not often
perform in the ring, that of using three shotguns to
demolish six glass balls thrown into the air, like the
(25:43):
reports of a machine gun. Came the banging of those shotguns,
one after another. The missiles broke so quickly that it
was almost impossible to follow the destruction with the eye.
Then bowing, she retired, while hats waved, arms went into
the air. Men and women rose from them their seats,
and even the President stood to bow to her. It
(26:04):
was as though this little woman, by demonstrating feats deemed
impossible by the audience, had given a guarantee of the
reality of the entire show. If this wonderful shooting could
be real, then the Indians were real, and the stage
coach and the riders and the wild horses and everything
else in keeping Annie Oakley strove to retire impossible, the
(26:25):
show had been stopped by cries of Bravo and Viva
Leannie Oakley. Salisbury pushed her to the entrance. Go back
and give him some more, he commanded, and the laughing
Annie Oakley obeyed, only to be called back again and
again and again to a repetition of her act for
the fifth time before the audience subsided. After that, there
(26:47):
was no doubt of the success of the Buffalo Bill
Show in Paris. The name of it was on the
tongue of everyone, with the principal emphasis, however, upon the
adjunct that of the little Missy time warned and weather beaten.
There is in the collection left by Annie Oakley one
of the tickets used to gain admission to the Buffalo
Bill wild West show during that engagement. Like all French billets,
(27:11):
it bears the inevitable advertisements of a partiff's confidential detectives, cafes,
mineral waters and what not. But in one particular it
is different from most admission cards, for it bears a
double announcement which reads, on one side own b a
premier class Buffalo Bill wild West, while on the other
(27:33):
is a statement which in English would read, this ticket
enables the bearer to see the great Markswoman Annie Oakley.
End of chapter eleven.
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