CHAPTER XXIX.
BILL'S STORY OF HIS BECOMING AN ACTOR.
As Buffalo Bill in the past few years has become known as an actor, and appears as such with his Dramatic Combination, during the winter months, when he is not on the plains, it will not be by any means uninteresting to my readers to learn how he came to go upon the stage, and the story I give in his own words, in relating his experience to a reporter who had called upon him for some jottings regarding his life.
He said: "It was in the fall of '71, that General Sheridan came to the plains with a party of gentlemen for the purpose of engaging in a buffalo-hunt, to extend from Fort McPherson, Nebraska, to Fort Hayes, Kansas, on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, a distance of 228 miles, through the finest hunting country in the world.

In the party were James Gordon Bennett of the New York _Herald_, Lawrence and Leonard Jerome, Carl Livingstone, S.G.Heckshire, General Fitzhugh of Pittsburg, General Anson Stager of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and other noted gentlemen.

I guided the party, and when the hunt was finished, I received an invitation from them to go to New York and make them a visit, as they wanted to show me the East, as I had shown them the West.

I was then Chief of Scouts in the Department of the Platte.

And in January, 1872, just after the Grand Duke Alexis's hunt, which, by the way, I organized, I got a leave of absence, and for the first time in my life found myself east of the Mississippi river.
"Stopping at Chicago two days, where I was the guest of General Sheridan, I proceeded to New York, where I was shown the 'elephant.' During my visit I attended the performance at the Bowery Theater, in company with Colonel E.Z.C.Judson (Ned Buntline), and witnessed a dramatization of Judson's story, entitled 'Buffalo Bill, King of Border Men.' The part of 'Buffalo Bill' was impersonated by J.B.Studley, an excellent actor, and I must say the fellow looked like me, as his make-up was a perfect picture of myself.