Chapter III: Preface

After many years, the solicitation of friends and early associates moved the subject of this volume to consent to the publication of such of his experiences on the frontier as he believed might be of interest to those persons who find pleasure in reading of the perils and hardships encountered in those far-off days by men and women who forsook the comforts of more civilized surroundings to risk their lives in making habitable the wilderness.

The pioneers themselves were not inclined to feel that their exploits were so extraordinary as to be of use in the making of books. Their long abode in silent places made them taciturn; and their lack of liberal knowledge of the rules of writing and their unwillingness to risk the appearance of conceit left them reluctant to relate their adventures for the printed page.

Posterity, however, has a claim upon these fore-runners that may not be lightly thrust aside. The history of this struggle to subdue the wild places should be preserved and can be gathered only from the lips of the records of participants. In a few years the latter will have all vanished, as the frontier itself has faded into a memory. From camp fire tales have grown the legends of heroes.

"I fear," said "Billy" Dixon, half humorously, "that the conquest of savagery in the Southwest was due more often to love of adventure than to any wish that cities should arise in the desert, or that the highways of civilization should take the place of the trails of the Indian and the buffalo. In fact, many of us believed and hoped that the wilderness would remain forever. Life there was to our liking. Its freedom, its dangers, its tax upon strength and courage, gave a zest to living especially to young men, unapproached by anything to be found in civilized communities. Therefore, let it be said that if there was bravery and heroism, it came less by design than it did from the emergencies of accident and surroundings, and that usually it was spontaneous."

Though a taciturn man, Mr. Dixon made strong friendships and entertained the warmest affection for the men with whom he had been associated in pioneer days. Mr. W. B. ("Bat") Masterson, writing lately from New York City, said in an appreciative letter:

"I first became acquainted with Billy Dixon on the buffalo range in the fall of 1872 and continued to know him well and intimately for several years thereafter. The last time I saw him was at Sweetwater, a small hamlet just off the Military Reservation at Fort Elliott, Texas, then called Cantonment, in the spring of 1876.

"Billy Dixon was a typical frontiersman of the highest order. The perils and hardships of border life were exactly suited to his stoical and imperturbable nature. This does not mean that Billy was not a kind-hearted, generous and hospitable man, for he possessed all these admirable qualities to a high degree but he was cool, calculating and uncommunicative at all times.

"I was with Billy in the fight at Adobe Walls in June, 1874, between the buffalo-hunters and that fierce band of warriors composed of the best fighting men of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Comanche and Kiowa tribes, numbering fully one thousand braves. Billy and I occupied the same window the first day of the battle and I hope we did our share in the fight. Billy was an extraordinary fine shot with a buffalo-gun and he never overlooked an opportunity that first day to demonstrate his unerring aim whenever and wherever an Indian showed his head. We were scouts together afterwards in General Miles' command which left Fort Dodge, Kansas in the early part of August, the same year, for the Panhandle country where the hostiles were assembled in great numbers. While I was not with him, I am quite familiar with all the details of the fight in the buffalo wallow on the north bank of the Washita River in which Billy and Amos Chapman and four soldiers stood off a large band of hostiles for an entire day. It was largely due to Billy's heroism on that occasion that the party was saved from complete annihilation."

The publication of this volume was decided upon in the fall of 1912. Mr. Dixon was in vigorous health, and became greatly interested in the undertaking. His memory was remarkable for its tenacity, which enabled him to recall the past with ease and accuracy.

At our home on our claim in Cimarron County, I took down from his dictation the greater and the essential part of the present narrative. I kept note-books in every room, and sometimes carried them to the corral, that I might be in readiness to set down what my husband might say as he was moved by reflection or inquiry to talk of the past. Many of his pioneer friends learned of his plans, and encouraged him to persevere until the work should be accomplished. The material grew until there was an armful of manuscript, and the ground had been fairly covered.

Little did we suspect that Death--the enemy from whom he had escaped so many times in the old days--was at hand, and that the arrow was set to the bow. During a winter storm early in 1913 he was suddenly stricken. He went unwillingly and complainingly to his bed, regretting that what he believed was a trivial illness should pull down a man who never before had known a day's sickness. Pneumonia developed, and he expired March 9, 1913, insisting with his last breath that he would recover. Interment took place in the cemetery at Texline, Texas, under the auspices of the local Masonic Lodge. Mr. Dixon for many years had been a consistent member of that order.

In the publication of this volume, I wish to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Frederick S. Barde, of Guthrie, Oklahoma, who compiled the manuscript and carried the book through the press, and also to those pioneers of the Panhandle, Mr. Chas. Goodnight and Mr. James H. Cator, friends of many years, whose counsel and suggestions were helpful in many ways.

MRS. OLIVE DIXON.

Life of "Billy" Dixon