A Hellion If
Ever There Was One
An Out-of-the-Industry Feature
By ROBERT M. HY A IT
With the cunning of an Indian, the girl
crept across the hot rocks, holding her rifle.
The morning sunlight was coppery on her
hair. She crawled to the top of a low
ridge, eased up behind a rock and lay still.
With utmost caution she peered around the
rock into the valley below.
She tensed, her eyes narrowed to sharp
alertness. For a full minute she studied the
Sioux Indian camp. Then, just as carefully,
she crept back down the ridge and leaped
into her saddle.
She raced toward the company of U. S.
Cavalry riding toward her over the shim·
mering prairie-the outfit for which she
worked as a scout.
Captain Pat Egan spurred his horse
ahead of his troopers. There was deep
concern on his Irish face.
"What is it, Jane?"
"A band of Sioux. About two hundred
lodges."
"That means about five hundred war-
riors," Egan said. "We'll charge 'em-
catch 'em by surprise!"
The captain turned away and by a sweep
of his hand ordered his company of two
hundred cavalrymen to deploy into a line
of charge. Jane wheeled her mount and fell
in with the troopers.
Silently the soldiers moved forward until
they were fanned out behind the hilltop.
Then the captain signalled to the bugler.
The sharp pulsating blast to charge rang
out on the still air.
Sabers flashed, hooves thundered. Over
the hill and down upon that horde of yell·
ing Indians galloped the cavalrymen. The
Sioux, fearles and savage fighters, rushed
to meet their enemies.
The fighting was fierce and bloody. Red-
skins went down, screaming their death
cries. A dozen oldiers were shot from their
saddles.
Jane was in the midst of the slaughter,
firing her Krag with deadly accuracy.
While reloading, a warrior snatched her
bridle reins, then lunged for her with a
knife. Jane swung and smashed the buck
under the chin with her rifle·butt. A big
trooper fighting next to her whipped his
saber across the Indian's skull, felling him.
The ba ttle spread out. Captain Egan sig-
nalled for the company to swing from the
scene of the fray, into the hills, and again
charge the Sioux. The soldiers obeyed the
command. Egan himself was slow in riding
off with his troopers. As a result, he was
left alone, almost surrounded by the Sioux.
The yelling horde charged him, shot his
horse from under him. The horse fell and
pinned him to the ground. An Indian imme·
diately made a dive for the helpless officer.
At this moment Jane glanced back and
saw the captain's predicament. She whirled
her horse and raced to his aid. As she
came up, the savage was swinging a long
knife to slit Egan's throat. Jane shot him
dead, then reached down and helped the
officer from under his horse. Egan sprang
up behind the girl, and together they raced
for safety.
Captain Egan, when they reached their
ranks, said to Jane, "You're a mighty won-
derful person to have around in times of
calamity!" It was a momentous statement.
This daring girl-Martha Jane Canary-
was born in Princeton, Missouri, May 1,
1852. Her parents, Bob and Charlotte Ca·
nary, were pretty wild. Bob dealt cards in
gambling halls. Charlotte was a dancer
in rough mining camps. As a consequence,
Jane and her two younger sisters didn' t
have much home life.
Jane ran away from home when she was
fifteen, taking a job as waitress and maid
in Green River, Wyoming. It was during
this time that a side of her character,
which was to show itself at various times
during her hectic life, revealed itself. An
epidemic of what frontier doctors called
"black diphtheria" struck the country. Jane
ignored the dangers of contagion and im-
periled her life by nursing the victims of
the dreadful disease.
Shortly after this, she strode into a sa-
loon where two tenderfeet were drinking
beer and laughingly telling the bartender
that they thought the West was a pretty
tame place. Jane drew a sixgun and shot
the hat off one of the pilgrims. When the
other indignantly remonstrated with her,
she made him dance a jig by firing a bar-
rage of shots at his feet!
Jane got tipsy one time in Sheridan,
Wyoming, and shot up the town. She came
near killing a sheepherder and the town
marshall. The anxious citizens took up a
collection and paid her fare to Newcastle
to get rid of her.
Although Jane Canary became quite no·
torious as a dance hall girl in various fron-
tier towns, this life was too dull for her.
She craved excitement, thrills. So she
turned her hand to employment that no
woman had ever before or has since tried.
At different times she was a bull·whacker
on freight wagons that rolled through hos-
tile Indian country; a section hand helping
to build the Union Pacific railroad; a trap-
per and prospector; a scout and Indian
fighter; and, some said, a very efficient
road agent, or outlaw.
Frequently her employers didn't know
that she was a girl, or they wouldn't have
hired her. When wearing buckskin pants
and coat and a brace of sixguns, she could
pose as a man and easily get away with it.
Jane was a scout for General Crook duro
ing his campaign against the Sioux. She
fough t in most of the battles. She scouted
along the Rosebud, and carried messages
across the plains from Crook to Terry, and
from Crook to Custer.
It was only by an accident that she was
saved from being with General Custer when
he and his entire command were massa-
cred on the Littl e Big Horn. W hile trying
to reach Custer wi th important dispatches,
she swam her horse across the P latte River
in flood, and was stricken with pneumonia.
She tu rned back to Fort Fetterman, and
while she was laid up in the hospital there,
Custer made his now famous last stand.
In 1878, a disastrous epidemic of diph-
theria swept through South Dakota mining
and freighting camps. Jane Canary was
there at the time. Again she became a
nurse. Men by the scores lay stricken in
their cabins. No one would go near them,
for fear of contracting the dread malady.
But Jane wasn't afraid of disease, Indians
or anythi'ng else.
Day and night, during the t errible
plague, she ministered to the sick men,
bathed them, wrote letters, comforted the
dying.
Not long after this she was arrested and
brought before a justice of the peace for
picking a man's pocket of thirty dollars in
a dance hall. Jane blushed innocently and
glibly explained that the money was needed
to send a dance hall girl to the hospital.
She was released with the court's apolo·
gies.
Jane rode with Wild Bill Hickok into
Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876. She
liked the town and was to call it home for
the remainder of her life. Wild Bill spent
his time gambling, while Jane found ex-
citement in such things as riding into iso-
lated settlements to warn of Indian upris·
ings, and of helping Colorado Charlie and
Bloody Dick Seymour fight off a gang of
road agents who tried to rob the stage on
which they were passengers.
When Jack McCall slipped up behind
Wild Bill and sent a bullet through his
head, Jane hunted down the assassin. She
found him in a butcher store cowering
behind a side of beef. She grabbed a meat
cleavor and would have beaten McCall's
brains out if a posse hadn't come upon the
scene. The murderer later was hanged for
his crime.
So much had been written about the wild
exploits of this amazing girl that in her
later years she was a natronal figure. She
was persuaded to go into the show busi-
ness and capitalize on her fame. But being
badly managed, the venture was unsuccess-
ful. Jane went broke, and it was Buffalo
Bill Cody who paid her fare back to Dead·
wood.
On an August day in 1903, Jane was
taken sick in a barroom. Friends took her
home and put her to bed. She became
worse, and talked deliriously of the past-
her dance hall days, her Indian fights, her
scouting expeditions for the U. S. Army.
She regained consciousness once, spoke
to the group of friends hovering around
her bed. She said, "I want you to bury me
by Wild Bill Hickok's side."
Thus died one of America's most aston·
ishing characters - Martha Jane Canary,
better known as Calamity Jane.
•
Bennett Posses
In Arizono
PHOENIX, Ariz.-Ben V. Bennett, head
of Bennett's Music Co., passed away here
on September 20th. Bennett was one of
the largest operators and distributors of
coin·controlled equipment in Arizona and
New Mexico.
The Bennett Co. will continue to do busi·
ness as in the past and will carry the same
exclusive distributorship in the future, ac·
cordi'ng to an announcement made the first
of October.
•
COIH
MACHIHE
REVIEW
11
FOR
OCTOBER
7947