I noticed that my uncle and several elderly gentlemen stuck to the road and kept at a more moderate gait. The eyes of the spectators were all on me. I don't know what they expected me to do, but at any rate they were disappointed. To their manifest disgust I stayed with the people on the road.
Shortly we came to a tavern and I went in and nerved myself with a stiff drink, also I had a bottle filled with liquid courage, which I took along with me. Just by way of making a second fiasco impossible I took three more drinks while I was in the bar, then I galloped away and soon overtook the hunters.
The first trail of the hounds had proved false. Two miles further on they struck a true trail and away they went at full cry. I had now got used to the saddle and the gait of my horse. I also had prepared myself in the tavern for any course of action that might offer.
The M.F.H. began taking stone walls and hedges and I took every one that he did. Across the country we went and nothing stopped or daunted me until the quarry was brought to earth. I was in at the death and was given the honor of keeping the brush.
At two o'clock that afternoon I took my departure for the West. Mr. Frank Thompson, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who had ridden my famous buffalo horse, Buckskin Joe, on the great hunt, sent me to Chicago in his own private car.
At the station in Chicago I was met with orders from General Sheridan to continue straight ahead to Fort McPherson as quickly as possible. The expedition was waiting for me.
At Omaha a party of my friends took me off the train and entertained me until the departure of the next train. They had heard of my evening clothes and insisted on my arraying myself therein for their benefit. My trunk was taken to the Paxton Hotel and I put on the clawhammer and all that went with it. About fifty of my Omaha friends accompanied me to the train; in my silk hat and evening dress I was an imposing spectacle. But I expected to change into my Plains clothes as soon as I got into the car. However, these plans were sadly upset. Both my friends and I had forgotten my trunk, which in the hour of my greatest need was still reposing in a room in the Paxton Hotel, while in clothes fit only for a banquet I was speeding over the Plains to a possible Indian fight.
At Fort McPherson, my old friend, "Buffalo Chips," was waiting for me. He had been left behind by General Reynolds to tell me to overtake the command as soon as possible. He had brought out old Buckskin Joe for me to ride.
The expedition was already well on its way north into the Loup country and had camped at Pawnee Springs, about eight miles from McPherson Station, the night before.
Poor old Buffalo Chips almost fell dead when he saw how I was dressed. The hat especially filled him with amazement and rage, but there was nothing else to do. I had to go as I was or go not at all.