"Billy," he said, "I want you to send two good men to Fort Ellsworth with dispatches, where they can be forwarded to Fort Riley, the end of the telegraph line. After your men are rested they can return to Fort Zarrah and join us." When the two men were instructed by the General and were on their way, he took me into his tent.
"I want to go to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River," he said, "then to Fort St. Barine, on the Platte, and then to Laramie; after that we will go to Cottonwood Springs, then to Fort Kearney and then to Leavenworth. Can you guide me on that trip?"
I told him that I could, and was made guide, chief of scouts, and master of transportation, acting with an army officer as quartermaster.
At Bent's Fort another council of two days was held with the Indians. The journey homeward was made without difficulty. At Leavenworth I took leave of one of the noblest and kindest-hearted men I have ever known. In bidding me good-by, General Sherman said:
"I don't think these councils we have held will amount to much. There was no sincerity in the Indians' promises. I will see that the promises we made to them are carried out to the letter, but when the grass grows in the spring they will be, as usual, on the warpath. As soon as the regular army is organized it will have to be sent out here on the border to quell fresh Indian uprisings, because these Indians will give us no peace till they are thoroughly thrashed."
The General thanked me for my services, and told me he was very lucky to find me. "It is not possible that I will be with the troops when they come," he said. "They will be commanded by General Philip Sheridan. You will like Sheridan. He is your kind of a man. I will tell him about you when I see him. I expect to hear great reports of you when you are guiding the United States army over the Plains, as you have so faithfully guided me. The quartermaster has instructions to pay you at the rate of $150 a month, and as a special reward I have ordered that you be paid $2000 extra. Good-by! I know you will have good luck, for you know your business."
After the departure of General Sherman I made a brief visit to my sisters in Salt Creek Valley, and for a time, there being no scouting work to do, drove stage between Plum Creek and Fort Kearney.
I was still corresponding with Miss Frederici, the girl I had left behind me in St. Louis. My future seemed now secure, so I decided that it was high time I married and settled down, if a scout can ever settle down. So, surrendering my stage job, I returned to Leavenworth and embarked for St. Louis by boat. After a week's visit at the home of my fiancée we were quietly married at her home. I made, I suppose, rather a wild-looking groom. My brown hair hung down over my shoulders, and I had just started a little mustache and goatee. I was dressed in the Western fashion, and my appearance was, to say the least, unusual. We were married at eleven o'clock in the morning, and took the steamer Morning Star at two in the afternoon for our honeymoon journey home.
As we left our carriages and entered the steamer, my wife's father and mother and a number of friends accompanying us, I noticed that I was attracting considerable excited attention. A number of people, men and women, were on the deck. As we passed I heard them whispering:
"There he is! That's him! I'd know him in the dark!"