Custer swung around to the captain, who had just ridden up, and repeated to him my instructions as to how to reach the fort. "I shall ride ahead with Cody," he added. "Now, Cody, I am ready for you and that mouse-colored mule."
The pace I set for General Custer from that time forward was "some going." When we rode up to the quarters of Captain Daingerfield Parker, commandant of the post, General Custer dismounted, and his horse was led off to the stables by an orderly, while I went to the scouts' quarters. I was personally sure that my mule was well cared for, and he was fresh as a daisy the next morning.
After an early breakfast I groomed and saddled my mule, and, riding down to the general's quarters, waited for him to appear. I saluted as he came out, and said that if he had any further orders I was ready to carry them out.
"I am not feeling very pleasant this morning, Cody," he said. "My horse died during the night."
I said I was very sorry his animal got into too fast a class the day before.
"Well," he replied, "hereafter I will have nothing to say against a mule. We will meet again on the Plains. I shall try to have you detailed as my guide, and then we will have time to talk over that race."
A few days after my return to Fort Hays the Indians made a raid on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, killing five or six men and running off a hundred or more horses and mules. The news was brought to the commanding officer, who immediately ordered Major Arms, of the Tenth Cavalry, to go in pursuit of the raiders. The Tenth Cavalry was a negro regiment. Arms took a company, with one mountain howitzer, and I was sent along as scout.
On the second day out we discovered a large party of Indians on the opposite side of the Saline River, and about a mile distant. The party was charging down on us and there was no time to lose. Arms placed his howitzer on a little knoll, limbered it up, and left twenty men to guard it. Then, with the rest of the command, he crossed the river to meet the redskins.
Just as he had got his men across the stream we heard a terrific shouting. Looking back toward the knoll where the gun had been left, we saw our negro gun-guard flying toward us, pursued by more than a hundred Indians. More Indians were dancing about the gun, although they had not the slightest notion what to do with it.
Arms turned back with his command and drove the redskins from their useless prize. The men dismounted and took up a position there.