Will made a gesture of despair. Another race on mule-back with Indians was not an inviting prospect. There were very few mules like unto his quondam mouse-colored mount. But he succumbed to the inevitable, picked out the most enterprising looking mule in the bunch, and set forth. And neither he nor the mule guessed what was in store for each of them.
At Coon Creek Will dismounted for a drink of water, and the mule embraced the opportunity to pull away, and start alone on the wagon-trail to Larned. Will did not suspect that he should have any trouble in overtaking the capricious beast, but at the end of a mile he was somewhat concerned. He had threatened and entreated, raged and cajoled. 'Twas all wasted. The mule was as deaf to prayer as to objurgation. It browsed contentedly along the even tenor of its way, so near and yet so far from the young man, who, like "panting time, toil'd after it in vain." And Larned much more than twenty miles away.
What the poet calls "the golden exhalations of the dawn" began to warm the gray of the plain. The sun was in the roots of the grass. Four miles away the lights of Larned twinkled. The only blot on a fair landscape was the mule—in the middle distance. But there was a wicked gleam in the eye of the footsore young man in the foreground.
Boom! The sunrise gun at the fort. The mule threw back its head, waved its ears, and poured forth a song of triumph, a loud, exultant bray.
Crack! Will's rifle. Down went the mule. It had made the fatal mistake of gloating over its villainy. Never again would it jeopardize the life of a rider.
It had been a thirty-five-mile walk, and every bone in Will's body ached. His shot alarmed the garrison, but he was soon on the ground with the explanation; and after turning over his dispatches, he sought his bed.
During the day General Hazen returned, under escort, from Fort Harker, with dispatches for Sheridan, and Will offered to be the bearer of them. An army mule was suggested, but he declined to again put his life in the keeping of such an animal. A good horse was selected, and the journey made without incident.
General Sheridan was roused at daylight to receive the scout's report and praised Will warmly for having undertaken and safely accomplished three such long and dangerous rides.
"In all," says General Sheridan, in his Memoirs, "Cody rode three hundred and fifty miles in less than sixty hours, and such an exhibition of endurance and courage was more than enough to convince me that his services would be extremely valuable in the campaign; so I retained him at Fort Hayes until the battalion of Fifth Cavalry arrived, and then made him chief of scouts for that regiment."