"Booth," said he in the evening, "let's not take a great lumbering ambulance on this trip; if you will get a good way-up team of mules from the quartermaster, we'll use my light rig, and we'll do our own driving."
To this proposition Booth readily assented, procured the mules, and, as it turned out, they were a "good way-up team."
Hallowell had a set of bows fitted to his light wagon, over which was thrown an army-wagon-sheet, drawn up behind with a cord, similar to those of the ordinary emigrant outfit to be seen daily on the roads of the Western prairies. A round hole was necessarily left in the rear end, serving the purpose of a lookout.
Two grip-sacks, containing their dress uniforms, a box of crackers and cheese, meat and sardines, together with a bottle of anti-snake bite, made up the principal freight for the long journey, and in the clear cold of the early morning they rolled out of the gates of the fort, escorted by Company L, of the Eleventh Kansas, commanded by Lieutenant Van Antwerp.
The company of one hundred mounted men acting as escort was too formidable a number for the Indians, and not a sign of one was seen as the dangerous flats of Plum Creek and the rolling country beyond were successively passed, and early in the afternoon the cantonment on Walnut Creek was reached. At this important outpost Captain Conkey's command was living in a rude but comfortable sort of a way, in the simplest of dugouts, constructed along the right bank of the stream; the officers, a little more in accordance with military dignity, in tents a few rods in rear of the line of huts.
A stockade stable had been built, with a capacity for two hundred and fifty horses, and sufficient hay had been put up by the men in the fall to carry the animals through the winter.
Captain Conkey was a brusque but kind-hearted man, and with him were stationed other officers, one of whom was a son of Admiral Goldsborough. The morning after the arrival of the inspecting officers a rigid examination of all the appointments and belongings of the place was made, and, as an immense amount of property had accumulated for condemnation, when evening came the books and papers were still untouched; so that branch of the inspection had to be postponed until the next morning.
After dark, while sitting around the camp-fire, discussing the war, telling stories, etc., Captain Conkey said to Booth: "Captain, it won't require more than half an hour in the morning to inspect the papers and finish up what you have to do; why don't you start your escort out very early, so it won't be obliged to trot after the ambulance, or you to poke along with it? You can then move out briskly and make time."
Booth, acting upon what he thought at the time an excellent suggestion, in a few moments went over the creek to Lieutenant Van Antwerp's camp, to tell him that he need not wait for the wagon in the morning, but to start out early, at half-past six, in advance.
According to instructions, the escort marched out of camp at daylight next morning, while Booth and Hallowell remained to finish their inspection. It was soon discovered, however, that either Captain Conkey had underrated the amount of work to be done, or misjudged the inspecting officers' ability to complete it in a certain time; so almost three hours elapsed after the cavalry had departed before the task ended.