When we reached Council Grove, then the gateway of the border settlements, we felt as if we were really getting back into "God's country." As we passed the place where we had had the controversy with the jayhawkers, we stopped a little while to have a chat with the old storekeeper and told him the disposition we had made of the black horse. He had never heard of any owner of the horse and did not think it probable that Wild Bill would ever be disturbed in his possession of him. He had heard nothing more concerning the jayhawkers after they were gobbled up by the soldiers and taken to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth.
When we reached Leavenworth City, we again put up at Ned Welch's boarding-house, on Seneca Street, and our team at Jim Brown's stable.
A few days later, on the arrival of Mr. Kitchen's train, we transferred our team and camp outfit to him, as per agreement, divided up the cash proceeds of our expedition, and the wolf hunters disbanded, promising to keep track of each other in the future by correspondence.
Then Jack and Tom started East, intending to travel together as far as Pennsylvania.
I parted with my dear comrades with sincere regret, fearing that in the vicissitudes of the great war then getting under good headway, I might never see them again.
When next I heard from Jack he had re-enlisted and was back in the old company again. In the war he did gallant service and received some honorable scars, re-enlisted again after the war and in his last enlistment took service in the Seventh Cavalry, and was one of the last remnant of that doomed band who with their gallant leader met a heroic death on that fatal knoll by the Little Big Horn River on Sunday, June 25, 1876. With few serious faults, and many virtues, our untutored, wild Irishman was a brave, unselfish, and manly man.
Tom carried out his plan of using his money for the benefit of his widowed sister and her children on the little farm in Pennsylvania, saw them comfortably fixed, and then went to Washington, where, through the influence of army officers who had known him in the service he obtained a commission as captain in a volunteer cavalry regiment, soon rose to be colonel of the regiment, and at the close of the war was a brevet brigadier-general, commanding a brigade.
He had hoped when the war ended to obtain a commission in the regular army, but his wounds so far disabled him as to unfit him for active service in the regulars. He was, therefore, compelled to accept a pension and retired to the little farm to try to content himself with the dull life of citizen.
After years of perilous adventures and desperate encounters on the frontier, Wild Bill was finally assassinated in the city of Deadwood, South Dakota, by a wretched gambler.
And I? Well, of course, I married "the girl I left behind me" in Leavenworth City, for which piece of wisdom—or good fortune—I have always congratulated myself. After getting married I took service with Uncle Sam as a wagon-master, in which capacity I served through the Civil War, in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Nation.