. Taking carriages, we all drove to South
Leavenworth to the home of my sister Eliza, who had married George Myers,
and there we were given a very handsome reception. All this cheered up my
wife, who concluded that I was not a desperado after all.

Having promised my wife that I would abandon the plains, I rented a hotel
in Salt Creek Valley--the same house by the way, which my mother had
formerly kept, but which was then owned by Dr. J.J. Crook, late surgeon
of the 7th Kansas. This hotel I called the Golden Rule House, and I kept
it until the next September. People generally said I made a good
landlord, and knew how to run a hotel--a business qualification which, it
is said, is possessed by comparatively few men. But it proved too tame
employment for me, and again I sighed for the freedom of the plains.
Believing that I could make more money out West on the frontier than I
could at Salt Creek Valley, I sold out the Golden Rule House, and started
alone for Saline, Kansas, which was then the end of the track of the
Kansas Pacific railway, which was at that time being built across the
plains. On my way I stopped at Junction City, where I again met my old
friend Wild Bill, who was scouting for the government; his headquarters
being at Fort Ellsworth, afterwards called Fort Harker. He told me that
they needed more scouts at this post, and I accordingly accompanied him
to that fort, where I had no difficulty in obtaining employment.

During the winter of 1866-67, I scouted between Fort Ellsworth and Fort
Fletcher. In the spring of 1867 I was at Fort Fletcher, when General
Custer came out to go on an Indian expedition with General Hancock. I
remained at this post until it was drowned out by the heavy floods of Big
Creek, on which it was located; the water rose about the fortifications
and rendered the place unfit for occupancy; so the government abandoned
the fort, and moved the troops and supplies to a new post--which had been
named Fort Hays--located further west, on the south fork of Big Creek. It
was while scouting in the vicinity of Fort Hays that I had my first ride
with the dashing and gallant Custer, who had come up to the post from
Fort Ellsworth with an escort of only ten men. He wanted a guide to pilot
him to Fort Larned, a distance of sixty-five miles across the country.

I was ordered by the commanding officer to guide General Custer to his
desired destination, and I soon received word from the General that he
w