And I will be with you, friend Cody,
  My weight will go in with the boys;
I shared all their hardships last winter,
  I shared all their sorrows and joys;
Tell them I’m coming, friend William,
  I trust I will meet you ere long;
Regards to the boys in the mountains;
  Yours, ever; in friendship still strong.

Jack was a new man in the country, but evidently had plenty of nerve and pluck, as he had brought dispatches from Fort Fetterman, a distance of 300 miles through a dangerous Indian country.  The dispatches were for General Crook, and notified him that General Terry was to operate with a large command south of the Yellowstone, and that the two commands would probably consolidate somewhere on the Rosebud.

Jack at once hunted me up and gave me a letter from General Sheridan, informing me that he had appointed him (Jack) as one of the scouts.

While we were conversing, Jack informed me that he had brought me a present from Colonel Jones of Cheyenne, and that he had it in his saddle-pockets.  Asking the nature of the gift, he replied that it was only a bottle of good whiskey.

I placed my hand over his mouth and told him to keep still, and not to whisper it even to the winds, for there were too many dry men around us; and only when alone with him did I dare to have him take the treasure from his saddle-pockets.

In this connection I may remark that Jack Crawford is the only man I have ever known that could have brought that bottle of whiskey through without accident befalling it, for he is one of the very few teetotal scouts I ever met.

Not wishing to have a game of “whiskey solitaire,” I invited General Carr to sample the bottle with me.  We soon found a secluded spot, and dismounting, we thought we were going to have a nice little drink all by ourselves, when who should ride up but Mr. Lathrop, the Reporter of the Associated Press of the Pacific slope—­to whom we had given the name of the “Death Rattler,”—­and who was also known in San Francisco as “the man with the iron jaw,” he having, with the true nose of a Reporter, smelt the whiskey from afar off, and had come to “interview” it.  He was a good fellow withal, and we were glad to have him join us.

Now to resume:  For two or three days we pushed on, but we did not seem to gain much on the Indians, as they were evidently making about the same marches that we were.  On the fourth or fifth morning of our pursuit, I rode ahead of the command about ten miles, and mounting a hill I scanned the country far and wide with my field glass, and discovered an immense column of dust rising about ten miles further down the creek, and soon I noticed a body of men marching towards me, that at first I believed to be the Indians of whom we were in pursuit; but subsequently they proved to be General Terry’s command.  I sent back word to that effect to General Crook, by a scout who had accompanied me, but after he had departed I observed a band of Indians on the opposite side of the creek, and also another party directly in front of me.  This led me to believe that I had made a mistake.