Mr. J. Clinton Hall, manager of the Rochester Opera House, was very anxious to have me play an engagement at his theatre.  I agreed to open the season with him as soon as I had got my drama written; and I did so, meeting with an enthusiastic reception.

My new drama was arranged for the stage by J.V.  Arlington, the actor.  It was a five-act play, without head or tail, and it made no difference at which act we commenced the performance.  Before we had finished the season several newspaper critics, I have been told, went crazy in trying to follow the plot.  It afforded us, however, ample opportunity to give a noisy, rattling, gunpowder entertainment, and to present a succession of scenes in the late Indian war, all of which seemed to give general satisfaction.

From Rochester I went to New York and played a very successful engagement at the Grand Opera House under the management of Messrs. Poole and Donnelly.  Thence my route took me to all the principal cities in the Eastern, Western and Middle States, and I everywhere met with crowded houses.  I then went to the Pacific Coast, against the advice of friends who gave it as their opinion that my style of plays would not take very well in California.  I opened for an engagement of two weeks at the Bush Street Theatre, in San Francisco, at a season when the theatrical business was dull, and Ben DeBar and the Lingards were playing there to empty seats.  I expected to play to a slim audience on the opening night, but instead of that I had a fourteen hundred dollar house.  Such was my success that I continued my engagement for five weeks, and the theatre was crowded at every performance.  Upon leaving San Francisco I made a circuit of the interior towns and closed the season at Virginia City, Nevada.

On my way East, I met my family at Denver, where they were visiting my sisters Nellie and May who were then residing there.

Some time previously I had made arrangements to go into the cattle business in company with my old friend, Major Frank North, and while I was in California he had built our ranches on the South Fork of the Dismal river, sixty-five miles north of North Platte, in Nebraska.  Proceeding to Ogalalla, the headquarters of the Texas cattle drovers, I found Major North there awaiting me, and together we bought, branded and drove to our ranches, our first installment of cattle.  This occupied us during the remainder of the summer.

Leaving the cattle in charge of Major North, I visited Red Cloud Agency early in the fall, and secured some Sioux Indians to accompany me on my theatrical tour of 1877-78.  Taking my family and the Indians with me, I went directly to Rochester.  There I left my oldest daughter, Arta, at a young ladies’ seminary, while my wife and youngest child traveled with me during the season.

I opened at the Bowery Theatre, New York, September 3d, 1877, with a new Border Drama entitled, “May Cody, or Lost and Won,” from the pen of Major A.S.  Burt, of the United States army.  It was founded on the incidents of the “Mountain Meadow Massacre,” and life among the Mormons.  It was the best drama I had yet produced, and proved a grand success both financially and artistically.  The season of 1877-78 proved to be the most profitable one I had ever had.