Returning to Ogallala I purchased from Bill Phant, an extensive cattle drover from Texas, a herd of cattle, which I drove to my ranch on the Dismal river, after which I bade my partner and the boys good-bye, and started for the Indian Territory to procure Indians for my Dramatic Combination for the season of 1878-79.

En route to the Territory, I paid a long promised visit to my sisters, Julia—­Mrs. J.A.  Goodman—­and Eliza—­Mrs. George M. Myers—­who reside in Kansas, the state which the reader will remember was my boyhood home.

Having secured my Indian actors, and along with them Mr. O. A. Burgess, a government interpreter, and Ed. A. Burgess, known as the “Boy Chief of the Pawnees,” I started for Baltimore, where I organized my combination, and which was the largest troupe I had yet had on the road; opening in that city at the Opera House, under the management of Hon. John T. Ford, and then started on a southern tour, playing in Washington, Richmond and as far south as Savannah, Georgia, where we were brought to a sudden halt, owing to the yellow fever which was then cruelly raging in the beautiful cities of the “Land of the cotton and the cane.”

[Illustration:  ONE OF THE TROUPE.]

While playing in Washington, I suddenly learned from a reporter—­Washington newspaper men know everything—­that my Indians were to be seized by the Government and sent back to their agency.  Finding that there was foundation for the rumor, I at once sought General Carl Shurz, Secretary of the Interior, and asked him if he intended depriving me of my Indian actors.  He said that he did, as the Indians were away from their reservation without leave.  I answered that I had had Indians with me the year before and nothing had been said about it; but Commissioner Haight replied that the Indians were the “wards of the government,” and were not allowed off of their reservation.

I told the Commissioner that the Indians were frequently off of their reservations out west, as I had a distinct remembrance of meeting them upon several occasions “on the war path,” and furthermore I thought I was benefitting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.

After a conversation with the Secretary of the Interior, the Commissioner concluded to allow me to retain the Indians, by appointing me Indian Agent, provided I would give the necessary bonds, and pledge myself to return them in safety to their agency—­which terms I agreed to.

From Savannah, Georgia, having changed my route on account of the yellow fever, I jumped my entire company to Philadelphia, and at once continued on a north-eastern tour, having arranged with the well-known author and dramatist, Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, to write a play for me.