In the evening the Lexington folks got up a dance, but neither the Indiana people, my wife or myself were invited to join them.  My new-found friend thereupon came to me and said:  “Mr. Cody, let us have a dance of our own.”

“Very well,” was my reply.

“We have some musicians along with us, so we can have plenty of music,” remarked the gentleman.

“Good enough!” said I, “and I will hire the negro barber to play the violin for us.  He is a good fiddler, as I heard him playing only a little while ago.”  The result was that we soon organized a good string band and had a splendid dance, keeping it up as long as the Lexington party did theirs.

The second day out from St. Louis, the boat stopped to wood up, at a wild-looking landing.  Suddenly twenty horsemen were seen galloping up through the timber, and as they came nearer the boat they fired on the negro deckhands, against whom they seemed to have a special grudge, and who were engaged in throwing wood on board.  The negroes all quickly jumped on the boat and pulled in the gang plank, and the captain had only just time to get the steamer out into the stream before the bushwhackers—­for such they proved to be—­appeared on the bank.

“Where is the black abolition jay-hawker?” shouted the leader.

“Show him to us, and we’ll shoot him,” yelled another.

But as the boat had got well out in the river by this time, they could not board us, and the captain ordering a full head of steam, pulled out and left them.

I afterwards ascertained that some of the Missourians, who were with the excursion party, were bushwhackers themselves, and had telegraphed to their friends from some previous landing that I was on board, telling them to come to the landing which we had just left, and take me off.  Had the villains captured me they would have undoubtedly put an end to my career, and the public would never have had the pleasure of being bored by this autobiography.

I noticed that my wife felt grieved over the manner in which these people had treated me.  Just married, she was going into a new country, and seeing how her husband was regarded, how he had been shunned, and how his life had been threatened, I was afraid she might come to the conclusion too soon that she had wedded a “hard customer.”  So when the boat landed at Kansas City I telegraphed to some of my friends in Leavenworth that I would arrive there in the evening.  My object was to have my acquaintances give me a reception, so that my wife could see that I really did have some friends, and was not so bad a man as the bushwhackers tried to make out.

Just as I expected, when the boat reached Leavenworth, I found a general round-up of friends at the landing to receive us.  There were about sixty gentlemen and ladies.  They had a band of music with them, and we were given a fine serenade.  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.