So, giving up forever any hope of wearing an officer’s shoulder-straps, I was about to turn back to the prairies to see what new opportunities for excitement offered, when a strange new call came to me.

General J.J.  Reynolds, who had just arrived at Fort McPherson with the Third Cavalry, called me into the office one day and told me that he had a letter, railroad tickets, and five hundred dollars for me.  Furthermore he informed me that a thirty days’ leave of absence was awaiting me whenever I wanted to take it.

All this was the doing of the “Millionaires’ Hunting Party,” headed by James Gordon Bennett and the Jeromes, which I had guided the year before.

I was, in short, invited to visit my former charges in New York, and provided by them with money and mileage, and leisure for the trip.

CHAPTER IX

Of course going to New York was a very serious business, and not to be undertaken lightly.  The first thing I needed was clothes, and at my direction the Post tailor constructed what I thought was the handsomest suit in the world.  Then I proceeded to buy a necktie, so that I could wear the present which had come in the little box from the Grand Duke—­a handsome scarf-pin.  The Grand Ducal overcoat and a new Stetson, added to the wardrobe I already possessed, completed my outfit.  Almost everything I had was on my back, but just the same I borrowed a little trunk of my sister, so as to impress New York with the fact that I had as many clothes as any visitor from the West.

At the last minute I decided to take along my buckskin suit.  Something told me that some of the people I had met in New York might want to know just how a scout looked in his business clothes.  Mrs. Cody was much astonished because I did not ask for my brace of pistols, which had accompanied me everywhere I had gone up to that time.

She had great confidence in these weapons, which more than once had saved my life.  She wanted to know what in the world I would do without them if I met any bad men in New York.  I told her that I supposed there were policemen in New York whose business it was to take care of such people.  Anyway, I was going to chance it.

On my arrival at Omaha I was met by a number of friends who had heard of my expected descent on New York.  They drove me at once to the United States Court, where my old friend, Judge Dundee, was on the bench.  The minute I entered the courtroom the judge rapped loudly with his gavel and said: 

“This court is adjourned while Cody is in town.”  He joined the party, and we moved on to the Paxton Hotel, where a banquet was arranged in my honor.

I left for Chicago the next day.  On arriving there, I was met at the depot by Colonel M.V.  Sheridan, brother of General Philip Sheridan, my old friend and fellow townsman.  “Mike” Sheridan, with his brother, the general, was living in a beautiful house on Michigan Avenue.  There I met a number of the old officers with whom I had served on the Plains.