Texas Jack and the scouts who were ahead had heard the noise and came galloping back.

“Welcome back, old chief!” shouted Jack, and the scouts gathered around me, shaking my hand and congratulating me on my safe return from the dangers and the perils of the East.

The general asked me how far it was to the Loup Fork.  I said it was about eight miles and offered to proceed there ahead of the command and select a good sheltered camp.  This I did.  The adjutant accompanying the detachment helped me and laid out the camping spot, and when the command pulled in they disposed themselves for the night in a beautiful grove of timber where there was plenty of firewood and good grass for the horses and mules.  Soon the tents were up and big fires were crackling all around.

I accepted with thanks General Reynolds’s invitation to mess with him on the trip.  After dinner, before a big log fire, which was being built in front of the general’s tent, the officers came up to meet me.  Among those to whom I was introduced were Colonel Anthony Mills, Major Curtiss, Major Alexander Moore, Captain Jerry Russell, Lieutenant Charles Thompson, Quartermaster Lieutenant Johnson, Adjutant Captain Minehold, and Lieutenant Lawson.  After this reception, I went down to visit the scouts in camp.  There the boys dug me up all kinds of clothes, and clothes of the Western kind I very sadly needed.

White had brought along an old buckskin suit.  When I had got this on and an old Stetson on my head, and had my favorite pair of guns strapped to me and my dear old “Lucretia Borgia” was within reach, I felt that Buffalo Bill was himself again.

The general informed me that evening that Indians had been reported on the Dismal River.  At breakfast the next morning he said that a large war party had been committing devastations up and down the flat.  His scouts had discovered their trail going north and had informed him that they would probably make camp on the Dismal.  There they were sure to be joined by other Indians.  He asked my opinion as to what had best be done.

I told him it was about twenty-five miles from the present tent to the Dismal River.  I said I had better go on, taking White with me, and try to locate them.

“I’ve heard of this man White,” said the general.  “They tell me that he is your shadow and he follows you every place you go.”  I said that this was true and that I had all I could do to keep him from following me to New York.  “It would break his heart,” I said, “if I were to leave him behind now.”  I added that Texas Jack knew the country thoroughly and that he could guide the command to a point on the Dismal River where I could meet them that night.  The general said: 

“I have been fighting the Apaches in Arizona, but I find these Sioux are an entirely different crowd.  I know little about them and I will follow your suggestions.  You start now and I will have the command following you in an hour and a half.”