The Far West was to remain at Glendive overnight.  General Miles wanted a scout to go at once with messages for General Terry, and I was selected for the job.  That night I rode seventy-five miles through the Bad Lands of the Yellowstone.  I reached General Terry’s camp the next morning, after having nearly broken my neck a dozen times or more.

Anyone who has seen that country in the daytime knows that it is not exactly the kind of a place one would pick out for pleasure riding.  Imagine riding at night, over such a country, filled with almost every imaginable obstacle to travel, and without any real roads, and you can understand the sort of a ride I had that night.  I was mighty glad to see the dawn break, and to be able to pick my way a little more securely, although I could not increase the pace at which I had driven my horse through the long, dark night.

There was no present prospect of carrying this out, however.  After I had taken lunch, General Terry asked me if I would carry some dispatches to General Whistler, and I replied that I would be glad to do so.  Captain Smith, Terry’s aide-de-camp, offered me his horse, and I was glad to accept the animal, as my own was pretty well spent.  He proved to be a fine mount.  I rode him forty miles that night in four hours, reaching General Whistler’s steamboat at four in the morning.  When Whistler had read the dispatches I handed him he said: 

“Cody, I want to send information to General Terry concerning the Indians that have been skirmishing around here all day.  I have been trying to induce some member in my command to carry them, but no one wants to go.”

“Get your dispatches ready, general,” I replied, “and I’ll take them.”

He went into his quarters and came out presently with a package, which he handed me.  I mounted the same horse which had brought me, and at eight o’clock that evening reached Terry’s headquarters, just as his force was about to march.

As soon as Terry had read the dispatches he halted his command, which was already under way.  Then he rode on ahead to overtake General Crook, with whom he held a council.  At General Terry’s urgent request I accompanied him on a scout for Dry Fork, on the Missouri.  We marched three days, a little to the east of north.  When we reached the buffalo range we discovered some fresh Indian signs.  The redskins had been killing buffalo, and the evidences of their work were very plain.  Terry now called on me to carry dispatches to Colonel Rice, who was still encamped at the mouth of Glendive Creek on the Yellowstone.  This was about eighty miles distant.

Night had set in with a storm.  A drizzling rain was falling, which made the going slippery, and made the blackness of the Western Plains still blacker.  I was entirely unacquainted with the section of the country through which I was to ride.  I therefore traveled all night and remained in seclusion in the daytime.  I had too many plans for the future to risk a shot from a hostile redskin who might be hunting white men along my way.