I thought it would be a grand thing to become half owner of a town, and at once accepted the proposition.  We hired a railroad engineer to survey the town site and stake it into lots.  Also we ordered a big stock of the goods usually kept in a general merchandise store on the frontier.  This done, we gave the town the ancient and historical name of Rome.  As a starter we donated lots to anyone who would build on them, reserving for ourselves the corner lots and others which were best located.  These reserved lots we valued at two hundred and fifty dollars each.

When the town was laid out I wrote my wife that I was worth $250,000, and told her I wanted her to get ready to come to Ellsworth by rail.  She was then visiting her parents at St. Louis, with our baby daughter whom we had named Arta.

I was at Ellsworth to meet her when she arrived, bringing the baby.  Besides three or four wagons, in which the supplies for the new general store and furniture for the little house I had built were loaded, I had a carriage for her and the baby.  The new town of Rome was a hundred miles west.  I knew that it would be a dangerous trip, as the Indians had long been troublesome along the railroad, and I realized the danger more fully because of the presence of my wife and little daughter.

A number of immigrants bound for the new town accompanied us.

The first night out I formed the men into a company, one squad to stand watch while the others slept.  All the early part of the evening I went the rounds of the camp, much to my wife’s annoyance.

“Why are you away so much?” she kept asking.  “It is lonesome here, and I need you.”

Rather than let her know of my uneasiness about the Indians, I told her I was trying to sell lots to the men while they were en route.  As the night wore on and everything seemed quiet I prepared to get a little rest.  I did not take my clothes off, and, much to my wife’s surprise, slept with my rifle and revolvers close by me.  I had just dropped off to sleep when I heard shots, and knew they could mean nothing but Indians.

The attacking party was small and we were fully prepared.  When they discovered this they fired a few shots and galloped away.

The second night was almost a repetition of the first.  After another party had been repulsed, Mrs. Cody asked me if I had brought her and the baby out on the Plains to be killed.

“This is the kind of a life I lead every day and get fat on it,” I said.  But she did not seem to think it especially congenial.

Everybody turned out to greet us when we arrived in Rome.  Even the gambling-hall houses and the dance-halls closed in our honor.  The next day we moved into our little house.  That night there was a veritable fusillade of revolver shots outside the window.

“What is that?” asked Mrs. Cody.

“Just a serenade,” I said.

“Are yon firing blank cartridges?”