They were tired and sleepy; they were homesick and in bad temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse and swear in rough and bitter speech.  Then there came on the most awful thunder storm I ever witnessed.  Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our corral of train-wagons.  Crashing peals of thunder were in the air, and the bolts seemed to descend to the earth around us.  Then there came down a flood of rain that was as if a water spout had burst above our heads.  I looked out from my narrow bed, and could see the boys gathered in groups, standing leaning against their wagons, soaked to the skin, and their faces white with ghastly paleness; but not a word was spoken.  They had forgotten to swear.  Then there was a lull in the storm, which subsided into a drizzling cold rain, and I went to sleep.

When morning came we were a sorry looking lot.  The boys were soaked, and chilled, and blue, and dreadfully homesick.  Words would not tell what these poor fellows would have given if they could have been where they could have been coddled and petted by their mothers and sisters.  I saw that a warm cup of coffee and a substantial breakfast would do them good, and I hastened to have it provided.  They came with alacrity at the call for breakfast, for they were hungry.  When a good square meal had somewhat thawed them out, I said, “Boys, what made you quit swearing last night?” The one who was usually their spokesman, and who knew how to be a gentleman if he had a mind to be, said reverently, “We were afraid.”  From this time forward our debates over slavery and the Southern Confederacy were at an end, or if we had them it was in a friendly way.  Given a fair chance, these boys were not so bad as they seemed.

In the summer of 1864 we had reached the “Cutoff,” and were within eighty miles of Denver.  It was late on Saturday afternoon when we got to the Bijou Ranch.  We were tired and our teams were tired, and we debated for some time whether we should drive ten miles further, where we would find better feed for our oxen.  We did so, though it took us till midnight; and there we rested on Sunday.  This was providential; for it was on this Sunday that the Cheyenne Indians made their memorable raid and plundered the trains, burned the ranches and stole the horses for three hundred miles along the Platte River.  They attacked the Bijou Station that we had left on Saturday, but they did not venture any nearer Denver; consequently we were safe.  On our return we saw how the people had been murdered, the trains plundered and the ranches burned along our route; and it presented a terrible spectacle.  A man named Butler was killed and scalped on the Little Blue River, and the people in Kansas got the word that it was myself.