After stampede--in 1865--though I was only a lad of 19 years of age, I was pressed into the United States sercvice as a scout. Jesse Eldridge, Bill's brother, and I were put on to do this duty, and we scouted from the Jim Boyd rance (Wood River Center, now Shelton) up to the South Loup River. We had a load to carry with us on our horses, for we had to be provided with a carvine, Colts, field glass, compass, nose bag, harness, rations, canteen, tin cup, kettle, and a whole outfit that weighed about sixty pounds. Often we had to carry this on our back for fifty-five miles a day, rain or shine. My father took the stage to Kearney and interviewed the quartermaster about having me relieved from this duty, and was informed that in view of Indian dangers, some other man would have to be provided. My father went to Fremont and found a man who offered to go for $2900.00 but my father didn't have ninety cents, and offered him a yoke of oxen, but he would not take it. Another fellow answered that he wasn't afraid of anything that wore hair, Indians or otherwise, and he would go for $600.00 but father couldn't do that either, so it was up to me to go. They were going to put Eldridge on the west boundary of our territory and put me on the east boundary, but he finally convinced them that it was only right the two boys to be together. They told us if we saw any "hostiles" that we should report. Anyway we were to report to Fort Kearny every Saturday night, and there to receive rations. At one time we ran across about 400 or 500 Indian tracks and immediately rode in and reported to the quartermaster. He would not believe us, but surmised it might be buffalo or elk tracks. But the Indians had evidently moved on. Three or four days after that we came up the stream towards the Bluffs on the South Loup and saw a place where the front gears of a wagon were buried in the mud and weesds, and on searching around we found the decomposed bodies of two men who had been shot. When we came down to the fort and reported this we were informed that we were not put on as an expedition to hunt up old carcasses.

It wasn't three days after that until we ran into 400 warriors and they pretty nearly got us. The north branch of Prairie Creek ran through there and there was just one place that I knew we could possibly make the crossing. The Indians came up on us near Prairie Creek, and that frightful yell of a beast in the jungle; our hair stood up on its end. We knew we had only one crossing we could make on Prairie Creek, and if we failed to make that, they would get us. The water was only two or three feet wide, but there was alkali mud and if the horses got down, good night! It was the worst place to cross imaginable, but with that pack back of us, we had to make it and God must have ruled over us or we never would have made it.

When we came to that point we couldn't say anything, and I gave my horse a whack on the hip and he gave a lunge and got over to the other bank. We just barely got across and didn't have a couple minutes to spare. We thought our time had come, and had made up our minds not to be taken in captivity, for we thought that meant to be burned at the stake. Luck was with us and we got across all right. We had such a scare. I never had such a feeling come over me before or since. Eldridge said I didn't look like myself and I assured him later I certainly didn't feel like myself. We rode into Jim Jackson's and our horses were pretty well jaded after that long exciting ride. There was a corporal stationed two miles west of Jim Jackson's and he happened to be at Jackson's postoffice and store for his mail, so we told him our story; he gave us orders to ride straight through to Fort Kearny and report it at once. We notified the settlers to be on the lookout for we didn't know whether those Indians might come on down or not. We told this corporal we didn't consider ourselves bound by his orders, even if we went to guard house. Jackson had some mules there and he said, "Boys, I will take care of your horses and you take  the  mules

and ride on and report this matter." Eldridge wasn't very fond of riding a mule. I had noticed mules hitched before, so when I got the saddle on him, I tried to mount and went up in the air. I saw five-pointed stars in every direction. Well, we went on to Kearney and reported the matter to the quartermaster's lieutenant commander, and he questioned and cross-questioned us. He wanted to know where we first saw those Indians and we told him a mile and half west of the big sand bluff (about where St. Michael is now) and he asked how many there were, and we told him about four hundred; he said, "Weren't you men just scared and imagined that many?" and I told him I didn't think so; he said, "that is a pretty big number," and asked if we counted them and I told him we didn't have time; and he insisted, how did we know there were that many. Then he asked if we would swear to it under oath that there were more than twenty-five of those Indians. We answered that if there had only been twenty-five, after we reached Prairie Creek bottom we would have held our ground and held them at bay as long as our ammunition held out, then we could have crossed Prairie Creek. He said this would be looked into and if found to be false we must take the consequences. So he detailed a sergeant and twenty of the U. S. cavalry, and they proceeded to the South Loup River; we were to meet the sargeant and his men at the big sand bluff and receive a report on what they discovered. We arrived at the big sand bluff about 11:30. At first we saw no signs and I began to fear, and then the sergeant's horse hoved in sight pretty soon. He had five soldiers with him, and the other sixteen had gone back. The sergeant said the one thing we hadn't been correct on was the number, there were 560 on paper, as they found it. So we returned, going around by Fred Evan's, that night, north of Wood River. Their horses were not used to this kind of a jaunt, for we covered about eighty miles that day, and the sergeant had never been in that country and he didn't think much of it as a country to be in. When we rode into Fort Kearny and a report was made, the quartermaster agreed there was an apology due us. We were relieved by Major Frank North, who then took charge of the territory with his Pawnee scout. We were relieved from this work and discharged. We had no regular clothing, we couldn't get money on our vouchers. They had to be endorsed and taken down by the express messenger to the First National Bank of Omahs, where they ould cash it and take 10% discount, and the express messenger charged 5% for his collection work and delivering it. If it had to go through another pair or two of hands we would have soon owed somebody something on it. To add to the ignomy of our whole treatment, our discharge papers never came. The records disappeared when Fort Kearny was abandoned. John Tolbert, an interpreter, tried to look the matter up for us, but he never could trace it down in the records department.

I might add that Tolbert was an interesting character, who lived at Dobetown, two miles southwest of Fort Kearny, and kept a feed store there. He gave me an introduction in 1864 to Buffalo Bill, and the first thing Buffalo Bill asked me was my age, and when I told him, he said we might be twins. I was twenty-six days older than he. He was born on the 28th and I was born on the 2nd of February.

On one occasion we got attacked by Indians, and they got the rest of the family into the house and the door closed before I could reach home. I had to take refuge the first place I could find, and backed myself into a badger hole, and squeezed in so tight, I could not go either way, and didn't dare to make a move, or a tomahawk might come over my head. For fifteen minutes I could hear Indians to one side and that animal gnawing on the other. I laid there until the shades of night came on and then I heard my father's voice and he came down and pulled me out.