Good-by! I know you will have good luck,
for you know your business."
After the departure of General Sherman I made a brief visit to my
sisters in Salt Creek Valley, and for a time, there being no scouting
work to do, drove stage between Plum Creek and Fort Kearney.
I was still corresponding with Miss Frederici, the girl I had left
behind me in St. Louis. My future seemed now secure, so I decided that
it was high time I married and settled down, if a scout can ever settle
down. So, surrendering my stage job, I returned to Leavenworth and
embarked for St. Louis by boat. After a week's visit at the home of my
fiancee we were quietly married at her home. I made, I suppose, rather
a wild-looking groom. My brown hair hung down over my shoulders, and I
had just started a little mustache and goatee. I was dressed in the
Western fashion, and my appearance was, to say the least, unusual. We
were married at eleven o'clock in the morning, and took the steamer
_Morning Star_ at two in the afternoon for our honeymoon journey home.
As we left our carriages and entered the steamer, my wife's father and
mother and a number of friends accompanying us, I noticed that I was
attracting considerable excited attention. A number of people, men and
women, were on the deck. As we passed I heard them whispering:
"There he is! That's him! I'd know him in the dark!"
It was very plain to me that these observations were not particularly
friendly.
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