To make sure that I would return for a second visit, the young people of the family accompanied me back to New York. I was due for a dinner that evening, so I gave them a card to Mr. Palmer, of Niblo's Garden, and they all went to see "The Black Crook." When I reached the club I was given a telegram from General Sheridan telling me to hasten to Chicago. He wanted me to hurry on to Fort McPherson and guide the Third Cavalry, under General Reynolds, on a military expedition. The Indians had been committing serious devastations and it was necessary to suppress them summarily. At the dinner, which was given by Mr. Bennett, I told my New York friends that I would have to leave for the West the next day. When the party broke up I went directly to the Albemarle Hotel and told my cousins that we would have to start early the next morning for Westchester. There I would remain twenty-four hours. When we reached Westchester, my uncle informed me that they had arranged a fox hunt for the next morning, and that all the people in the town and vicinity would be present. They wanted to see a real scout and plainsman in the saddle. Early next morning many ladies and gentlemen, splendidly mounted, appeared in front of my uncle's residence. At that time Westchester possessed the best pack of fox hounds in America. Captain Trainer, master of the hounds, provided me with a spirited horse which had on a little sheepskin saddle of a kind on which I had never ridden. I was familiar neither with the horse, the saddle, the hounds, nor fox-hunting, and was extremely nervous. I would have backed out if I could, but I couldn't, so I mounted the horse and we all started on the chase. We galloped easily along for perhaps a mile and I was beginning to think fox-hunting a very tame sport indeed when suddenly the hounds started off on a trail, all barking at once. The master of the hounds and several of the other riders struck off across country on the trail, taking fences and stone walls at full gallop. I noticed that my uncle and several elderly gentlemen stuck to the road and kept at a more moderate gait. The eyes of the spectators were all on me. I don't know what they expected me to do, but at any rate they were disappointed. To their manifest disgust I stayed with the people on the road. Shortly we came to a tavern and I went in and nerved myself with a stiff drink, also I had a bottle filled with liquid courage, which I took along with me. Just by way of making a second fiasco impossible I took three more drinks while I was in the bar, then I galloped away and soon overtook the hunters. The first trail of the hounds had proved false. Two miles further on they struck a true trail and away they went at full cry. I had now got used to the saddle and the gait of my horse. I also had prepared myself in the tavern for any course of action that might offer.