The General thanked me for my services, and told me he was very lucky to find me. "It is not possible that I will be with the troops when they come," he said. "They will be commanded by General Philip Sheridan. You will like Sheridan. He is your kind of a man. I will tell him about you when I see him. I expect to hear great reports of you when you are guiding the United States army over the Plains, as you have so faithfully guided me. The quartermaster has instructions to pay you at the rate of $150 a month, and as a special reward I have ordered that you be paid $2000 extra. 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 fiancée 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. The glares cast at me were openly hostile. While we were disposing our baggage in our stateroom--I had hired the bridal chamber--I heard some of my wife's friends asking her father if he knew who I was, and whether I had any credentials. He replied that he had left the matter of credentials to his daughter. "Well," said one of the party, "these people on board are excursionists from Independence, and they say this son-in-law of yours is the most desperate outlaw, bandit, and house-burner on the frontier!" The old gentleman was considerably disturbed at this report. He made up his mind to get a little first-hand information, and he took the most direct means of getting it. "Who are you?" he asked, walking over to me. "The people on board don't give you a very good recommendation."