The next trip I made to Bent's Fort was made without a conductor on the stage. One of the owners of the Stage Company, Mr. J.T. Barnum, said to me: "Billy, you go through to Denver with the express and mail, and then act as conductor back again to the Fort." On my return trip, I came in contact with a company of soldiers camped at Pueblo, Colorado. Several of the soldiers were at the Hotel at Pueblo, and during our talk together, I asked one of the soldiers if he knew a Sergeant by the name of Joe Graham. "Oh, yes," one man replied, "he is down there in camp now." This soldier volunteered to bring him to see me. Mr. Graham's father was a Methodist preacher in Monterey, New York, when Joe and I were small boys, and we greeted each other with warmth and affection, and had a jolly time talking over the "old times" when we were bare-footed school lads. Finally Joe asked me where I "was holding forth and what I was doing?" I told him that I had been living with Colonel Boone, driving the stage coach from there to Bent's Old Fort, but this trip I was on my way from Denver acting as conductor of the mail. Mr. Graham asked me how long I had been with Colonel Boone. I told him I had been with him up to that time, about six months. "I understand," said Mr. Graham, "that Mr. Boone is a rebel." I told him that he was most emphatically mistaken, that Colonel Boone was one of the strongest Union men I had ever known, and that he was as strong a Unionist as ever lived. Then it was that I found out what mischief Haynes had sent the soldiers to the home of Colonel Boone, to do. Joe Graham told me that he was the Orderly Sergeant of the company that had camped at Mr. Haynes, and Mr. Haynes had told the Lieutenant that Colonel Boone was a rebel, and had a company of Texas Rangers camped close to his premises for the purpose of making a raid on the Union soldiers. Joe Graham stated that the Lieutenant had ordered him to take some soldiers and go to the home of Colonel Boone, and if he found things as Haynes had represented, to confiscate all his property, and to burn all his buildings, but that the Lieutenant had cautioned them to be careful and to ascertain if the story Haynes had told was true before they began depredations. When Old Joe had finished his recital, my "dander was up." "Joe," said I, "will you give me an affidavit of these facts, with the statement of Mr. Haynes to the Lieutenant?" He told me that he would be pleased to do so. We went to the Stage Company's office where Dan Hayden, a Notary Public in and for Pueblo, Colorado, drew up the statement and Sergeant Graham verified it.