articularly
difficult and unusual feat, and General Smith never failed to show his
pride in the achievement whenever the battle of Tupedo was mentioned.

"Do you remember," I continued, "the young fellow you caught behind a
tree, and sent for him afterward to ask him why he did so?"

"Is it possible you are the man who found Forrest's command!" he asked
in amazement. "I had often wondered what became of you," he said, when
I told him I was the same man. "What have you been doing since the
war!"

I told him I had come West as a scout for General Sherman in 1865 and
had been scouting ever since. He was highly delighted to see me again,
and from that time forward, as long as he remained on the Plains, I
resumed my old position as his chief scout.

After the battle of Tupedo, Smith's command was ordered to Memphis, and
from there sent by boat up the Mississippi. We of the cavalry
disembarked at Cape Jardo, Smith remaining behind with the infantry,
which came on later. General Sterling Price, of the Confederate army,
was at this time coming out of Arkansas into southern Missouri with a
large army. His purpose was to invade Kansas.

Federal troops were not then plentiful in the West. Smith's army from
Tennessee, Blunt's troops from Kansas, what few regulars there were in
Missouri, and some detachments of Kansas volunteers were all being
moved forward to head off Price. Being still a member of the Ninth
Kansas Cavalry, I now found myself back in my old country--just ahead
of Price's army, which had now reached the fertile northwestern
Missouri.

In carrying dispatches from General McNeil to General Blunt or General
Pleasanton I passed around and through Price's army many times. I
always wore the disguise of a Confederate soldier, and always escaped
detection. Price fought hard and successfully, gaining ground steadily,
till at Westport, Missouri, and other battlefields near the Kansas
line, the Federal troops checked his advance.

At the Little Blue, a stream that runs through what is now Kansas City,
he was finally turned south, and took up a course through southern
Kansas.

Near Mound City a scouting party of which I was a member surprised a
small detachment of Price's army. Our advantage was such that they
surrendered, and while we were rounding them up I heard one of them say
that we Yanks had captured a bigger prize than we suspected. When he
was asked what this prize consisted of, the soldier said:

"That big