Alas for enterprises started on borrowed capital! How many of them end
in disaster, leaving their projectors not only penniless, but in debt.
Our young frontiersman, whose life had been spent in protecting the
property of others, was powerless to save his own. Wagon, horses, and
freight were all captured by Indians, and their owner barely escaped
with his life. From a safe covert he watched the redskins plunge him
into bankruptcy. It took him several years to recover, and he has
often remarked that the responsibility of his first business venture on
borrowed capital aged him prematurely.

The nearest station to the scene of this disaster was Junction City, and
thither he tramped, in the hope of retrieving his fortunes. There he met
Colonel Hickok, and in the pleasure of the greeting forgot his business
ruin for a space. The story of his marriage and his stirring adventures
as a landlord and lover of his fellowman were first to be related, and
when these were commented upon, and his old friend had learned, too, of
the wreck of the freighting enterprise, there came the usual inquiry:

"And now, do you know of a job with some money in it?"

"There isn't exactly a fortune in it," said Wild Bill, "but I'm scouting
for Uncle Sam at Fort Ellsworth. The commandant needs more scouts, and I
can vouch for you as a good one."

"All right," said Will, always quick in decision; "I'll go along with
you, and apply for a job at once."

He was pleased to have Colonel Hickok's recommendation, but it turned
out that he did not need it, as his own reputation had preceded him. The
commandant of the fort was glad to add him to the force. The territory