Frontiersmen good and bad, gunmen as well as inspired prophets of the future, have been my camp companions. Thus, I know the country of which I am about to write as few men now living have known it.

Well, Bill [Bill Hickok] was a pretty good shot. But he could not shoot as quick as half a dozen men we all knew in those days, nor as straight either. But Bill was cool, and the men who he went up against were rattled, I guess. Bill beat them to it. He made up his mind to kill the other man before the other man had finished thinking.

My first plan of escape having failed, I now determined upon another.

I thought I was benefiting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.

Some days I would go without any fire at all, and eat raw frozen meat and melt snow in my mouth for water.

My restless, roaming spirit would not allow me to remain at home very long.

The Free State men, myself among them, took it for granted that Missouri was a slave state.