I was totally unacquainted with the tame stage Indian, and the thought of a great gaping audience looking at me across the footlights made me shudder.
But when my old "pards," Wild Bill and Texas Jack, consented to try their luck with me in the new enterprise I felt better.

Together we made the trip to New York, and played for a time in the hodgepodge drama written for us by Ned Buntline himself.
Before any of us would consent to be roped and tied by Thespis we insisted on a proviso that we be freed whenever duty called us to the Plains.
The first season was fairly prosperous, and so was the second.

The third year I organized a "show" of my own, with real Indians in it--the first, I believe, who ever performed on a stage.

I made money and began to get accustomed to the new life, but in 1876 the call for which I had been listening came.
The Sioux War was just breaking out.

I closed the show earlier than usual and returned to the West.