Such a welcome as greeted them, when Buffalo Bill and the sergeant’s daughter were recognized, cannot be described, for the soldiers seemed to have gone wild.
In the week that had passed since he was wounded the sergeant had much improved.
The meeting between father and daughter was most affecting, while tears came into the brave man’s eyes as he grasped Buffalo Bill’s hand and said:
“I owe all this to you, Cody, and Lucille tells me she has told you all.”
Fearful of risking his daughter so near the redskins, the sergeant said he was able to travel. The march was, therefore, begun after the noon meal, the trail taken being the same one that Lucille had traveled with the outlaw.
The command was three days getting back to the fort, but when they came in sight, and it was seen that Lucille had been rescued, again there was a wild scene of rejoicing.
Then, too, the sergeant had more joy added to his cup of bliss, for the last coach through had brought him his commission, “for special and gallant services,” as a first lieutenant in the army of the United States.
After a month’s stay at the fort, under the plea of his wound unfitting him for service, for it was still troublesome, Lieutenant Fallon resigned his commission, feeling that he had been vindicated in having won it, unaided, and, with his daughter, went eastward, and thence to Texas, to his old ranch home.
In a short time there was a wedding at the ranch, for thither had gone Lieutenant Walter Worth to claim his bride. Shortly after the lieutenant’s departure, Buffalo Bill set forth upon a new mission which promised a harvest of adventures.
Having been appointed, for a special purpose, chief of scouts of the Tenth United States Cavalry, a regiment of black troopers, Cody rode off on one of his lone trails to reach the command at its frontier post.
He loved the adventure and danger attending this new mission, yet sought it also for the benefit he could bring to those who dwelt upon the advance borderland, and depended upon just such men as himself to protect them from the redskins of the wild West.
The noted scout had been ordered to Fort Aspen for his special duty, as the commandant, Major Armes, had made the request that he should be, on account of the threatened hostility of the Indians, and, also, as Buffalo Bill was the man who knew that country better than any other frontiersman.