After the affair at Leavenworth, Bill Daugherty came to Kansas City on
the boat, and asked the stage company if they needed a man to care for
some of their stations. Mr. Barnum employed Bill and he went to Fort
Zara, out among the Indians, where Bill's tongue helped him to get along
very nicely with them.

When he chanced to allude to Fort Leavenworth, he always told the story
of his "contracting" at Leavenworth on the corner of Fifth and Shawnee
Streets. Out there at Fort Zara, Bill enjoyed himself as only Irishmen
can, but his stumbling block was Captain Conkey, who was the biggest
crank on earth, "take it from me," for he and I had a little "set-to."
Daugherty always sent his "red, white and blue regards to the old
merchant" by whosoever went to Leavenworth.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Captain Conkey.

Captain Conkey was a "jackass" to make a long story short. He had a
company of soldiers at Fort Zara for the purpose of escorting the mail
from one station to another. Once on my way East with a coach full of
passengers, a snow storm began to rage, at about four o'clock in the
afternoon, soon after I had left Fort Larned. It snowed so hard that at
8 o'clock we couldn't tell where the road was, and the passengers took
it time and about with me running along the road in front of the coach
to find the road.

We got to Fort Zara at ten o'clock that night, the orderly sergeant came