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It was well in line with the General's character that he kept me on tenterhooks until the very afternoon before the intended day of marching. Then, as it were at the eleventh hour, he included in his written orders to Lieutenant Pike, to march the following day, a brief paragraph to the effect that I was to accompany the expedition as a volunteer surgeon.
Notwithstanding the orders of the General, we did not start in the morning, but were forced to wait over until the fifteenth of July, owing to the unreadiness of our savage charges, the Osage captives who had been rescued from the Pottawattomies and who were to be returned to their people under our escort.