Old Bedlam was alive with a merry party, which had been dancing all the night. On the upper floors the officers had administrative quarters, and the lower part of the building was full of the dancers. Dillon, because of his bashfulness, found it difficult to attract the notice of any of the soldiers who were busy dancing attention to the ladies ; and while hesitating, Phillips grabbed the dispatches from his hands, ran into the throng, and up the stairs to the officers' quarters.

When Coutant wrote his history, these four men were scattered to the four winds. Riptoe had been killed, and Dillon was supposed to be in Mexico. Gregory, who had later been chief of police in Laramie City, had departed for parts unknown. Coutant's story came from Phillips and from his patriotic political friends. The historian is now also dead, he having died at Chinook, in the far northwest.

Dan Dillon, the bearer of the message that reached the fort, having returned from the south and rejoined his command, was in 1881, given some dispatches at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, for delivery on the other side of the Indian reservation, at Fort Meade, South Dakota. He vanished somewhere in the Cheyenne river country. Nor has he or his remains, .or any of his effects, horse, saddle, or accouterments, ever been found. Possibly the quicksands of the river could tell more of faithful Dan, but they only whisper on and on in voices mysterious and unintelligible to us all.