All that saved me was my answer to a question put by Buntline.
He asked, 'What detained you ?' I told him I had been on a hunt with Milligan.

You see Milligan was a prominent Chicago gentleman who had been hunting with me a short time before on the plains, and had been chased by the Indians, and the papers had been full of his hunt for some time; Buntline saw that I was 'up a stump,' for I had forgotten my lines, and he told me to tell him about the hunt.

I told the story in a very funny way, and it took like wild-fire with the audience.
"While I was telling the story, Buntline had whispered to the stage manager that when I got through with my story to send on the Indians.
Presently Buntline sung out: 'The Indians are upon us.' Now this was 'pie' for Jack and I, and we went at those bogus Indians red hot until we had killed the last one and the curtain went down amid a most tremendous applause, while the audience went wild.

The other actors never got a chance to appear in the first act.

Buntline said, 'Go ahead with the second act, it's going splendid.' I think that during the entire performance, neither Jack nor myself spoke a line of our original parts.