Medicine Bill chased horse-stealing Indians with Michael Sheridan, younger brother to Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, and struck up a friendship with Lieutenant George Armes, who later rose to Colonel Armes and wrote of their explorations in his 1900 memoir, Ups and Downs of an Army Officer: “Comstock took me up one of the branches [of the Republican River] where an old village of Indians used to be and where he lived with them some four or five years ago [1862 or 1861] and showed me the graves of a number of Indians he helped to bury in the tops of the trees.”

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Carney, a young recruit in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, was among the Fort Wallace soldiers highly impressed by the dashing figure who carried a Henry rifle and looked as if he were born to the Plains. “I had often heard of him,” Carney wrote in a 1900 reminiscence published in Collier’s Weekly, “his wonderful marksmanship and what a great Indian scout and fighter he was…so it was no wonder I was so anxious to see a real, live dyed-in-the-wool Indian scout like Billy Comstock.” Carney, like Turner, seemed to believe Comstock was half Indian, admitting, “He was a person whose nationality would be hard to tell.” Comstock was truly proficient with his Henry, but Carney was wholly mistaken when he suggested the scout “was simple as a child in regard to anything connected with civilization; never had been east of the Missouri River, had never seen a steamboat or a railroad—in fact, knew nothing about such things except to hear of them.”

When Keogh’s boss, Colonel Custer, needed a scout at Fort Riley, Kan., he asked for Comstock, and Keogh obliged, sending Medicine Bill east in January 1867. In his letter of introduction, Keogh described Comstock as “an eccentric genius and an ardent admirer of everything reckless and daring.” In a postscript, the captain added, “Comstock has never yet seen a R.R. train, and his satisfaction, I believe, is improved by this accidental granting of his fondest wishes, viz: ‘seeing Custer and the R.R.’”

The commander took readily to his new scout, with whom he shared an affinity for dogs, hunting and adventure. “No Indian knew the country more thoroughly than did Comstock,” Custer wrote. “He was perfectly familiar with every divide, watercourse and strip of timber for hundreds of miles in either direction. He knew the dress and peculiarities of every Indian tribe, and spoke the languages of many of them.” Custer also described Comstock as “perfect in horsemanship, fearless in manner, a splendid hunter and a gentleman by instinct, as modest and unassuming as he was brave.”

It was during his time with Custer that Comstock met Harper’s Davis, who drew a pencil sketch of him and three fellow scouts. “Will Comstock has lived in the far west for many years,” Davis wrote. “His qualifications as an interpreter and scout are said, by those best qualified to judge, to be unsurpassed by any white man on the plains. He is, moreover, a man of tried bravery and a first-rate shot.” Davis went on to say, mistakenly, the scout was a “Kentuckian by birth.”

In the spring of 1867, Comstock accompanied Custer’s 7th U.S. Cavalry into the field under Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, whose search to find hostile Cheyenne warriors turned into a harum-scarum expedition that did little to advance the reputations of either Hancock or Custer. Comstock, however, distinguished himself, most notably in an episode involving an 11-man detachment under Lieutenant Lyman Kidder that vanished in early July while carrying orders to Custer in the field. Custer quoted Com-stock, who suggested Kidder’s party might be all right if he followed his Sioux guide’s advice, although the spelling and punctuation suggest a man of little education: “Is this lootenint the kind of man who is willin’ to take advice, even ef it does cum from an Injun? My experience with you Army folks has allus bin that the youngsters among ye think they know the most, and this is particularly true ef they hev just cum from West P’int.” Informed Kidder was not from West Point, but had just received his commission, Comstock countered, “Ef that be the case, it puts a mighty onsartain look on the whole thing.”

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