killed.

I had known Kiowa Bill for several years and was present at a shooting
scrape he had two years before, down in Texas, near the Arizona line. At
one of the big round ups there, in 1877, myself and quite a crowd of the
other boys were in camp eating our dinner when Kiowa Bill rode up. He
had been looking after his own cattle as he owned over two thousand head
himself. One of the boys in our party who did not like Bill, there being
a feud between them for sometime, on noticing Bill approaching,
remarked, "If that fellow comes here I will rope him." True to his word
as Bill rode up, the cowboy threw his lariat. Kiowa Bill, seeing the
movement, threw the rope off at the same time springing down on the
opposite side of his horse.

[Illustration: With the General Securities Company]

The cowboy, enraged at his failure to rope Bill, shouted, "I will fight
you from the point of a jack knife, to the point of a 45," at the same
time reaching for his 45 which was in the holster on his saddle, which
was lying on the ground a short distance away. At that Kiowa Bill fired,
striking the cowboy in the neck, breaking it. Bill then sprang in the
saddle and put spurs to his horse in an effort to get away.

Several of the cowboys commenced shooting after Bill who returned the
fire. One of the cowboys, squatting down and holding his 45 with both
hands, in an effort to get a better aim on Bill, received a bullet in
the leg from Bill's revolver that knocked him over backwards, and caused
him to turn a couple of somersaults. Bill got away and went to New York.
He was later arrested in St. Louis and brought back. At his trial he
went free as it was shown that he killed the cowboy in self-defense. And
his appearance at the dance was the first time I had seen him since the
scrape in Texas.

Kiowa Bill was of a peaceful disposition and always refrained from
bothering with others, but if others bothered with him they were liable
to get killed as Kiowa Bill allowed no one to monkey with him. Such was
life on the western ranges when I rode them, and such were my comrades
and surroundings; humor and tragedy. In the midst of life we were in
death, but above all shown the universal manhood. The wild and free
life. The boundless plains. The countless thousands of long horn steers,
the wild fleet footed mustangs. The buffalo and other game, the Indians,
the delight of living, and the fights against death that caused every
nerve to tingle, and