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were six dead men on the floor of the dugout. He had fairly whipped the
ten of them, and the four remaining had enough and fled from that awful
hole in the ground. Two of these were badly wounded. Bill followed them
to the door. His own weapons were exhausted or not at hand by this time,
but his stableman came up just then with a rifle in his hands. Bill
caught it from him, and, cut up as he was, fired and killed one of the
wounded desperadoes as he tried to mount his horse. The other wounded
man later died of his wounds. Eight men were killed by the one. The two
who got to their horses and escaped were perhaps never in the dugout at
all, for it was hardly large enough to hold another man had any wanted
to get in.

There is no record of any fighting man to equal this. It took Bill a
year to recover from his wounds. The life of the open air and hard work
brought many Western men through injuries which would be fatal in the
States. The pure air of the plains had much to do with this. Bill now
took service as wagon-master under General Fremont and managed to get
attacked by a force of Confederates while on his way to Sedalia, the war
being now in full swing. He fled and was pursued; but, shooting back
with six-shooters, killed four men. It will be seen that he had now in
single fight killed twelve men, and he was very young. This tally did
not cover Indians, of whom he had slain several. Although he did not
enlist, he went into the army as an independent sharpshooter, just
because the fighting was good, and his work at this was very deadly. In
four hours at the Pea Ridge battle, where he lay behind a log, on a hill
commanding the flat where the Confederates were formed, he is said to
have killed thirty-five men, one of them the Confederate General
McCullough. It was like shooting buffalo for him. He was charged by a
company of the enemy, but was rescued by his own men.

Not yet enlisting, Bill went in as a spy for General Curtis, and took
the dangerous work of going into "Pap" Price's lines, among the
touch-and-go Missourians and Arkansans, in search of information useful
to the Union forces. Bill enlisted for business purposes in a company of
Price's mounted rangers, got the knowledge desired, and fled, killing a
Confederate sergeant by name of Lawson in his escape. Curtis sent him
back again, this time into the forces of Kirby Smith, then in Texas, but
reported soon to move up into Arkansas. Bill enlisted again, and a