Trying to resume her story, "Calamity," after groping about falteringly for the thread, had to back up again and start with "My maiden name was Martha Cannary." She was in a Black Hills campaign against the Sioux in 1875, and in the spring of '76 was ordered north with General Crook to join Generals Miles, Terry and Custer at the Big Horn. A ninety-mile ride with dispatches after swimming the Platte brought on a severe illness, and she was sent back in General Crook's ambulance to Fort Fetterman. This probably saved her from being present at the massacre of the Little Big Horn with Custer and the 7th Cavalry. "During the rest of the summer of '76 I was a pony express rider, carrying the U. S. mails between Deadwood and Custer, fifty miles over some of the roughest trails in the Black Hills. As many of the riders before me had been held up and robbed of their packages, it was considered the most dangerous route in the Hills. As my reputation as a rider and quick shot were well known I was molested very little, for the toll-gatherers looked on me as being a good fellow and they knew I never missed my mark. "My friend William Hickock, better known as 'Wild Bill,' who was probably the best revolver shot that ever lived, was in Deadwood that summer. On the second of August, while setting at a gambling table of the Bella Union Saloon, he was shot in the back of the head by the notorious Jack McCall, a desperado. I was in Deadwood at the time and on hearing of the killing made my way at once to the scene of the shooting and found that my best friend had been killed by McCall. I at once started to look for the assassin and found him at Shurdy's butcher shop and grabbed a meat cleaver and made him throw up his hands, through excitement on hearing Bill's death having left my weapons on the post of my bed. He was then taken to a log cabin and locked up, but he got away and was afterwards caught at Fagan's ranch on Horse Creek. He was taken to Yankton, tried and hung." Here, forgetting myself, I interrupted again in an endeavour to reconcile the facts of "Wild Bill's" death as just detailed with the version of that tragic event as depicted in "Jane of the Plain." "Calamity's" language was again unfit to print. "Wild Bill" had _not_ expired with his head on her shoulder, muttering brokenly "My heart was yours from the first, oh my love!" Nor had she snipped off a lock of Bill's yellow hair and sworn to bathe it in the heart-blood of his slayer. All blankety-blank lies, just like the "White Devil." Then, as before, in order to get going properly, she had to back up and start all over with: "My maiden name was Martha Cannary." This time I kept chewing dandelions and let her run on to the finish, thereby learning the secret of her somewhat remarkable style of delivery. This is the way the story of her life concluded: