Life and marvelous adventures of Wild Bill, the Scout: being a true an exact history of all the sanguinary combats and hair-breadth escapes of the most famous scout and spy America ever produced.Buel, James W. (James William)
History
Life and marvelous adventures of Wild Bill, the Scout: being a true an exact history of all the sanguinary combats and hair-breadth escapes of the most famous scout and spy America ever produced.
Buel, James W. (James William)
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Hickok, Wild Bill, 1837-1876
On the following day after the fight, Gen. Sheridan ordered a
detachment of cavalry to go in pursuit of Bill, and, using his own
words, “to take him dead or alive,” but, although the pursuit was
entered into earnestly, they never found the object of their search.
After getting able to travel, which was on the third day, Bill managed
to drag his sore and hungry body down to Bill Williams’ ranche, where
he was tenderly cared for. No one can imagine the suffering he endured
during the two days he lay in the buffalo wallow. His wounds, though
but flesh injuries, gave him excruciating pain. He drew his boots,
which were filled with blood, and was unable to put them on again. He
lost his hat during the fight, and, after tearing up his underclothes,
he literally had no protection from the chill and damp of the night.
When he attempted to rise from the ground, the agony he suffered was as
intense as mortal could bear; but notwithstanding the pain he endured,
the excessive hunger which began to oppress and weaken him, compelled
him to make the effort to reach Williams’ ranche, which he succeeded in
doing, as before stated.
After remaining at the ranche a few days, Bill sent for his friend
Whitney, then sheriff of Ellsworth county, he having succeeded Capt.
Kingsbury, and by him Bill was taken to Ellsworth. But the constant
dread of detection made it advisable for Bill to leave Ellsworth,
which he did in a few days, by the kindly assistance of Jim Bomon, a
conductor of a freight train on the Kansas Pacific railroad, who locked
him in a box car and brought him to Junction City. At this place Bill
received proper surgical attention and soon recovered.
A DEATH FIGHT WITH TEXAS GAMBLERS.
The removal of the Seventh Cavalry from Hays City gave Bill immunity
from danger from that quarter, and though he did not return to that
place, he accepted the office of city marshal of Abilene, a town one
hundred miles east of Hays City, and frequently visited the latter
place on business.
Abilene was the point from which all the cattle from Texas for the
Eastern markets were shipped. Immense droves were daily brought into
the place, and with the cattle came the drovers, a large majority of
whom were Texan desperadoes. The town bristled with business, and
crimes and drunkenness became so common that by general consent Abilene
was called the Gomorrah of the West. Gamblers and bad women, drunken
cut-throats and pimps, overshadowed all other society, and the carnival
of iniquity never ceased. The civil officers were plastic to the touch
of the ruffians, and the town was ruled by intimidation.
When Bill assumed charge of the office of marshal, the law and order
class had hopes for a radical change, and yet they were very doubtful
of the ability of one man to curb the reckless and lawless spirit of
so many vicious desperadoes--men who were familiar with the pistol
and did not hesitate to murder and plunder, and who took pleasure in
“stampeding” the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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