In 1861, the year in which the fight occurred, the McCandlas boys raised a company in that section for the Confederate service. They established their headquarters about thirteen miles west of Rock Creek, where they were collecting men and stolen horses. Early in the morning of the day in question, Jim McCandlas rode by Rock Creek station in company with four of his men. McCandlas was leading an old man, known as Parson Shapley, by a lariat which was around the old man’s neck. Coming up to Bill the party stopped, and McCandlas entered into a conversation, in which he tried to persuade Bill to enter the Confederate service and to turn over all the horses at the station to him. Bill, a stranger to the sensation of fear, told McCandlas to go to h--l; that if he did any fighting it would be on the side of the Union. McCandlas then told Bill if he didn’t have the horses ready for delivery by the time of his return, “that there would be a small murder at Rock Creek station, and the stage company would have to get another man.” The party then rode off. In this connection, in order to give the reader an idea of the manner in which Wild Bill received his would-be murderers, it is necessary to partially describe Rock Creek station. The house in which Bill and his single partner, known as Doc. Mills, ate and slept, was a low-roofed log hut fronting the creek, with the rear part built against the hill. It had a front door, and a very small window in the side, near the rear. The single room was divided by an old blanket hung from the roof, behind which was a table and a bed made after the frontier style. This rude structure was one of the many sleeping places called “dugouts,” so often seen in the wild West even at this day. The stables, also very rude but strongly made, adjoined the “dugout” on the east side. The arms in the house consisted of two revolvers, one shot-gun, a large bore rifle, which Bill called a Mississippi yager, and two large bowie knives. [Illustration: Wild Bill “Civilizes” the Neighborhood.]