As soon as he was freed, McCall hurried back to Cheyenne to escape the reach of any of Hickok’s friends. Unfortunately the story of the killing followed him there, and under the mistaken impression that he had undergone a legitimate trial and was therefore no longer subject to additional jeopardy, McCall took no pains to deny the murder. This was a most foolish tactic on his part, for he was speedily rearrested and shipped to Yankton, the capital of South Dakota Territory, where he was held for a session of the proper court. Inasmuch as he had admitted before witnesses not only that he had killed Wild Bill, but also that his earlier plea had been fabricated from whole cloth, he had a very slender defense indeed, and was quickly found guilty and banged. To the very end no clue could be found to any sort of sound reason for his having fired the fatal shot. It was quite definitely proved that he had never had any dealings with his victim and had never been in any way offended by him, and that he no more than knew vaguely who he was. It was apparently a completely aimless killing, the unhappy inspiration of the moment. On the other hand, Justice seems forever determined to get to the bottom of the matter, for _The Trial of Jack McCall_ has become an institution of the Black Hills, played, like _Ten Nights in a Barroom_, all the summers long in a popular tavern. Where audiences elsewhere hiss their Legrees and other purely fictional villains, the proud residents of Deadwood have their very own and very real scoundrel for the target of their malisons—the miserable McCall. Tourists are cordially invited to join in the fun and thereby to spread ever farther the legend of Wild Bill Hickok. On June 21, 1951, the legend was further enhanced and improved upon by the presentation to the city of Deadwood of a brand new statue of Hickok carved out of a massive chunk of native granite by the ebullient sculptor, Ziolkowski. An all-day celebration attended the unveiling of this statue upon its pedestal at the foot of Mt. Moriah, and the zenith of the day’s gaudy reverence was the reading of an “epic” poem to the hushed populace of the town over a loud-speaker system from the top of the mount. The statue is plain to be seen about a block from the Adams Memorial Museum, and copies of the epic can no doubt be had by soliciting the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce. Of a somewhat different character from Wild Bill, but, it is good to report, no less revered in the Hills, was Preacher Smith. Frontier towns have been notorious for their hallowing of persons, both male and female, who were either expertly good or expertly bad. This strange compounding of affections would suggest that the vice or godliness in itself was unimportant, but that the rough and crude citizens who populated our earlier settlements held a genuine admiration and regard for anyone of any calling who demonstrated authority and accomplishment.