When the U. P. was building it should be remembered the Indians had been seeing the pioneer going across the plains with wagons for many years. The pony express rider, the bullwhacker and the California and Utah emigrant had been his almost daily companion; therefore he had learned to be circumspect. Those hardy people had shot straight and to kill, and by the time track-laying began the Indian was about as cautious as a mountain sheep. He knew the range of the white man's gun, the fleetness of his big American horse, and he governed himself accordingly, devoting all his time, when doing anything at all, to impede the progress of railroad building, to pure and unadulterated murder from ambush. CHAPTER IX "BILL" HICKOK, CITY MARSHAL. "Wild Bill" Hickok, who had been city marshal at Abilene, Kan., blew into Cheyenne in 1874 along with Texas Charley and a few more "bad men." Things were booming in the Wyoming metropolis. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, and the crowds of fortune-seekers from every point of the compass had begun to flock in. Men were there from South Africa, Brazil, California and Australia, intermingling with the New Englander, the Middle Westerners, the cowboys and bullwhackers and others attracted by the reports of fabulous discoveries. Cheyenne was the chief outfitting point for a trip into the hills, although thousands tramped through the sands of the Bad Lands to the new Eldorado via Fort Pierre. It meant big work for the small police force of Cheyenne, for there were, besides the "killers" of the "Wild Bill" order, garroters and other crooks from near and far to look after. Gambling didn't bother the authorities at all, and such characters as "Canada Bill," the most famous of all the confidence men, were, as a matter of fact, able to ply their trade almost unmolested. "Canada Bill" had the appearance of a Methodist preacher of that period, wearing a black broadcloth, long-tailed coat, trousers of the same material, a black felt hat, "biled" shirt and black bow tie. He carried an old-fashioned satchel made of oil cloth, a pattern of which is seen nowadays only on the vaudeville stage. "Bill" was certainly an innocent-looking individual--solemn-faced and perfectly harmless--apparently. He spent most of his time on the U. P. passenger trains between Omaha and Cheyenne and is said to have swindled travelers out of an aggregate of $100,000 at three-card monte, a form of swindling in great vogue at that time. Cheyenne was his headquarters and he was almost as well known as any man in the town; but he followed his profession practically undisturbed for several years, and I doubt if he ever spent a day in jail. Has victims included some men who prided themselves on their shrewdness.