"Wild Bill" Hickok was perhaps the best known "character" in Cheyenne in the 70's. He, too, was a ministerial-looking person, but was not a confidence operator. He was just a plain gambler, and not a very good one, but he managed to escape the halter every time he put a notch in his gun. "Bill" killed no one in Cheyenne; in fact, his days there were quiet and prosy. His killings were all done in Kansas at the time the K. P. was being built from the Missouri to Denver. When in Cheyenne he was on his last legs--had begun, as they say nowadays, to slow up. Nevertheless, he was feared by a great many, owing to his reputation, although among certain classes it was generally understood that he had lost his nerve. This was demonstrated while the Black Hills excitement was at its height. "Bill" was more than six feet tall, straight and thin. He carried two big revolvers in his belt and they protruded sometimes from the side of his long broadcloth coat. He also carried a bowie knife. But for all this and his reputation, he weakened one night when an undersized little California _buccaro_ challenged him to walk into the street and fight a duel at twenty paces. "Bill" laid down, saying his eyes had gone back on him and that his shooting days were over. Shortly after this incident the Cheyenne authorities decided to rid the town of a few of the worst criminals, so they tacked a notice on telegraph poles containing a list of a dozen or more names of men, headed by "Wild Bill," giving them twenty-four hours' time to get out of town. When "Bill" saw the notice he smiled, and with his bowie knife cut the notice into ribbons, and he stayed until he got ready to leave some months later. He went to Custer City, then to Deadwood, where he met his death at the hands of an avenger, who shot him in the back as he sat in a poker game. His murderer claimed "Bill" had killed his brother in Kansas and said he had followed him for two years, waiting for a chance to kill him. "Bill" had a rule of life that he violated the night he died, and that was never to sit with his back to a door or window. On the fatal night he sat with his back to a half-open door into which the avenger crept. "Wild Bill" was a "road agent" (a highwayman) long before the Black Hills stampede and frequently entertained a crowd with descriptions of the raids he and his pals made upon the Mormon emigrants when they were enroute from Nauvoo, Ill., to Salt Lake. According to his own stories he was a heartless brute. Many deeds, however, that have been laid at his door, and others that he bragged about, were never committed. It has been estimated that he murdered all the way from fifteen to thirty men, but most of these were killed while he was marshal.