One story that used to be told in Cheyenne, but which was not authenticated, was that on one occasion at Abilene he entered a restaurant for breakfast and ordered ham and eggs "turned over." The waiter returned with the eggs fried on one side and "Bill" angrily said: "I told you to have them eggs turned over!" Whereupon the waiter playfully gave the dish a flip and turned them over. This so angered "Bill" that he shot the waiter dead, and then finished his meal, the poor waiter's body lying at his feet. There was so much garroting of men who came to Cheyenne to join the rush into the hills that some of the wiser ones slipped outside the town at night and slept on the prairie, while others, armed to the teeth, either walked the streets or formed companies with guards for protection. It was a condition of affairs that gave the authorities more than they could handle at the start. However, after the first few months of excitement Cheyenne began to be good, and soon the civilization and order of older communities was apparent on every hand. The railroad shortened the distance between the frontier and "God's Country," and before one could realize it Cheyenne was as orderly and well behaved as Worcester, Mass. So it is today. "Wild Bill," "Texas Jack," "Canada Bill" and the thieves and gamblers, with their guns and daggers, are forgotten; and if some of them could come back and tramp the streets again they would be as great curiosities as they would be on Broadway, New York, or State Street, Chicago--and they would land in jail or get out of town unless they walked a chalk-mark. Cheyenne has long been in "God's country," although at the time discussed it was a long way over the line. CHAPTER X WHEN CHEYENNE WAS YOUNG. Let us suppose this is the year 1872, and that we are taking a trip across the continent on the first railroad from the Missouri River to the Golden Gate. We have passed through western Nebraska and its uninhabited hills and plains and we are entering Cheyenne, on a vast plain, yet situated at the foot of a range of the Rocky Mountains known as the lower Black Hills. We are in sight of Long's and other Colorado peaks of the Rockies and while apparently on a wide prairie for several hours we have nevertheless been climbing a steep grade all the way from Sidney, the last division point. Cheyenne is (in '72, remember) a city of boards, logs and canvas, but is beginning to shake off the very first things of a "camp," and is entering the brick age, with good prospects of acquiring fame as a substantial city.