Ready for anything but treachery! He himself had always fought fair and in the open. His men were shot in front. Not such was to be his fate. On the day of August 2, 1876, while he was sitting at a game of cards in a saloon, a hard citizen by name of Jack McCall slipped up behind him, placed a pistol to the back of his head, and shot him dead before he knew he had an enemy near. The ball passed through Bill's head and out at the cheek, lodging in the arm of a man across the table. Bill had won a little money from McCall earlier in the day, and won it fairly, but the latter had a grudge, and was no doubt one of those disgruntled souls who "had it in" for all the rest of the world. He got away with the killing at the time, for a miners' court let him go. A few days later, he began to boast about his act, seeing what fame was his for ending so famous a life; but at Yankton they arrested him, tried him before a real court, convicted him, and hanged him promptly. Wild Bill's body was buried at Deadwood, and his grave, surrounded by a neat railing and marked by a monument, long remained one of the features of Deadwood. The monument and fence were disfigured by vandals who sought some memento of the greatest bad man ever in all likelihood seen upon the earth. His tally of eighty-five men seems large, but in fair probability it is not large enough. His main encounters are known historically. He killed a great many Indians at different times, but of these no accurate estimate can be claimed. Nor is his list of victims as a sharpshooter in the army legitimately to be added to his record. Cutting out all doubtful instances, however, there remains no doubt that he killed between twenty and thirty men in personal combat in the open, and that never once was he tried in any court on a charge even of manslaughter. This record is not approached by that of any other known bad man. Many of them are credited with twenty men, a dozen men, and so forth; but when the records are sifted the list dwindles. It is doubted whether any other bad man in America ever actually killed twenty men in fair personal combat. Bill was not killed in fair fight, nor could McCall have hurt him had Bill suspected his intent.