Mr. Hickok did not sigh because of any former accuracy with pistols; but he recalled how on that fine occasion, in contrast to present bankruptcy, he harboured fourteen hundred dollars in his clothes. He had beaten the bank at Old Number Three, and was rich and gay in consequence. “I think I shoot better when I’ve got a roll.” Thus murmured Mr. Hickok, as he meditated upon the strangeness of things. Mr. Hickok might have extended his surmise. A man does all things better when he has a roll. The currents of life had been flowing swiftly for Mr. Hickok. Two years before he was marshal of Hays, and had shot his way into the popular confidence. In an evil hour a trio of soldiers came over from the Fort, led by one Lanigan, and took drunken umbrage at Mr. Hickok’s hair. This rudeness touched Mr. Hickok tenderly, and in checking it he snuffed out those three as gallery Frenchmen snuff candles at ten paces. Since there arose carpers to say that Mr. Hickok went too far in these homicides, he laid down his trust and journeyed to Abilene. Mr. Hickok was welcomed with spread arms by Abilene. Its marshal had just been gathered home through the efforts of a cowboy with a genius for firearms. Abilene offered the vacant place to Mr. Hickok, and to encourage acceptance, showed him where it hanged the cowboy. Mr. Hickok accepted, drew on the public fisc for the price of five hundred rounds of ammunition, and entered upon his responsibilities. Mr. Hickok reigned as marshal eight months, and kept Abilene like a church. Then he put a bullet through Mr. Coit, whose pleasure it had been to go upon tri-weekly sprees and leave everything all over the works. Again, as on that day in Hays, there came narrowists to fling reproach upon Mr. Hickok. They said the affair might have been sufficiently managed by wrecking a six-shooter upon Mr. Coit’s head; the dead gentleman had yielded to such treatment on former occasions. As it was, the intemperate haste of Mr. Hickok had eliminated one who spent money with both hands. The taking off of Mr. Coit might conduce to Abilene’s peace; it was none the less a blow to Abilene’s prosperity. Mr. Hickok, made heartsore by mean strictures, and weary with complaints which found sordid footing in a lust for gain, gave up his marshalship of Abilene, as he had given up the post in Hays, and wandered east in search of whiter fortune.