: Wild Bill's Last Trail by Buntline Ned - Hickok Wild Bill 1837-1876 Fiction

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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Wild Bill's Last Trail.

"Gettin' toward sunset, old pard--gettin' toward sunset, before I pass in my checks!"

The first speaker was an old scout and plainsman, Sam Chichester by name, and he spoke to a passenger who had just left the west-ward-bound express train at Laramie, on the U.P.R.R.

That passenger was none other than J. B. Hickok, or "Wild Bill," one of the most noted shots, and certainly the most desperate man of his age and day west of the Mississippi River.

"Bill, you've been hitting benzine heavy of late haven't you?

"No; I never drank lighter in my life than I have for a year past. But there's a shadow cold as ice on my soul! I've never felt right since I pulled on that red-haired Texan at Abilene, in Kansas. You remember, for you was there. It was kill or get killed, you know, and when I let him have his ticket for a six-foot lot of ground he gave one shriek--it rings in my ears yet. He spoke but one word--'Sister!' Yet that word has never left my ears, sleeping or waking, from that time to this. I had a sister once myself, Sam, and I loved her a thousand times more than I did life. In fact I never loved life after I lost her. And I can't tell you all about her--I'd choke if I tried. It is enough that she died, and the cause of her death died soon after, and I wasn't far away when--when he went under. But that isn't here nor there, Sam--let's go and warm up. Where do you hang out?"

"I'm in camp close by. I'm heading a party that is bound in for the Black Hills. Captain Jack Crawford is along. You know him. And California Joe, too."

"Good! It is the first streak of luck I've had in a year. I'll join your crowd, Sam, if you'll let me. Captain Jack and Joe are as good friends as I ever had--always barring one."

"And that is?"

"My old six-shooter here. Truth-Teller I call it. It never speaks without saying something. But come, old boy--I see a sign ahead. I must take in a little benzine to wash the car-dust out of my throat."

Bill pointed to a saloon near at hand, and the two old scouts and companions moved toward it.

As they did so, a young man, roughly dressed, with a face fair and smooth, though shadowed as if by exposure to sun and and wind, stepped from behind a shade tree, where he had stood while these two talked, listening with breathless interest to every word. His hair, a deep, rich auburn, hung in curling masses clear to his shoulders, and his blue eyes seemed to burn with almost feverish fire as he gazed in the direction the scouts had taken.

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