Wild Bill got off the train at Topeka, and returned to Abilene the
next day. A week later he went up to Ellsworth, to which place he was
a frequent visitor, being attracted to that town by a woman whose name
we omit to mention, by her request. This woman was the keeper of a
house of ill-repute, but her beauty made her a most attractive person,
and her real admirers were numbered by hundreds. She is now pursuing
the same calling in Kansas City, but though still a fine looking woman,
very few traces of her former beauty remain. She is wealthy, however,
and what she now lacks in natural appearance, she compensates for
by artificial means, and is still a leader of her kind. Bill’s love
for her was undoubtedly genuine, although he never asked her hand
in marriage. Bill Thompson, a big bully, and handy with his pistol,
was also a worshiper at the same shrine, and hated Wild Bill more
inveterately than any other man on earth. This hatred was, perhaps,
not so much inspired by the rivalry between them for the woman’s
smiles, as it was caused by the fact that on one occasion Wild Bill had
arrested and severely handled Thompson, while the latter was carousing
in Abilene. Thompson had repeatedly made threats which reached Bill’s
ears, and caused him to be watchful. A collision occurred between the
two in a restaurant in Ellsworth, under the following circumstances:
Bill had entered the place and called for an oyster stew. He took a
seat in a small alcove, in which was a table, with his back to the
saloon, a position he was never known to assume before or since. The
moment the waiter was entering with the stew, Bill turned in his seat
at the very instant to see Thompson enter a side door with pistol
in hand. Bill slipped out of his chair and dropped onto his knees,
with the view of using the chair as a sort of breastwork. The instant
he moved, a ball from Thompson’s pistol whistled passed his ear,
and struck the plate on the table in front of him. Before another
shot could be fired from the same course, Bill jerked one of the two
derringers he nearly always carried, from his pants pocket, and,
whirling on one knee, sent a bullet squarely into Thompson’s forehead.
The man fell forward on his face without uttering a sound, stone-dead;
the dish of soup in the waiter’s hand tumbled onto the floor and broke
into fragments. Resuming his seat again at the table, merely rising
from his kneeling position, Bill told the affrighted waiter to bring
him that oyster stew he had ordered, but the restaurant speedily filled
with morbid people, and there was too much excitement to admit of
serving stews thereafter. Bill was the least excited of any, and after
waiting a few moments, and seeing that he could not get what he called
for, he went out of the place and took his oyster stew at another
restaurant. Of course he was arrested, but as it was a clear case of
self-defense, he was at once discharged.