There were scores to greet Mr. Hickok at Hays and Abilene, but none in hostile guise. While the train paused, Mr. Hickok came down from the platform and stood with his back against the car. There he received his friends and searched the throng for enemies. He was careful, but invincible, and his hair floated bravely as for a challenge.
As the bell rang Mr. Hickok backed smilingly but watchfully aboard. He had no notion of exposing himself, and there might be someone about with the required military talent to manage an attack in flank. But the peace of those visits passed unbroken, and Mr. Hickok's honour was repaired. Mr. Hickok was not above a sedate joy concerning his healed honour, for, though he might not own a creed, he had a pride.
Now that Hays and Abilene had gone astern with the things that had been, Mr. Hickok sat himself down to a contemplation of Cheyenne. This would be his earliest visit. Nor had he in days gone by made the acquaintance of any one who wrote Cheyenne as his home. Mr. Hickok decided on a modest entrance.
"Which if thar's one thing that's always made me tired," observed Mr. Hickok, as he talked the subject over with himself, "it's a party jumpin' into camp as though he owned the yearth an' had come to fence it."
Mr. Hickok planned an unobtrusive descent upon Cheyenne. He would appear without announcement. He would let Cheyenne uncover his merits one by one and learn his identity only when events should point the day and way. He would claim no privileges beyond the privileges of common men.
Such was the amiable programme of Mr. Hickok, and he arrayed himself to be in harmony therewith. The yellow mane that had flaunted at Hays and Abilene was imprisoned, as in Kansas City, beneath a small-rimmed soft felt hat, to the end that it enkindle rage in no man. Because the brightness of the sun on the parched pampas hurt his eyes, worn as they were with much scanning of midnight decks, Mr. Hickok donned dark goggles. His coat was black and long--to cover his armament--and almost of pulpit cut. To put a closing touch on a whole that spoke of lamb's-wool peace, Mr. Hickok, limping with a shade of rheumatism, the harvest of many nights on rain-soaked prairies, carried a cane. This latter was a resplendent creature, having been the butt end of a rosewood billiard cue, and was as heavy as a Sioux war club. Thus appeared Mr. Hickok when he made his Cheyenne début; and those who observed him halting up the street held him for some wandering evangelist, present with a purpose to hold services in the first hurdy-gurdy he caught off his foolish guard.