"Yes, my child," replied Mr. Hickok blandly.
"Mr. Wild Bill Hickok?" Mr. Hickok frowned; he distasted the ferocious prefix.
It had been granted Mr. Hickok by romanticists with a bent to be fantastic, and was a step in titles the more strange, perhaps, since Mr. Hickok was not baptised "William," but "James." But "Wild Bill" they made it, and "Wild Bill" it remained; albeit in submission to Mr. Hickok's wishes--he once made them plain by shooting a glass of whiskey from the hand of one who had called him "Wild Bill," to that gentleman's disturbance and a loss to him of one drink--he was never so named except behind his back. When folk referred to him, they called him "Wild Bill"; when they addressed him they did so as "Mr. Hickok." Now, when the world and Mr. Hickok understood each other on this touchy point, every sign of friction ceased. The compromise won ready adoption, and everybody was satisfied since everybody went not without his partial way.
Mr. Hickok tore open the message, while the boy admired him to the hilts. The message was a long one, by which Mr. Hickok deduced it to be important. Mr. Hickok was not over-quick with written English; he had been called in the theatres a "slow study." To expedite affairs he went at once to the signature. This was intelligent enough. As a rule, one could give you every word of any eight-page letter he receives by merely glancing at the signature. That rule will prove particularly true when the signature is a lady's. However, this time the rule failed.
Mr. Hickok, while he knew the name, was driven to wade through the communication before he could come by even a glint of its purport. This he did slowly and painfully, feeling his way from word to word as though fording a strange and turbid stream. At last, when he made it out, Mr. Hickok's face came brightly forth of the shadows like the sun from behind a cloud. Evidently the news was good. Mr. Hickok glanced again at the name. It was the name of Mr. Masterson, whose life he had once saved.
Lest you gather unjustly some red and violent picture of Mr. Hickok, as one to whom the slaughter of his kind was as the air he breathed, it should be shown that he had saved many lives. The record of this truth would gratify Mr. Hickok were he here to read, for he often remembered it in his conversation.