“How many of you are there now?”

“Two,” was the reply.

“Then I advise you to go out and get some more reinforcements,” said Bill, very coolly.

The policemen thereupon spoke to the sheriff, who was dressed in citizen’s clothes.  The sheriff came up and said he would have to take him into custody.

“All right, sir,” replied Bill, “I have no objections to walking out with you, but I won’t go with any two policemen.”  At the court next morning Bill stated his reasons for having acted as he had done, and the judge fined him only three dollars and costs.

This was the last time that Wild Bill appeared on the stage.  He shortly afterwards returned to the West, and on arriving at Cheyenne, he visited Boulder’s gambling room and sat down at a faro table.  No one in the room recognized him, as he had not been in Cheyenne for several years.  After losing two or three bets he threw down a fifty dollar bill and lost that also.  Boulder quietly raked in the money.  Bill placed a second fifty dollar note on another card, when Boulder informed him that the limit was twenty-five dollars.

“You have just taken in a fifty dollar bill which I lost,” said Bill.

“Well you needn’t make any more such bets, as I will not go above my limit,” replied Boulder.

“I’ll just play that fifty dollar bill as it lays.  If it loses, it’s yours; if it wins, you’ll pay me fifty dollars, or I’ll know the reason why.”

“I am running this game, and I want no talk from you, sir,” said Boulder.

One word brought on another, until Boulder threatened to have Bill put out of the house.  Bill was carrying the butt end of a billiard cue for a cane, and bending over the table, he said:  “You’d rob a blind man.”  Then he suddenly tapped Boulder on the head with the cane, with such force as to knock him over.  With another sweep of the cane he tumbled the “look-out” from his chair, and then reaching over into the money drawer he grabbed a handful of greenbacks and stuck them in his pocket.

At this stage of the game four or five men—­who were employed as “bouncers” for the establishment to throw out the noisy persons—­rushed up to capture Bill, but he knocked them right and left with his cane, and seeing the whole crowd was now closing in on him, he jumped into a corner, and with each hand drew a revolver and faced the enemy.  At this moment the bar-keeper recognized him, and sang out in a loud voice: 

“Look out boys—­that’s Wild Bill you’ve run against.”

That settled the matter; for when they heard the name of Wild Bill they turned and beat a hasty retreat out of the doors and windows, and in less time than it takes to tell it, Wild Bill was the only man in the room.  He coolly walked over to Dyer’s hotel, and retired for the Bight.  Boulder claimed that he had taken $500, but he really got only $200.  Boulder, upon learning that it was Wild Bill who had cleaned him out, said nothing more about the money.  The next day the two men met over a bottle of wine, and settled their differences in an amicable manner.