d they buried him in the Black Hills in the spring of 1876.

James B. Hickok was the name by which men called him until one
December day in the early sixties when the McCandless gang of outlaws
tried to drive the horses off from the Rock Creek station of the
Overland Stage on the plains of southwestern Nebraska near the Kansas
boundary.

There were ten of the desperadoes, and Hickok, who was scarcely more
than a boy then, was alone in the little sod house, for Doc Brinck,
his partner, was off hunting that afternoon. He watched their approach
from the lonely cubicle where he and Brinck passed their days as
station-keepers. They rode up through the cottonwoods by the creek.
Bill McCandless leaped from the saddle and swaggered to the corral
bars.

"The first man lays a hand on those bars, I'll shoot," Hickok called.
They answered his warning with a volley, and their leader laughed as
he dragged the topmost railing from its place. Laughing he died.

Now the rifles of the others rained lead against the sod walls and
slugs buzzed like angry wasps through the window. He killed one more
by the corral and a third who had crept up behind the wooden
well-curb. The seven who were left retired to the cottonwoods to hold
council. They determined to rush the building and batter down the
door.

When they came forth bearing a dead tree-trunk between them, he got
two more of them. And then the timber crashed against the flimsy door;
the rended boards flew across the room; the sod walls trembled to the
shock. He dropped his rifle and drew his revolver as he leaped to meet
them.

Jim McCandless and another pitched forward across the threshold with
leveled shotguns at their shoulders. Young Hickok ducked under the
muzzle of the nearest weapon, and its flame seared his long hair as he
swung for the bearer's mid-section with all the weight of his body
behind the blow. Whirling with the swiftness of a fighting cat he
spurned the senseless outlaw with his boot and "threw down" on
McCandless. Revolver and shotgun flamed in the same instant;
McCandless fell dead; Hickok staggered back with eleven buckshot in
his body.

The other three were on him before he recovered his balance. He felt
the searing of their bowie-knives against his ribs as they bore him
down on the bed. Fingers closed in on his windpipe. He seized the arm
in his two hands and twisted it, as one would twist a stick, until the
bones snapped. He struggled to his feet, and