“I’m Ben Sippy,” I said, thinking it was about time we got introduced. I stood up and offered a handshake.

Billy didn’t shake my hand, but he gave me another grin. He had buck teeth, and both of them were chipped.

“Howdy, Mr. Sippy, are you from Mississippi?” he said, and burst out laughing. In those days Billy was always getting tickled at his own remarks. When he laughed at one of his own jokes you couldn’t help liking him—he was just a winning kid.

Though now, when I think of Billy Bone giggling at one of his own little sallies, I soon grow blind with tears—sentimental, I guess. But there was a time when I would have done anything for Billy.

“No, I’m just from Philadelphia,” I said. He was not the first person to make the Mississippi joke.

“Well, I’m Billy Bone,” he said, with a flicker of threat in his eyes.

I guess I must have started or flinched or something, because the threat immediately went away and it seemed to be all he could do to keep from laughing again. I don’t consider myself much of a comic, but for some reason Billy always had trouble keeping a straight face in my company.

“You act like you’ve heard of me, Mr. Sippy,” he said.

Of course, he knew perfectly well I’d heard of him. Everyone in the West had heard of him, and plenty of people in other parts of the world as well. Since Wild Bill Hickok had let himself get killed in South Dakota two years before, I doubt there was a gunfighter alive with a reputation to match Billy’s. But I just looked at him and tried to take a relaxed line.

“Oh, you’ve got a reputation,” I said. “They say you’re a cool killer.”

“I am, but the cool killing don’t start till around November,” he said, giggling again. “This time of the year we mostly do hot killing, Mr. Sippy.”

2.

Later on, I realized it was a good thing I had paid Billy’s reputation that trite little compliment. If I hadn’t, I doubt we’d ever have become friends. In fact, if I hadn’t, he might just have shot me.

Billy expected people to take note of his reputation, though why he even had a reputation at that time was a mystery to me, once I knew the facts. From listening to gossip in barrooms I had formed the general impression that he had already killed ten or twelve white men, and scores of Indians and Mexicans as well.