BILL THOMPSON’S FATAL SURPRISE.
Wild Bill got off the train at Topeka, and returned to Abilene the next day. A week later he went up to Ellsworth, to which place he was a frequent visitor, being attracted to that town by a woman whose name we omit to mention, by her request. This woman was the keeper of a house of ill-repute, but her beauty made her a most attractive person, and her real admirers were numbered by hundreds. She is now pursuing the same calling in Kansas City, but though still a fine looking woman, very few traces of her former beauty remain. She is wealthy, however, and what she now lacks in natural appearance, she compensates for by artificial means, and is still a leader of her kind. Bill’s love for her was undoubtedly genuine, although he never asked her hand in marriage. Bill Thompson, a big bully, and handy with his pistol, was also a worshiper at the same shrine, and hated Wild Bill more inveterately than any other man on earth. This hatred was, perhaps, not so much inspired by the rivalry between them for the woman’s smiles, as it was caused by the fact that on one occasion Wild Bill had arrested and severely handled Thompson, while the latter was carousing in Abilene. Thompson had repeatedly made threats which reached Bill’s ears, and caused him to be watchful. A collision occurred between the two in a restaurant in Ellsworth, under the following circumstances: Bill had entered the place and called for an oyster stew. He took a seat in a small alcove, in which was a table, with his back to the saloon, a position he was never known to assume before or since. The moment the waiter was entering with the stew, Bill turned in his seat at the very instant to see Thompson enter a side door with pistol in hand. Bill slipped out of his chair and dropped onto his knees, with the view of using the chair as a sort of breastwork. The instant he moved, a ball from Thompson’s pistol whistled passed his ear, and struck the plate on the table in front of him. Before another shot could be fired from the same course, Bill jerked one of the two derringers he nearly always carried, from his pants pocket, and, whirling on one knee, sent a bullet squarely into Thompson’s forehead. The man fell forward on his face without uttering a sound, stone-dead; the dish of soup in the waiter’s hand tumbled onto the floor and broke into fragments. Resuming his seat again at the table, merely rising from his kneeling position, Bill told the affrighted waiter to bring him that oyster stew he had ordered, but the restaurant speedily filled with morbid people, and there was too much excitement to admit of serving stews thereafter. Bill was the least excited of any, and after waiting a few moments, and seeing that he could not get what he called for, he went out of the place and took his oyster stew at another restaurant. Of course he was arrested, but as it was a clear case of self-defense, he was at once discharged.