Yet every man is afraid of something. It was about the time of the conversation just noted (he was then visiting New York City), that he said anxiously to a companion who was steering him through the mess of traffic at one of the Twenty-third Street crossings:
"Look here, you'll get me killed, yet, in a place like this. I don't know the game."
The muzzle of a Colt 45, or of a Winchester, had no terrors for him, but a phalanx of automobiles and traction-cars, mingled with a medley of other vehicles, bearing down from four different directions—a perfect tangle of impending death—proved disturbing to one accustomed to simpler, even if more malignant, dangers.
With conditions of his own kind, however, he was at home, even in the metropolis. Visiting Coney Island one night he came upon two tough individuals, clutched in a fierce grip and trying to damage each other vitally. Texas was a long way off, but it did not matter. He took hold of those men saying:
"Look here, what are you men acting so sorry for? Stop this, now, and go home!"
They were the sort of men who would have resisted a policeman—who might have killed him. What they did now was to cease their warfare and stare in a dazed way at the tall lean figure, the unusual features and the large white hat of Captain Bill.
"You fellows go on home, now," he admonished, in his slow, homely way, and the two set out in different directions, without a word.
It was on his way back to Texas that he paid his promised visit to President Roosevelt. He was a bit nervous over the prospect, but found himself altogether at ease a moment after his arrival at the White House. For he was given the sort of hearty welcome that goes with the wider life he knew best, and was introduced without formality to men who were delighted to honor him for what he was, and had been. If Theodore Roosevelt had enjoyed his visit to the plains, so no less did Captain Bill McDonald find delight amid the halls and highways of legislation.
Captain Bill McDonald of Texas—the last of a vanishing race and a vanished day; of the race to which Crockett and Bowie and Travis and Fannin belonged; of a day when a hip and a holster were made one for the other—when to reach in that direction meant, for somebody, post-mortem and obsequies. State Revenue Agent of Texas—such to-day is his title—and the work he has undertaken in his new field goes bravely on. Texas still needs his honesty, his courage, and his determination. When those qualities direct the affairs of the body politic, the prosperity and predominance of that commonwealth are assured.
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