During the month of September, 1878, the “Kid” and part of his gang visited the town of Lincoln, and on leaving there stole a large band of fine range horses from Charlie Fritz and others.
This band of horses was driven to Fort Sumner, thence east to Tascosa in the wild Panhandle of Texas, on the Canadian river.
While disposing of these horses to the cattlemen and cowboys, the “Kid” and his gang camped for several weeks at the “LX” cattle ranch, twenty miles below Tascosa.
It was here, during the months of October and November, 1878, that the writer made the acquaintance of “Billy the Kid,” Tom O’Phalliard, Henry Brown, Fred Wyat, John Middleton, and others of the gang whose names can’t be recalled.
The author had just returned from Chicago where he had taken a shipment of fat steers, and found this gang of outlaws camped under some large cottonwood trees, within a few hundred yards of the “LX” headquarter ranch house.
For a few weeks, much of my time was spent with “Billy the Kid.” We became quite chummy. He presented me with a nicely bound book, in which he wrote his autograph. I had previously given him a fine meerschaum cigar holder.
While loafing in their camp, we passed off the time playing cards and shooting at marks. With our Colt’s 45 pistols I could hit the mark as often as the “Kid,” but when it came to quick shooting, he could get in two shots to my one.
I found “Billy the Kid” to be a good natured young man. He was always cheerful and smiling. Being still in his teens, he had no sign of a beard. His eyes were a hazel blue, and his brown hair was long and curly. The skin on his face was tanned to a chestnut brown, and was as soft and tender as a baby’s. He weighed about one hundred and forty pounds, and was five feet, eight inches tall. His only defects were two upper front teeth, which projected outward from his well shaped mouth.
During his many visits to Tascosa, where whiskey was plentiful, the “Kid” never got drunk. He seemed to drink more for sociability than for the “love of liquor.”
Here Henry Brown and Fred Wyat quit the “Kid’s” outlaw gang and went to the Chickasaw Nation, in the Indian Territory, where the parents of half-breed Fred Wyat lived.