After many experiences with the pro-slavery
folk from the border, Bill, or "Shanghai Bill," as he was then known—a nickname which clung for years—went stage driving for the Overland, and incidentally did some effective Indian fighting for his employers, finally, in the year 1861, settling down as station agent for the Overland at Rock Creek station, about fifty miles west of Topeka. He was really there as guard for the horse band, for all that region was full of horse thieves and cutthroats, and robberies and killings were common enough. It was here that there occurred his greatest fight, the greatest fight of one man against odds at close range that is mentioned in any history of any part of the world. There was never a battle like it known, nor is the West apt again to produce one matching it.
The borderland of Kansas was at that time, as may be remembered, ground debated by the anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions, who still waged bitter war against one another, killing, burning, and pillaging without mercy. The civil war was then raging, and Confederates from Missouri were frequent visitors in eastern Kansas under one pretext or another, of which horse lifting was the one most common, it being held legitimate to prey upon the enemy
as opportunity offered. Two border outlaws by the name of the McCandlas boys led a gang of hard men in enterprises of this nature, and these intended to run off the stage company's horses when they found they could not seduce Bill to join their number. He told them to come and take the horses if they could; and on the afternoon of December 16, 1861, ten of them, led by the McCandlas brothers, rode up to his dugout to do so. Bill was alone, his stableman being away hunting. He retreated to the dark interior of his dugout and got ready his weapons, a rifle, two six-shooters, and a knife.
The assailants proceeded to batter in the door with a log, and as it fell in, Jim McCandlas, who must have been a brave man to undertake so foolhardy a thing against a man already known as a killer, sprang in at the opening. He, of course, was killed at once. This exhausted the rifle, and Bill picked up the six-shooters from the table and in three quick shots killed three more of the gang as they rushed in at the door. Four men were dead in less than that many seconds; but there were still six others left, all inside the dugout now, and all firing at him at a range of three feet. It was almost a miracle that, under such surroundings,
the man was not killed. Bill now was crowded too much to use his firearms, and took to the bowie, thrusting at one man and another as best he might. It is known among knife-fighters that a man will stand up under a lot of flesh-cutting and blood-letting until the blade strikes a bone. Then he seems to drop quickly if it be a deep and severe thrust. In this chance medley, the knife wounds inflicted on each other by Bill and his swarming foes did not at first drop their men; so that it must have been several minutes that all seven of them were mixed in a mass of shooting, thrusting, panting, and gasping humanity. Then Jack McCandlas swung his rifle barrel and struck Bill over the head, springing upon him with his knife as well. Bill got his hand on a six-shooter and killed him just as he would have struck. After that no one knows what happened, not even Bill himself, who got his name then and there. "I just got sort of wild," he said, describing it. "I thought my heart was on fire. I went out to the pump then to get a drink, and I was all cut and shot to pieces."
From a painting by John W. Norton
WILD BILL HICKOK'S DESPERATE FIGHT IN THE DUGOUT—ONE MAN AGAINST TEN
They called him Wild Bill after that, and he had earned the name. There were six dead men on the floor of the dugout. He had fairly
whipped the ten of them, and the four remaining had enough and fled from that awful hole in the ground. Two of these were badly wounded. Bill followed them to the door. His own weapons were exhausted or not at hand by this time, but his stableman came up just then with a rifle in his hands. Bill caught it from him, and, cut up as he was, fired and killed one of the wounded desperadoes as he tried to mount his horse. The other wounded man later died of his wounds. Eight men were killed by the one. The two who got to their horses and escaped were perhaps never in the dugout at all, for it was hardly large enough to hold another man had any wanted to get in.