It was in Kansas that he was given the name of “Bill,” though just why no one seems to know; and afterward his daring and adventurous career got for him the added cognomen of “Wild Bill,” a name that he certainly made famous.
Serving upon the frontier as wagon-boss, pony-rider, stage-driver, and then drifting into the position of guide and Government scout, Wild Bill made a name for himself in each occupation he followed.
It was while serving as train-boss of one of Russell & Majors wagon-trains that Wild Bill met and befriended Buffalo Bill, then a mere boy; and the friendship thus begun ended only with the death of Hickok, at Deadwood, at the hands of the assassin Jack McCaul.
A soldier, scout, and spy during the Civil War, Wild Bill returned to scouting at its close, the frontier becoming his home.
Constantly he was thrown in the company of Buffalo Bill, and when the latter decided to go upon the stage he determined that his companions in the enterprise should be Wild Bill and Texas Jack, and they accompanied him to the East.
A dead shot, an enemy to fear, Wild Bill was as brave as a lion and as tender-hearted as a woman, and he will go down in history as a true hero of the border.
“TEXAS JACK” (J. B. OMOHUNDRO).
Known in his native State, Virginia, as John B. Omohundro, the subject of this sketch won the sobriquet of “Texas Jack” after service as a ranger in the Lone Star State.
