"Do you know who it is?" asked Mr. Cadwalader.
"No. How should I?"
"That is the famous scout, Buffalo Bill."
"Really!" I exclaimed. "I had fancied him quite different from that. He looks like the pictures of Charles the First. His eyes are so soft, and he has such lovely brown curls and a could-not-hurt-a-fly look about him."
"Well," said Mr. Cadwalader, "he has killed more men than he can count on his fingers when he tries to go to sleep."
"I can't imagine it," I said, gazing with admiration at Buffalo Bill's fine and kind face and splendid figure. "His friend does not look so amiable."
"I should think not. That is the celebrated Mr. Holmes of Texas. He is a terror in this part of the world."
"He looks it," I said. "See all the pistols he has about him. I can see one in his coat pocket, and one in his vest pocket, and..."
"And many under his coat which you can't see."
Just at that moment the "terror" got up, and, lo! a pistol fell out of his clothing on to the floor. Fortunately, it did not go off, but it frightened us almost out of our senses (the ladies, of course). Buffalo Bill picked up the weapon and handed it back to Mr. Holmes, who put it quietly in his pocket, seeming rather abashed.