“Who is this Pecos Bill I’ve heard you mention?” asked Lanky.
“Who is he? Why, ain’t you ever heard of Pecos Bill?”
“Not till I came here.”
“Well, well, I reckon you’ve heard of Sam Houston, and Sam Bass and General Lee and George Washington and Pat Garrett, ain’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard a little about them but not anything about Pecos Bill.”
“That jest shows that the fellers that make our books don’t know what to put in ’em. The idear of leavin’ out Pecos Bill.”
“But who was Pecos Bill?”
“Who was he? Why, he was jest about the most celebrated man in the whole dang cow country.”
“What was his real name?”
“So far as I know the only real name he ever had was Pecos Bill. Don’t suppose anybody knows what his daddy’s name was. You see, in his day it wasn’t good manners to ask a feller his name, and besides it wasn’t good judgment either. And it ain’t been so long. Many a greenhorn bein’ ignorant of that little point of good manners has looked down the muzzle of a six-shooter and then died.