The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1889-04-04
wB/LLY, THE KID"
A FRONTIER SKETCH OF NEW MEXICO
EIGHT YEARS AGO.


a name-such name as delights the
soul of the average boy and youth |
who devours the "yellow covered lit
erature-evolved from the inner con
seriousness of the author of this
sketch, mere creature of his mag
nation We answer-and answer
truthfully~"N o." Billy the Kid
was the real name of real person
age who terrorized New Mexico and
the far Southwest a few years ago.
Young as he was, only about twenty
tWo,-indeed, his soubriquet of "Kld
shows his extreme youth-when the
final act in the tragedy of his bandit
life occurred, yet more human beings
than he numbered years had already
fallen, either in single combat or
in acts of assassination and red
handed murder, before the unerring
bullet of his "gun, "a name which
the Eastern "tenderfoot' II G.,
stranger or traveller from the East
must not suppose refers to rife or
musket, but to d revolver, that is
the far Western ''gun."
A few years ago, the name of the
STRIPPING who forms the center piece
Of our sketch, was an actual terror
to the quiet farmer and herder of
the Rio Grande valley and to the
peaceable shopkeeper of the frontier
town: lis wholesale cattle robberles
actually caused New Mexico ranch
property to depreciate in the market;
bis wonderful exploits, his chair
breadth" escapes from the hands of
Justice, his cold blooded murders,
performed with all the GOODNESS and
malignity Of criminal old and hard
ened in ferocious vice, filled the pub
lie ear and at times engrossed the
public attention of borderland.
Such. in brief, was "Billy the Kid"
and we now venture to introduce
him to the gentle reader, whom we
invite to speed away with US, on the
faciIe wing of imagination, to the
frontier town Of Las Vegas-Span-
ish,--"The Meadow" and this to
place himself or herself near the
actual scene of the final drama of
the kids" life. And let us here
note that he was called the "Kid"
very appropriately, because he was
not much more than a beardless
STRIPPING of twenty odd years when
he died with his boots on" meta
phorlcally speaking--a fitting finale"
to short life as romantically hid
eous and sanguinary as that of the
most vindiCitive "Thug" of Hin
dOstan.
1t was some eight or ten years ago
that the writer of this sketch set out
to New Mexico to join the corps of
surveyors and engineers of the Atch-
ison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad,
then but lately built through the
wilder portions Of that territory, Ari-
IONA, etc. In our excursions about
the more unCivilized and unsettled
parts of this Cat that time) frontier
country, we always carried arms with
us; for we were often in the habit of
meeting that scum" of society,
which the boiling and seething of
active civilization always carries "to
the top, i'm the shape of "bandits,"
renegades, escaped murderers and
felons, and occasionally some of
COOper's mobile red men, in the
guise of the worse than savage
Apache. 1t was in one of these ex-
cursions that we "struck" some "pals"
Of the celebrated Billy" one of
them told the writer that Billy was
the most wonderful shot in the west.
His stories we're afterwards corrobo-
rated by credible eye-witnesses. For
example: when particularly peace
ably disposed on a visit to Las
Vegas-for this audacious fellow
hesitated not to ride into any town,
however large, and demand whatever
he fanCied at the muzzle of his "gun"
he would direct one of his follow
ers to drive a circle of large nails
loosely around some post about six
feet from the ground. Then, bestrid-
ing his mettlesome mustang, he