Connecticut western news., 1895-08-01
BOGUS WILDCAT BILL
"RATTLESNAKE OF BENDeR,S FLAT"
 FOR REVENUE ONLY.

FOR REVENUE ONLY.
 How He Made Money Laying For Pete
 Smith of Patchin's Raneh-A Game That
 Worked We'll and Paid Until a Blacs
 Ebony Cane Appeared on the Scene.
 tThere was, few years ago." said Ma ior Hotchkiss, "a man at Badger Rock, Mon, who joyed in calling himself Wild cat Bill, the Rattlesnake of Bender's Flat. Not that that was his name, of course, or that his name was Bill or even William. or that, so far as know, he had ever secn wildcat or would have known a rattle snake if he had met one, and I am certain there was no such place as Bender's Flat, hut this is what he was pleased to call himself. In point of fact, his nanlo was Earnest Wilberforce or something of that sort, and he came originally from Bald winsville, Conn.,, or some such mild, wild catlcss and nonrattlesnake neighborhood. '.If the fellow had stuck to Raldwins- ville I fancy he'd have carried on a coun- try store, and if his tastes had happened to run in that particular direction have perhaps become a collector of postage stamps. He determined to take up the vocation of dasperado in purely commer- 
 had never shot a man, or shot at a man, or shot in the direction of where any man or other member of the human race was, or had been, or expected to be. Indeed you couldn't prove it by me that he had ever shot off a gun or knew trigger from trajectory.
 Badger Rock was at that time a small town engaged chiefly in the business of transferring people from the railroad sta tion to the stages which ran to certain gold and silver mines. A great many eastern people, capitalists and so forth, passed through it, but few staid in the place more than few hours
 "One daT, half hour before the train from the cast was due, the clerk of tho hotel was astonishcd to see this man en- ter, clad in most striking cowboy costume, wearing belt with two revolvers and a knife in it and carrying heavy double barreled shotgun with the barrels sawed | off so that they were not more than foot | long, making weapon such as is some times affected by desperate characters, | treasure coach guards deputy shcriffs or other individuals engaged in turning their | hands against their fellow men. ITO the surprised inquiries of tho hotel ! clerk Wilberforce explained that he was now Wildcat Bill, the Rattlcsnake of Ben | ders Flat, and that all he asked was the | simple privilege of waiting behind the half | open door of the office for Pete Smith of | Patchin's ranch. The clerk had never | heard any of these names before, but as 1 there was no rule against it he consented
 Ut was not long before the train arriv | cd and an elderly and correct appearing i man alighted and made his way toward the hotel He was, in fact, a prominent | Boston capitalist, and this was his first | trip to the somewhat extensive region west of tic Connecticut river. As he entered | tho door of tile hotel lis eye caught the muzzle of the shotgun. with its two cav crnous shafts, apparently about tho size of sewer pipes, which projected an inch be- | yond the edge of the open door, A glance behind showed a most murdcrous individ. ual breathing short, and with his fingers moving nervously on both triggers. The Boston man stepped quickly to the clerk and whispered:
 | Who-who is that man?'
 l" That's Wildcat Bill the Rattlesnake | of Bcndcr's Flat, answered the clerk.
 'Wha-what is he doing?'
 Waiting for Pete Smith of Patchin' s ranch, replied the clerk.
 Will-wiu he shoot him?'
 '' He will blow him into pieces-unlcss Pete shoots first.
 s' Is tho = the gentleman expected soon? went on the man from the Hub.
 Pete comes in at s:i5 for drink
 "The visitor consulted his watch and i found it was 2:30.
 ' Is there no way to stop such a terri ble thing? he inquired earnestly. "The clerk shook his head. No he re- piled Bill las shot 22 men, and you sec | has l,, fY,l Ri h now to file the twenty-third notch in his six shooter after he gets through with Pete. l But, added the clerk confldentially, per haps he could be hired to postpone tho op- eration for a few hours-say till after you | have left for the mines.
 "The upshot of it was that for S10 the | Rattlesnakc agreed not to shoot Pete till after 5 o'clock, and the Boston man again | drew full breath.
 Naturally so easy and rapid way of making money could not bo left unculti vated, and Wildcat Bill became a regular thing behind the hotel door at train time. | He divided profits with the clerk, and they | did a thriving business His terms for consenting to postpone temporarily the i awful slaughter of his enemy varied from | S5 to $50, according to tho means or ter TOT of tho subject. Only one attempt proved total failure. This was in the case of a rollioking youth from Louisville, who sat down and announced that he was going to wait and sec the fun. He was finally tired out by tho inexplicable failure | of Pete Smith to arrive.
 "The game was kept up several years l and would perhaps have been still going I on had it not been for an unfortunate acci- | dent. One day man came into the office with black ebony cane. Having valise in either hand, he was carrying this cane in horizontal position under his arm.
 When the end of it poked around the door,
 Wildcat Bill, the Rattlesnake of Bender s
 Flat, mistook it for the muzzle of some sort of weapon, uttered m agonized cry, dropped his own gun, leapod through a
 window and ran half mile for safety. It
 unnervod him to such an extent that he
 never returned to his profession and final ly dropped out of sight. New York | Tribune.