He went about annoying the players, who tolerated him with rare good nature, until he trod upon the toes of a bystander.

Fred Ashford was working in the Union Pacific shops at the time. He had for several years whacked bulls on the Black Hills route for Billy Hecht. Fred was a man r f medium stature and prodigious strength. He quit freighting in 1882 and joined a cow outfit, and then later went into the shops.

To step upon a man's toes in the west was an affront and a challenge, and when Red Path Bill picked Ashford for the offense, he did not know his man. Fred's right arm swung once. The rest were better told by a humbled and contrite spirit.

"I am what remains of Red Path Bill. They took a caseknife and tried to scrape me off the wall where I had been splattered, but they could not get enough to do much good."

Each of the classes that inhabited the early west held the other in contempt. That is : the soldier aKvays treated the cowboys as "herdsmen," and the cowboys returned the sentiment with vigor. The gamblers respected the men of the range for their money, for the game way they took a loss, but generally with utter contempt for their skill at cards. Occasionally they miscalculated. Sandy Ingraham caught a fellow "out on a limb" once in the Capitol saloon of Cheyenne. After a delay of careful deliberation of fifty minutes, he called the gambler's bet of seven hundred dollars, and won with "two deuces."