Pecos Bill

Pecos Bill was about the bravest cowboy that ever lived.

He was born in Texas, before it became a state. His family decided to move out of town when it became too crowded. Bill fell out of their covered wagon near the Pecos River and was raised by a pack of coyotes. Years later he was found by his real brother, who convinced him he was not a coyote.

When he grew up he become a cowboy. He used a rattlesnake named Shake as a lasso and another snake as a little whip. His first ride was a big old mountain-lion that weighed more than three steers and a yearling. When he staked out New Mexico and used Arizona for a cow pasture, he found a horse and raised him from a colt on nitroglycerin and dynamite. It was named Widow-Maker because no other man could ride him and live.

His bride was Slue-Foot Sue. She was a famous rider herself, but he lost her when she tried to ride Widow-Maker on their weddin' day.

Accounts of his demise differ. Some say that it was his drinking habits that killed him. He put fish-hooks and barbed wire in his toddy; it rusted his interior and he wasted away to a mere skeleton, weighing not more than two tons. Others say when Edward O'Reilly from Boston came one day, wearing a mail-order cowboy outfit, and asking questions about the West, Bill laughed himself to death.