Abilene had had enough. The city fathers told the Texans there could be no more cattle drives through their town and dismissed Hickok as city marshal.

At about this time the east coast was thriving on the Wild West stories in the dime novels that were being turned out and the exaggerated articles displayed in the press. Having had some luck at the gaming tables, Hickok decided to join the foray and put together a show called “The Daring Buffalo Chase of the Plains” in the early 1870’s. Making a thousand dollar investment, he packed up six buffalos, four Comanches, three cowboys, a bear and a monkey, and headed on a train to Niagara Falls. But the show was a disaster. The once frisky buffalo acted like Jersey cows, until Wild Bill fired a shot. Suddenly the buffalo ran circles with the Comanches screaming in pursuit, some stray dogs mixed into the fray, as well as several children chased by their parents, and all hell broke loose. Suddenly, the buffalo broke through a wire fence and stampeded the audience. Wild Bill made only a little over $100 for his show and had to sell the buffalos to a butcher shop to pay the expenses home for everybody.

However, his old friend Buffalo Bill Cody came to his rescue. Inviting Hickok to join his dramatic play entitled “Scouts of the Prairies,” Wild Bill made a decent income and was able to indulge in his love for women and gambling, but an actor he was not. Nor was he happy, beginning to drink a lot, his acting became even worse, and finally in March of 1874 he said goodbye to Cody and headed back out West.

On March 5, 1876, Hickok married an older woman by the name of Agnes Lake Thatcher, who had been chasing him around the country for years and patiently waiting for him to tire of his long string of female companions.

By this time he was almost 39, going bald, wearing glasses, and was said to have sensed his oncoming death. Marrying in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the two traveled to Cincinnati for their honeymoon. Just a month later, Bill explained to her that he was headed to the western goldfields to make a grubstake and would send for her later. She would never see him again.