Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend

The colorful figures of the western American frontier, the Indian fighters, the mountain men, the outlaws, and the lawmen, have been romanticized for more than a hundred years by writers who found it easier to invent history than the research it. "Bat" Masterson was one such character who cast a long shadow across the pages of western history as it has been routinely depicted.

"A legend in his own time," he was called in a television series produced in the 1960's. A legend he has become—one...