““As Americans embraced Wild West mythology by ignoring inconvenient facts and exaggerating or inventing more palatable ones, they also altered the meaning of a traditionally negative term. In Wyatt’s real West, anyone referred to as a cowboy was most likely a criminal. But in movies the word was used first to describe hardworking ranch hands and then, generically, those who rode horses, toted six-guns, and, when necessary (and it always became necessary) fought to uphold justice at the risk of their own lives. Cowboys were heroes, and their enemies were outlaws. So far as his growing legion of fans was concerned, Wyatt Earp was a cowboy in the new, best sense of the word. B””
![“I wouldn't call it ["Wild Bill Hickok"] an urban legend, but I guess I'd call it a rural legend that the cowboy was always soft-spoken, mild-spoken, well-mannered.” quote by Keith Carradine](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a13/keith-carradine-15039_bills_i-wouldn-t-call-it-wild-bill-hickok-an-u_357650.jpg)
