A rather interesting article about the guy. Here are some of the highlites:
In Abilene, Hardin met Wild Bill Hickok, at the time the cattle town's reigning peace officer. Hickok took an indulgently paternal attitude toward the young killer. He drank with Hardin, whored with him and gave him advice, and at one point, when a gang of Hardin's Texas pals and relatives got into trouble, disarmed them but left Hardin his weapon, presumably to allow him to either protect his friends or to keep them in line.
For his part, Hardin was fascinated by Wild Bill and glowed at being seen on intimate terms with so celebrated gunfighter. But all the while, down deep, he realized that Wild Bill would kill him without qualm if circumstance suggested the need--perhaps not out of ill will, but certainly for self-protection.
The climax for association came with one of Hardin's most callous crimes, so ignoble that even he showed some sign of shame and attempted to pass off as the justifiable shooting of a man who was trying to steal his pants. Actually, he had less excuse than that. At the American House Hotel, where Hardin had put up for the night, he began firing bullets through a bedroom wall simply to stop the snoring of a stranger in the next room. The first bullet merely woke the man; the second killed him. In the silence Hardin realized that he was about to plunge into deep trouble with Wild Bill Hickok. Still in his undershirt, he exited through a window and ran onto the roof of the hotel portico--just in time to see Hickok arriving with four policemen, alerted by other guests. "I believe," Hardin said later, "that if Wild Bill found me in a defenseless condition, he would take no explanation, but would kill me to add to his reputation."
Not waiting to determine Hickok's disposition in the matter, Hardin leaped from the roof into the street and hid in a haystack for the rest of the night. Towards dawn he stole a horse and made his way back to the cow camp outside town. The next day he left for Texas, never to return to Abilene. Years later Hardin made a casual reference to the episode. "They tell lots of lies about me," he complained. "They say I killed six or seven men for snoring. Well, it ain't true, I only killed one man for snoring."
And:
Johnny Cash wrote and recorded a song about Hardin entitled "Hardin Wouldn't Run". It relates some of the true events of Hardin's life, including his murder at the Acme Saloon
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