As a boy, William Barclay Masterson had a great love for hunting which, according to his good friend Alfred Henry Lewis, earned him his nickname, Bat, after Baptize Brown or "Old Bat." When William became engaged in buffalo hunting in the early seventies, the name descended to him. William Barclay Masterson would be known as "Bat" Masterson for the rest of his life. Henry Hubert Raymond recollects the following story about Bat Masterson's early life. Wild West Podcast proudly presents The Life and Times of Bat Masters: Part One; The Early Years.This episode covers three phases of Bat Masterson's life, the early years when Bat was a boy growing up in Illinois, his teenage year's buffalo hunting on the Kansas plains, and Indian fighting at Adobe Walls.