A famous but completely fictitious story tells of how Tilghman entered a "dugout" on January 8, 1895. Tilghman supposedly detected the tips of several rifles pointed at him from hidden positions in the dugout. According to this story, one of the hidden outlaws attempted to shoot Tilghman in the back, but was prevented from doing so by Bill Doolin himself, who stated: "Bill Tilghman is too good a man to shoot in the back." This much-repeated tale has its origin in a 1915 pamphlet which was sold in conjunction with Tilghman's motion picture "The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws". In 1937, Chris Madsen, Tilghman's fellow marshal, commented on the yarn as follows: "I like Bill Tilghman ... but Bill, when he got into the moving picture business, had to make a record whether it was right or not ... Bill was a little inclined to be romantic."