The Wild West has made legends out of many men through the embellishment of their stories, such as crediting Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok for killing far more people than they actually did. But it has also made icons out of outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid based on the mystery and uncertainty surrounding their crimes and deaths, allowing speculation and legend to fill in the gaps.

Though Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are the two most famous members of the Wild Bunch and will probably always be associated with each other, there's no indication that they had any particularly close friendship or relationship aside from being members of the same gang. In fact, they might not have been linked together at all but for the fact that they both chose to flee the country for Argentina to escape justice. It was in South America that the famous outlaws are believed to have met their ultimate fate in a shootout with Bolivian soldiers, but the mystery and controversy surrounding that shootout (and whether the two bandits were actually them) have helped ensure their place in Western lore. As with so many other legends of the West, people continue to speculate that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid survived and lived out the rest of their lives.