The 27000-word tale “A Noble Friendship” could be defined as “variations on the theme of friendship,” in the form of a short story. One should consider it as an exercise of acrobatics on the razor’s edge between the politically correct and the politically incorrect.
An Italian translation of the tale is being put online tonight, with the title of “Una nobile amicizia.” The author’s name, Felice Mazza, is a pseudonym, the name of a real person who had a forlorn existence, which however has nothing to do with the story.

I would just like to state that the name Billie, in the US, is also used for boys in one case out of eight. Those people who are knowledgeable in the “minor English literature” might know the names of Farrar (an author) and Evson (one of his characters).
The author of “A Noble Friendship “ spent some time in California in remote times, and had no adventure of the type of the present tale, which should be considered, therefore, as pure fantasy.