While Smoke Rolled features Breckinridge Elkins, but a known early draft features Pike Bearfield instead. It is not known whether Howard or Otis Adelbert Kline made the character change. An early Kline list records the title While the Smoke Rolled, leaving uncertain whether that form or the published title reflects an error. A later appearance in The Summit County Journal changed the character name to “Breckenridge Elkins.” The early Pike Bearfield draft was first published in the Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter.