Russian Bill materialized out of blue space and swaggered for a time among Tombstone’s saloons, attracting much curious attention. He was a mystery. Nobody knew him or had ever heard of him. Nor did he condescend to introduce himself by any other name. He was Russian Bill⁠—that was all.

A remarkably handsome fellow was Russian Bill, with a cameo face, fine eyes, and golden-yellow hair that tumbled about his shoulders. He dressed in cowboy regalia, complete in every detail, from white, sugar-loaf sombrero to high-heeled half-boots with fancy tops and immense spurs that clanked noisily when he walked. It seemed evident at first glance that here was a bold, desperate fellow who probably would think no more of killing a man than of eating his breakfast.

Russian Bill revelled luxuriously in his reputation as a bad man. He hinted darkly of a long career of outlawry and of having killed four men and, in ostensible corroboration of a tragic record, he exhibited four notches carved with a penknife, as neatly as you please, on the handle of one of the two big six-shooters that dangled from his belt. He scowled ominously, carried himself like a swashbuckler, and tossed off his whisky with a flourish. Also he played a good hand at poker, and his game at faro was not to be sneezed at. Certainly, Russian Bill had all the earmarks of a dime-novel hero.

Buckskin Frank Leslie and Doc Holliday looked him over as he passed on Allen Street.

“There goes Russian Bill,” remarked the doctor. “Famous outlaw and desperado.”

“Russian Bill?” repeated Leslie musingly. “I don’t seem to place him.”

“Nobody else can,” replied Holliday. “But he’s bad. He admits it.”

Leslie studied the tall figure, the fleckless cowboy accoutrements, the polished guns, the bright yellow holsters, the golden curls shaking over the broad shoulders.

“The gent’s got pretty hair,” said Buckskin Frank with the air of delivering a verdict.

Russian Bill, it must be admitted, was extraordinary for an outlaw. He displayed an amazing familiarity⁠—for an outlaw⁠—with history, literature, and science. Tombstone saloons were not haunts of the intelligentsia, and it would have been possible for a man with even a smattering of book-learning to acquire a reputation as a sage. But Russian Bill spoke with authority on many recondite subjects, and though his unlettered hearers at times hardly knew what he was talking about, it was generally assumed in Tombstone that his scholarly attainments were genuine.

Evidently of foreign birth, his English was almost without a trace of accent, and he was reputed to speak three other languages equally well. Sometimes, when mellow with liquor, he recited poetry. “This is from Keats,” he would say. Or “That is from Shelley.” The saloon hangers-on wondered where Keats tended bar and for what brand Shelley punched cows, but they were impressed. And in discussing such commonplace topics as the double-out system at bank or the advantage of drawing one card to three of a kind at poker, Russian Bill was just as likely as not to drop in a phrase of Latin or a Greek quotation. He seemed to have difficulty in holding back his erudition.

Then, Russian Bill’s manners were distinguished. He did his best to conceal this scandalous fact, but it stood out as plain as the nose on his face. If he failed to catch some remark, he would say “Pardon me,” instead of “What the hell was that you said?” And he had a way of saying “Thank you very much,” and “Very kind of you,” which sounded queer out here on the desert. And when he invited a fellow to take a glass of tanglefoot, he would not blurt out, “Line up and nominate your pizen,” in the usual outlaw way, but would say with a courtly bow, “Do me the courtesy, my good friend, to have a little drink with me.” These absentminded lapses did his reputation in Tombstone no good. Try as hard as he might, he seemed unable to convince anybody that he was rough and tough. A subtle something about him set him apart even in a Tombstone saloon and marked him unmistakably as a gentleman to the manner born.

Naturally, Russian Bill fell under grave suspicion. Tombstone was not used to outlaws that talked like scholars and observed the punctilios of polite society. Moreover, the spick-and-span newness of Russian Bill’s cowboy makeup caused remark. It smacked of the mail-order house and looked too new to be true. Tombstone puzzled for quite a while over Russian Bill. When it came to outlaws, the town was pretty hard to fool. It made an honest effort to accept Russian Bill for the bold, bad man he represented himself to be, but at last the conclusion was forced upon it that this Russian Bill was only a make-believe outlaw and all his quaint stories were only so much blood-and-thunder claptrap.

The truth was, Russian Bill was dramatizing himself in a little play of his own creation. He was a natural actor who, having missed the footlights, had made the world his stage. His life was a drama that he lived before the critical eyes of an invisible audience. It was not vanity, but the artist in him, that made him strut and pose. Every move, every smile, every frown, was a detail of his art. The role of outlaw had appealed to him as romantically fitting in this wonderful Arizona stage-setting of lonely deserts and mountains. If he enjoyed playing outlaw, where was the harm? It was a satisfying character part. There was good drama in it. It gave him an opportunity for some fine heroics and theatrical effects. But if in this picturesque role of outlaw he should ever meet death standing at a turn in the road, what then? This was a question that did not concern him. As an artist at make-believe, why should he worry about death? Death was reality. There was no art in death.

The Bird Cage Theatre was crowded. The evening’s entertainment was of that excellence Tombstone was wont to expect in this home of refined vaudeville. In one of the upper boxes sat Russian Bill in the midst of a bevy of red-light beauties, and waiters were busy hustling bottles of champagne from the downstairs bar. When the Tombstone Nightingale tripped from the wings and stood smiling behind the footlights, the audience greeted this ever-popular queen of song with vociferous cheering and waving beer mugs. The orchestra struck up something soft and plaintive, and the beautiful cantatrice launched into a soulful aria. Her rich soprano was trembling on a top note when a rough, drunken voice roared from the end box directly above the stage.

“Rotten. Who ever told you you could sing?”

The Tombstone Nightingale cut short her melody. Indignation blazed from her eyes. Billy Hutchinson, theatre proprietor, rushed upon the stage, several hard-looking gentlemen known as bouncers at his heels.

“Hey you, up there!” Billy Hutchinson shook his fist menacingly. “What do you mean by this outrage?”

Raucous laughter was his answer. The man hidden from view of the audience behind the box curtains was plainly a tough hombre and doubtless far gone in drink.

“You cut that out,” yelled Billy Hutchinson. “I’ll stand for no more disturbance from you. Interrupt this lady again and you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

The man in the box subsided. The Tombstone Nightingale, taking a step nearer to the footlights, resumed her song. Again the drunken voice:

“Awful. Rats. Take her out. Get the hook.”

Out from the wings bounced Billy Hutchinson, plainly boiling with wrath.

“Hustle up there and throw that fellow out,” he shouted to the bouncers.

The audience itself was worked up to a pitch of fury by this time. Cries of “Throw him out” rose all over the house. Up the stairs bounded the bouncers. Followed boisterous dialogue. The scuffling noise of violent tumult. Savage yells. Loud oaths. Then the crash of revolver shots. Smoke swirled from the box.

The excited audience leaped to its feet. Murder was more than it had bargained for. Out of the box a body hurtled. It plunged through the air, arms and legs flying helplessly, hat sailing off across the theatre. There was a mad scramble to get from under. But in vain. The body came crashing down on the heads of several wildly ducking, panic-stricken men.

Horrified silence for a moment.

Then up went a great roar of laughter. It was all a joke. The murdered man was only a suit of old clothes stuffed with straw.

The red-light beauties in Russian Bill’s box burst into shrill merriment. Thrilling. Ripping. That stuffed figure certainly fooled them. Looked exactly like a dead man. Hadn’t they had the scare of their lives? Best joke of the season. Just like Billy Hutchinson.

“Wasn’t it just too funny for anything?” Flashing eyes turned upon Russian Bill.

“Yes,” responded Russian Bill, smiling feebly from a corner. “Yes, it was very funny.”

“Why, Russian Bill,” exclaimed the painted lady, “whatever’s the matter with you? You’re as white as a sheet.”

Russian Bill, sitting at a table in the Alhambra, was entertaining his roistering companions with breezy, merry talk. Miners and cowboys were drinking at the bar. Faro and roulette tables were crowded. The place was filled with boisterous hubbub. Suddenly Russian Bill fell into a reverie. His eyes clouded. There was a look of sadness in them. Possibly just a suspicion of undue moisture. One of his half-tipsy comrades clapped him roughly on the shoulder.

“What’s eatin’ you?” he asked loudly.

Russian Bill seemed to wake out of a dream.

“I was thinking of my mother,” he said simply.

Doubtless the bold, bad outlaw was often thinking of his mother. His moods of silent reverie were frequent.

Russian Bill had a curiosity to see Charleston. He had heard much of the free-and-easy doings in the fantastic little capital of the San Pedro. He arrived there when, as it happened, Jack Swartz had on his war paint and all signs pointed to blood on the moon. Russian Bill was enjoying a quiet drink at a bar when in staggered Swartz.

“I’m a curly wolf,” yelled the inebriated hombre as he shot out the lights and all the hangers-on hunted cover. Deep darkness for a time was starred with spitting flames. When the lamps were relighted, Russian Bill was gone. He was travelling at an easy gallop on the road to Tombstone. Not frightened, you understand, but a little disgusted. He had no stomach for Charleston. The village plainly was lowbrow and vulgar.

Russian Bill rode east one morning alone. It was his farewell to Tombstone. The town never saw him again.

Curly Bill sat in a chair under the big live oak in front of Nick Babcock’s saloon in Galeyville, drinking beer out of a bottle and amusing himself with a few practice shots from his six-shooter at lizards and tin cans. It was a quiet day. Few people were about the street. The Chiricahua ridges were steeped in sunshine. The murmur of Turkey Creek came up out of the belt of timber below the mesa. Curly Bill’s black eyes opened wide as, across the street, he beheld a tall young man with a cameo face and golden-yellow hair falling on his shoulders, who looked, in his cowboy trappings, as immaculate as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox.

“Who the hell’s that?” growled the rustler chief in amazement.

“Sh‑h‑h!” whispered John Ringo. “Don’t you know who that is? That’s Russian Bill, the terrible outlaw.”

“Who the hell’s Russian Bill?” snarled Curly. “We oughter learn that tenderfoot not to wear his golden hair hanging down his back that-a-way in these here parts. It’s immoral.”

Russian Bill just at that moment was smoking a cigar held at a jaunty angle between his teeth. The next moment he wasn’t. The cigar had disappeared from his mouth as by magic. A thin wisp of smoke was twisting from the muzzle of Curly Bill’s six-shooter under the live oak tree. With his bottle tilted over his head, Curly Bill was taking a deep swig of beer.

That was Russian Bill’s introduction to Curly Bill. The real outlaw and the make-believe outlaw had many drinks together that day. They seemed to get on famously from the first. Possibly Curly liked the easy good-humour with which the tenderfoot took the joke of the vanishing cigar.

“I want to be an outlaw and join your band,” said Russian Bill with his usual simplicity after the new friendship had been sealed with many drink offerings.

“Bueno, compadre,” replied Curly, laughing. “Git your pony saddled. I’m ridin’ fer the Animos pronto.”

It was as if a king had said, “Arise, Sir Knight,” after laying on the sword. Naive directness was often the way to Curly Bill’s goodwill. When the rustler captain started for his ranch in the Animas Valley late in the day, Russian Bill was riding by his side.

“My brother and I,” said Melvin Jones of Tucson, “were camped at a cow ranch we had just bought over on the Gila River side of the Mogollons. Sitting by our camp fire just after dark, we heard some horses coming. Thinking it might be Indians, we grabbed our rifles and got back out of the firelight. Then somebody hollered ‘Hello’ and said they were two prospectors, and we told them to ride on up and camp with us.

“When they’d unsaddled and sat down by the fire, I looked these two ‘prospectors’ over. They didn’t know me or my brother, but I knew both of them. One was Curly Bill and the other was Russian Bill. I used to see Russian Bill around Tombstone. Curly had a bandage wrapped about his face. Jim Wallace, not long before, had shot him in the jaw in Galeyville and come near killing him. Right after the shooting, Russian Bill rode over to Galeyville from Lordsburg and nursed Curly. Now the two were looking for some quiet spot in the mountains where Curly wouldn’t be hunted and could get well undisturbed. They found the spot at a deserted sheep camp on the Negrito and stayed there three weeks. On his way out of the mountains, Curly Bill met me on the San Francisco and rode into the brush with me and helped me gather up some cattle I was driving back to our new ranch. His wound was healed, and he was all right again. I asked about his companion. ‘He’s headin’ back fer the Animas,’ Curly said.”

Russian Bill had made progress since his Tombstone exit. He had risen to a speaking part in the outlaw drama. He was a member of Curly Bill’s band. He clinked the glass of brotherhood with all the outlaws when they met in Galeyville for a carouse. When he stalked through the street in Lordsburg or Deming, awed citizens nudged one another and whispered, “Russian Bill, one of Curly Bill’s outlaws.” He was recognized everywhere as an outlaw. He posed and swaggered to his heart’s content. He bathed in glory.

But, for all his honours, Russian Bill was not happy. Though he had the reputation of being an outlaw, he himself knew he was not. Though his freebooter comrades treated him with consideration, he felt that secretly they must view him with something akin to contempt. They had records as outlaws; he had none. They rode on cattle raids into Mexico and plundered smuggler trains along the border. He stayed at the home ranch and tended the kettles or did a little nursing now and then. His spirit burned within him as he thought of himself as an outlaw who had never committed a lawless deed, a robber innocent of robberies, a lamblike bad man, a desperado guiltless of blood. He must achieve guilt of some kind⁠—any kind so it was guilt. He must steal something, engage in some depredation, kill somebody. He did not wish to stain his soul too deeply. But if his career in the role of outlaw was to be saved from the rocks, a crime was necessary.

With his artistic future at stake, Russian Bill sallied forth and stole a horse. Very crude and amateurish and foolish was this first and last crime ever attributed to Russian Bill in the Southwest. But the horse was easy and convenient to steal. Of course Russian Bill was caught. As soon as he rode into Shakespeare, a mining town over in the Pyramids in New Mexico, Deputy Sheriff Tucker walked up to him and quietly placed him under arrest. Russian Bill was an actor. He knew nothing about stealing horses.

But, as it happened, on the same day Russian Bill was locked in jail, Sandy King, a real outlaw, who had ridden on many a freebooting expedition with Curly Bill, got drunk and shot up Shakespeare for the second time in a week. Sandy’s first performance had been excused as mere maudlin frivolity, but his second was one too many for Shakespeare, which was tough. As Sandy went galloping up and down the main street, whanging away, by and large, with his six-shooter, a mere clerk, wearing a white linen shirt with stand-up collar and tie, stepped to the door of a dry goods emporium and, with a rifle, tumbled Sandy neatly out of the saddle with a bullet through the neck. Sandy was only stunned, and as soon as he had been brought round, the Stranglers assembled in executive session in the dining room of the Pioneer House.

“But,” protested the hotel proprietor, “this ain’t no time for you boys to be deliberatin’ on a lynchin’ in my dinin’ room. I’m jest about to set supper on the table.”

“The victuals can wait,” snapped the chairman of the vigilance committee. “We’ve got important business on hand.”

With the vigilantes seated around the supper table, the Court was called to order and Sandy King was brought in.

“Tucker’s jest took up a hoss thief,” piped up a member of the committee, “and I moves, Mr. Chairman, that we takes this hoss thief’s case up at the same time.”

So, in this purely incidental way and as an afterthought, Russian Bill was also placed on trial. The evidence against both men was brief but convincing. Russian Bill was convicted of horse stealing and Sandy King of “being a damned nuisance,” both capital crimes in Shakespeare. The table and the chairs were moved over against the walls to give the vigilantes plenty of room, and the nooses were adjusted.

The bell had rung for the curtain. Russian Bill’s drama was ending. He had learned how an outlaw should swagger and pose but he had neglected to learn how an outlaw should die. His histrionic art had prescribed no rules for the proper gesture, the correct attitude, at the final tragedy. The big third-act climax had caught him unprepared. The artist in make-believe at last had come face to face with the grim, lonely reality of death.

The two men were asked if they had anything to say.

“Thar ain’t no whisky whar I’m goin’, they tell me,” spoke up Sandy King, “and ef you fellers air agreeable, I’d like a drink o’ licker before I hit the out-trail.”

He was given a good, stiff drink fetched in from the hotel bar.

But Russian Bill, standing erect, shoulders back, his cameo face set, his steady blue eyes shining with calm courage, shook his handsome head so that his golden-yellow hair tossed about over his shoulders and said never a word.

“This here hoss thief,” remarked one of the committee, “is so damned good-looking it seems ’most a pity to hang him.”

But the ropes having been thrown over the rafters, Russian Bill and Sandy King were swung into the air half up to the ceiling and the counterfeit bad man and the genuine bad man went out together.

After all, Russian Bill had needed no art to teach him how to die. He knew. He had lived like an actor. But he met death like a man.

After the bodies had been cut down and the tables and chairs set back in their places, the hotel landlord, still hot under the collar at this unwarranted interruption of his customary routine, hustled in the steaming supper dishes, and his patrons, chafing at the delay, fell with gusto upon the corned beef and cabbage.

This was all for the time being. But a few months later, Mayor Thomas of Tombstone received a letter from the United States Consul General at St. Petersburg asking information of Lieutenant William Tattenbaum, formerly of the Imperial White Hussars, who had disappeared from Russia after wounding one of his superior officers in a quarrel, and was last heard of, it seemed, somewhere in Arizona. The missing officer’s mother, the letter said, was the Countess Telfrin, a lady-in-waiting at the court of the Czar and she was deeply worried and very anxious to locate him. A photograph was enclosed. Mayor Thomas showed the picture about among Tombstone gamblers and saloon men, who, without hesitation, identified Lieutenant William Tattenbaum of the Imperial White Hussars as Russian Bill.

But Tombstone kept its secret. A reply was sent back to St. Petersburg that Lieutenant Tattenbaum, long a prosperous citizen of these parts, honoured and respected by all, had recently been the victim of an accident resulting in his untimely death. This untruth was, perhaps, cold comfort to the bereaved mother in Russia, but at least it ended her long search for her lost boy and saved her from a broken heart. The unfortunate noblewoman doubtless remained in ignorance to the end of her life that her highborn, scapegrace son had been lynched.

Buckskin Frank Leslie arrived in Tombstone while the town was still young. He was a jovial fellow, full of boisterous fun, rather handsome and well set up, though quite small. He cut a dashing figure as he paraded about the streets in a costume of fringed buckskin with two six-shooters at his belt. Tombstone accepted this Kit Carson finery with a grain of salt, and was inclined to believe Buckskin Frank a tenderfoot in frontier masquerade.

Buckskin Frank met Mrs. Mary Galeen at a dance. Pretty Mrs. Galeen was the belle of the evening, and gallant Buckskin Frank, very susceptible to feminine charm, was notably attentive. But after his fifth waltz with the dainty lady, Buckskin Frank was tapped on the shoulder and called aside by a tall, serious, dark man.

“That lady,” said the tall, serious, dark man, “is my wife. Don’t dance with her any more. If you do, I’ll kill you.”

Mr. Michael Galeen, who tended bar at the Crystal Palace, had been separated from his wife for several months, but still watched her every movement with jealous eye. He had sent word to her not to attend this dance, adding that if she did, her elaborate ball gown would prove her shroud.

Mrs. Galeen, being lighthearted and very comely and something of a coquette, preferred to ignore this tragic warning, but she was greatly perturbed over it, and when the ball was over, she was afraid to go home alone and asked Buckskin Frank to escort her. Which Buckskin Frank did with great pleasure.

It was one of Tombstone’s wonderful nights. The moonlight immersed the silent houses in frosty silver and filled the deserted streets like white, transparent fog. Walking along Allen Street arm in arm and talking in low, lover-like tones, the couple approached the Cosmopolitan Hotel where Mrs. Galeen was in lodgings. Mrs. Galeen was gurgling dulcetly over some pleasantry dropped by her cavalier when Mr. Galeen opened fire from an upper balcony in front of the hotel. But Mr. Galeen had time to fire but once when Buckskin Frank had out his own six-shooter and pinked Mr. Galeen neatly between the eyes. A few weeks later, Buckskin Frank married the widow of the man he had killed.

In view of all these romantic happenings, Tombstone sat up and took notice of this Buckskin Frank. A gentleman who could shoot with such accuracy in moonlight seemed worthy of more than passing attention. It turned out that Buckskin Frank was not a tenderfoot after all, but a noted desperado who, it was said, had killed ten or twelve men. He was a native of Kentucky, his boyhood passed in that state in an atmosphere of mountain feuds. As a scout with the army, he had seen Indian fighting in Texas, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas and had taken part in one or two Arizona campaigns against the Apaches. Tombstone was amazed that a fellow with such a tragic record could take the world with such lighthearted gaiety. Geniality and deadliness seemed his most distinctive characteristics; his heart apparently was overflowing with fun and murder.

Buckskin Frank became in time one of Tombstone’s six-shooter personages. He was unquestionably one of the quickest men with a Colt’s in the country. He shot with the same accuracy at a tin can as at a man who happened to be firing at him. Which, it may be remarked, is one of the fine points of desperado genius. There seemed, moreover, to be no doubt as to his gameness; he would take a chance face to face, but, it was said, was not above shooting a man in the back. He would kill a man, it was declared, for anything⁠—or nothing. It all depended on his mood, which was precarious. As far as anyone knew, he had never killed a man merely to see him fall, but he was suspected of being capable of just such an amusing prank.

He was a sly, crafty, subterranean man, with many deep secrets. His comings and goings were enigmatic. He was soon on terms of intimacy with Curly Bill’s outlaws, especially with John Ringo, and indulged in many drinking bouts with them at Antelope Springs, Soldier Holes, Myers Cienega, Charleston, and Galeyville. Though he tended bar at the Oriental in which Wyatt Earp acquired an interest, he never threw in with the Earps. He remained always a lone wolf who played his own dark, mysterious game. A very dangerous person was this Buckskin Frank Leslie and for all his joviality, a fine fellow to let alone if one wished to live in peace or even to live at all. He was to add several more notches to his gun-handle before Tombstone saw the last of him.

After their marriage, Buckskin Frank and the Widow Galeen set up housekeeping in a cottage and lived quite happily for a time. But Buckskin Frank found domesticity dull, and sought to vary the drab monotony with piquant novelties. As he sat in the mellow glow of the family hearth of an evening, he would surprise his pretty bride by shooting a rose out of her hair or a cup of coffee out of her hand as she brought it in for supper. Or he would stand her against the parlour wall and, with the neatness of a pencil drawing, outline her figure with bullets fired from across the room.

With the air of an artist at an easel in his atelier, he would stand off and measure his subject⁠—and the distance⁠—with his eye and then, having rounded off the lady’s head with bullets placed an inch apart, he would work downward to skirt hem, matching rapid pistol fire the while with rapid fire of comment and criticism.

“Stand perfectly still, my dear,” he would say. “I am now doing your left ear.⁠ ⁠… Now for the other.⁠ ⁠… Ears are more or less difficult.⁠ ⁠… Three bullets on each side will do nicely for your throat.⁠ ⁠… Smile, darling.⁠ ⁠… You are prettiest when you smile.⁠ ⁠… My only regret is that I can’t get the smile in my picture.⁠ ⁠… Your pose is charming this evening. Hold it one moment while I reload.⁠ ⁠… I am now at your waist line. I must not fail to bring out the fine curves.⁠ ⁠… The skirt is easy. Draperies offer no difficulty to a real artist.⁠ ⁠…”

The outline of the figure completed⁠—a portrait of this kind usually required several boxes of cartridges⁠—Mrs. Leslie was at liberty to step out of her bullet silhouette. Then, as finishing detail, the Michelangelo of the six-shooter would touch in eyes, nose, and mouth with a few final shots.

“Ah, magnificent,” he would say, cocking his head at his masterpiece with immense satisfaction. “Your friends will admire this portrait. It looks exactly like you.”

All Tombstone, in fact, marvelled at the artistry of these mural portraits, which remained on the parlour walls for years and were shown with great pride by the citizens to visitors to town, the Leslie cottage serving in lieu of a municipal art gallery. But Mrs. Leslie, being of a purely domestic turn, showed her utter lack of artistic appreciation by getting a divorce. She married Alex Derwood, a mechanic with no ambition to be a portrait painter, and moved to Banning, California, where at last accounts she is still living.

Nigger Jim, as black as the ace of spades, would say with great seriousness: “Yes, suh, me and Sime White wuz the fust white men ever in this camp.” Nigger Jim didn’t date quite that far back, but he was among the early arrivals. His name was Jim Young but he was never anything but Nigger Jim in Tombstone chronicles. He had been a slave, a soldier in the regular army, and a prize fighter. He was more than six feet tall, straight and powerful, and looked as proud and dignified as a Zulu chief at the head of a war impi. He worked in the Contention mine on the hill, and he staked himself a claim near it. When one morning he discovered Frank Leslie had jumped his claim, Jim armed himself with a shotgun.

“Bad man or no bad man,” he said, “he ain’t goin’ jump no claim o’ mine.”

“This claim’s mine,” said Nigger Jim, striding up to Buckskin Frank. “You-all ain’t got no business foolin’ round heah, and you better go on back to town mighty quick.”

So it wasn’t so easy to jump a lone nigger’s claim, after all. Buckskin Frank smiled it off.

“I heard some fellers were about to jump your claim, Jim,” he said, “and I came out here to help you stand ’em off.”

Nigger Jim didn’t argue over the explanation and Leslie went away. When the story went the rounds that Nigger Jim had bluffed one of the worst of Tombstone’s bad men, Jim’s prestige rose and Buckskin Frank’s went off a point or two. But the showdown rankled with the desperado. When he met Jim unarmed in a store and the Negro’s back was turned, Leslie slipped his gun out of its holster. But the woman who owned the place screamed and sprang between them. Again Buckskin Frank smiled it off. He was, he said, merely examining his six-shooter to see that the cylinder was in good working order.

With his ready wit and suave tongue, Buckskin Frank, it was said, could talk himself out of any situation. When his six-shooter was inconvenient, he always had his tongue to fall back on. Later, it is declared, he talked himself out of the penitentiary and into the heart of a woman at the same time.

Nigger Jim, past ninety, still lives in Tombstone. His memories of old days have faded to a misty blur, but he is still proud and dignified and as straight as an assegai, and still looks as if he might be capable of leading an impi out on a war-trail.