Ramon Acosta was tired and hot. He sat down to rest on a log and, getting out a sack of tobacco, rolled a yellow-paper cigarette. Near the ramshackle log cabin, Ted Judah was busy stacking firewood to be marketed in Tombstone.

“Sam Williams,” remarked Acosta, letting a luxurious puff of smoke trickle from his nostrils, “has been gone a long time. Those mules must be hard to find.”

The two young workmen were camped with other woodchoppers at Pete Spence’s wood ranch on the western slopes of the Dragoons. The tawny, precipitous ramparts of the mountains rose straight above them. Far across the rolling green mesquite mesa they could see Tombstone at the edge of its silver hills.

“I wonder who those fellows are?” said Acosta, as six horsemen appeared over a rise in the mesa and rode toward them.

“How many men working in this camp?” asked a tall, blond man as the six horsemen drew rein.

“Five,” replied Acosta.

“Who are they?”

“I’m Ramon Acosta. This man here is Ted Judah. José Ortiz is chopping wood higher up on the mountain. Sam Williams is out trying to find some mules that strayed from camp. There’s one other fellow. I forget his name. What’s his name, Ted?”

“Florentino Cruz,” answered Judah.

The blond man nodded thoughtfully.

“Seems to me I know Florentino Cruz,” he said. “Don’t they sometimes call him Indian Charlie?”

“Yes, that’s him,” replied Acosta. “And Indian Charlie is a good woodchopper.”

“I’ve heard he was,” said the blond man. “I’m looking for him. Right now I need a good woodchopper like him in my business.”

“But,” protested the Mexican, “I don’t believe you can hire Indian Charlie. He’s working for Pete Spence.”

“I’ll get Indian Charlie,” declared the blond man, making his jaws click upon the name. “Where is he?”

“See that hill over there,” replied Acosta, pointing. “You’ll find him there chopping wood.”

Acosta and Judah saw the six horsemen halt at the foot of the distant hill. Three dismounted and tossing their bridles to the others to hold, began to climb the slopes and were quickly lost to view in the timber.

Indian Charlie did not put in an appearance at camp that evening at supper. He was still absent when the others rolled in their blankets for the night.

“Funny Florentino hasn’t showed up,” said Acosta, as he pulled the covers up to his eyes. “That half-breed must have got lost.”

Next morning, as the sun was lifting over the mountains, Acosta and Judah went on a hunt for Indian Charlie. They found him near the top of the hill to which the six horsemen had been directed. He lay under a tree on his breast with his face resting on his arm.

“Sound asleep,” laughed Acosta. “What do you think of this lazy fellow? Hey, muchacho, it’s time to go to work. Wake up.”

He stooped over and shook Indian Charlie by the shoulder. Then, suddenly, Acosta straightened up, a frightened look on his face.

“He’s dead,” he said.

Sam Williams, out looking for mules, had not returned to the woodchoppers’ camp either. He had caught sight of the six horsemen and, recognizing the tall, blond leader, had hurried into Tombstone as fast as he could go, the fear of death upon him.

“I have heard,” said Acosta at the inquest held in Tombstone, “that Sam Williams is a brother of Pete Spence.”

Florentino Cruz or Indian Charlie was killed on the afternoon of the day Wyatt Earp and his five companions left Tombstone.

“I found four wounds on the body,” said Dr. George Goodfellow. “Any one of three would have caused death. The fourth, on the hip, must have been made while the man was running.”

Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Warren Earp, Sherman McMasters, Texas Jack, and John Johnson were riding slowly westward from the Dragoons toward the Whetstones.

“I hope,” said Wyatt Earp cheerfully to Doc Holliday as they jogged across San Pedro Valley, “that Frank Stilwell and Indian Charlie burn together in the same pit in hell. I am convinced that Curly Bill, John Ringo, and Hank Snelling also had part in plotting Morgan Earp’s death. I’d like to send those three fellows after Stilwell and the half-breed. But we haven’t time to hunt them all down now. But if I ever meet any of them anywhere on earth, ten years from now, or twenty-five, I’ll kill them.”

It chanced that, late in the afternoon on the day after Indian Charlie had gone to his death, Curly Bill and eight of his followers were resting at Iron Springs in the narrow valley between the Whetstone and Mustang mountains. It chanced also that Wyatt Earp and his five companions were heading for this same Iron Springs, which was thirty-five miles north by west of Tombstone. The water from the spring formed a pool about which was a copse of cottonwoods and willows, and at the south side of the pool was an embankment, a sort of natural breastworks, behind which Curly Bill and his men were taking their ease, their horses with the saddles on grazing in the thick willow brush.

Curly Bill sat with his back against the embankment. His men sprawled on the grass around him.

“I’ve been thinkin’,” said the outlaw leader, “about gittin’ out o’ this here country. The old gang’s goin’ fast. Joe Hill cashed out jest recent. Hoss steps in a badger hole up around Clifton and breaks Joe’s neck. After bein’ shot at a million times, more or less, Joe goes and gits killed by a hoss. Then, jest before I leave Galeyville, Jake Gauss stretches hemp on account of another hoss. Jake’s hoss don’t seem to be able to run fast enough, and the bunch of stranglers ketches him. A feller’s got to be a jedge of hossflesh if he aims to be a hoss thief. A lot of the other boys have went over the divide the past six months or so. Before they git me, too, I’m liable purty soon to git on my pony and jest keep on ridin’.

“It ain’t that my nerves is on the break. I’m jest kind o’ tired o’ hittin’ the high spots with bullets knockin’ up dirt around me. What do I git out o’ rustlin’? Fun for a week in Galeyville⁠—that’s about all. An’ sick as a dog fer a week afterwards. They shore sell rotgut licker in that burg.

“Whar’m I goin’? I’ll tell you whar. Down in Chihuahua. I sneaked down there a few weeks back. No, didn’t have no business. Jest wanted to take a looksee. Them Mexicans would have shot me up, I reckon, ef they’d knowed about all the greasers I’ve laid low in my day. But these here caballeros gits imbued with the idee I’m a cattle buyer. Might ha’ took me fer a Mex fer all I know; I’m black enough and sling their lingo purty good. Well, I met a gal down thar, and her dad owns more cows than’re in all Arizony.

“ ‘Curly,’ says I to myself when I sizes up this layout, ‘this is jest the place fer an old cow hand like you.’ So I’m aiming to head back fer Chihuahua and hook up with this here Mex gal and end my days thar peaceful. She’s got the blackest eyes and the reddest lips you ever seen, and she’s as white as me. Whiter, maybe. And as soon as the old man cashes in his chips, she gits all them cows.”

One of the outlaws arose and took a look over the embankment southward across the level reaches of the valley.

“Say, Curly,” he said abruptly, crouching down again, “what’d you do ef you met Wyatt Earp?”

“Kill him,” answered Curly Bill in a matter-of-fact voice. “He bent a gun over my head in Tombstone once, and I’ve been layin’ to git even with him ever sence.”

“Well, you’ve got your chance to git even right now,” retorted the outlaw. “Wyatt Earp, with five fellers with him, are right out yonder, ridin’ straight fer this here water hole.”

“You’re a liar,” said Curly Bill as he and all the other outlaws grabbed their rifles and scrambled to their feet.

The story of what happened at the Iron Springs water hole was told by Wyatt Earp himself.

“We had been riding in the hot sun since early,” said Wyatt Earp, “and we were glad when we saw those shady trees ahead of us. We were going along slowly, taking it easy. I may have been a little ahead of the five other fellows, but we were all nearly abreast. I had two six-shooters at my belt, a double-barrelled shotgun, looped to my pommel, hung under my left leg, and a Winchester was hanging in a scabbard on the right side of my horse. Not a soul was in sight. There wasn’t a sign of danger. But as we approached the water hole I had a queer feeling that I couldn’t explain even to myself⁠—a sort of hunch that something was wrong, and I unslung the shotgun from the pommel and held it across my lap.

“This green spot in the desert valley looked as peaceful as any place I ever saw. The tall cottonwoods stood as still as if there’d never been such a thing in the world as a breeze, and through gaps between the willows I could see the pool of water as smooth as a piece of glass and glistening white in the sun. I was thinking what a fine place this would be to camp for the night with good grass and plenty of water for the horses when, from behind a bank, up rose nine men. Every man had a rifle at his shoulder, and every rifle blazed. Those fellows wasted no time. They meant business.

“I may have been crazy with excitement and scared half to death as I saw that line of guns burst into flame within thirty feet of me. But somehow I seemed to myself to be as calm as I ever was in my life. I knew there were nine men. How I knew I have no idea. I couldn’t have had time to count them. The mysterious way in which they rose out of the ground like nine devils clothed in fire brought back to me as clear as a flash the stories of witchcraft and magic I had heard in my childhood. When I saw Curly Bill, only half of his body showing above the bank, I seemed to hear myself saying, ‘Well, there’s Curly Bill. I’m a little surprised to run on to him out here on the desert. He looks natural. Hasn’t changed a bit since that night in Tombstone when Marshal White was killed. I wonder what old Curly’s been doing all this while.’ Then it occurred to me that it would be best for me to dismount. My horse might jump and spoil my aim. I probably could shoot better from the ground.

“I climbed down off my horse. I slipped one arm through a bridle rein. My horse couldn’t run off now and leave me there. As I stood there by my horse’s head, cocking my gun, I looked the nine men over. They struck me as pretty busy fellows, all with their heads down on their rifles and all firing away. I noted with surprise that every rifle seemed aimed at me. I rather resented that. I wanted to kill Curly Bill. I believed he had been in both plots that had resulted in the wounding of my brother Virgil and the death of my brother Morgan. I felt that, if any one of those nine men killed me before I killed Curly Bill, he would rob me of my one chance for vengeance, and I’d never have another. I seemed suddenly to be praying, and my prayer was that I wouldn’t be killed before I had killed Curly Bill. So I raised my shotgun to my shoulder and drew a careful bead on Curly Bill. As I sighted at Curly Bill, he was sighting at me. I could see the deep wrinkles about one of his eyes that was squinted shut. His other eye, held down close to his gun, was wide open. I noticed with curious interest that this one eye, blazing murder at me over his rifle barrel, was blacker than I remembered his eyes to have been when I saw him last. Then I pulled both triggers.

“Curly Bill threw up his hands. His rifle flew high in the air. He gave a yell that could have been heard a mile as he went down. I saw him no more. I knew he was lying dead behind the bank. Each one of my shotgun shells was loaded with nine buckshot. Both charges struck him full in the breast.

“Three seconds possibly had elapsed from the moment the outlaws rose from behind the bank till Curly Bill was killed. I had thought out my plans, arranged the sequence of my actions, argued with myself, and solved several grave problems, all in the wink of an eye. A psychologist might be able to make something out of that. I never could. It’s always remained a mystery to me.”

“Bullets,” Wyatt Earp resumed, “were now singing songs all around me, soprano bullets, tenor bullets, bass bullets, a regular hallelujah chorus of bullets. My shotgun was empty. I reached across my saddle to get my rifle, hanging on the other side of my horse. But my horse, trembling and wet with the sweat of terror, began to rear and plunge, and I was unable to draw the gun from its long scabbard. I jerked out one of my six-shooters and, shielding myself as well as I could behind my horse, fired under the animal’s neck.

“So far, I had paid no attention to the five men with me. I was busy with my own affairs. I supposed they had jumped from their horses at the same time I had and gone to fighting. I felt⁠—I knew⁠—that these brave comrades, a little too far back, perhaps, for me to see them, were putting up the battle of their lives, dropping on the sand to fire from one knee or standing boldly upright and, with undaunted courage, exchanging bullet for bullet with these murderous outlaws. The thought of these fearless and heroic friends fighting desperately at my back cheered and inspired me. I emptied one six-shooter and drew another.

“But my comrades’ guns were not roaring in my ears, and I saw none of the outlaws fall except Curly Bill. This struck me as strange. Could it be possible that all my companions had been shot down at the first flaming blast from the outlaws’ guns and were now lying silent in death? The idea almost unnerved me. Sheltered behind my horse, I shot a quick glance to my rear. Not one of my bold companions was in sight. Every mother’s son, including my old pal Doc Holliday, one of the bravest men I ever knew, had turned tail at the first volley and gone scampering into the distance as fast as their horses could run. I had been fighting out there alone. No wonder the bullets were shouting a hallelujah chorus around me. The whole outlaw bunch was shooting at me. There was nobody else to shoot at.

“I realized right then that this was no place for a man of stainless soul and unimpeachable moral reputation and resolved to remove myself as speedily and as far as possible from the contaminating neighbourhood of these degraded outlaws. Keeping my horse between me and the enemy, I began to back away. It was slow, dangerous work; my maddened horse was almost unmanageable, and the outlaws kept popping away at me. When I had retreated a hundred yards or so, I attempted to mount. But my cartridge belt, which I had loosened two or three holes earlier in the day because of the heat, had slipped down below my hips, and I couldn’t swing my right leg across my saddle. It cost time to remedy this. As I settled myself at last in the saddle, my pommel was shot away. I pulled my horse’s head around, and sinking my spurs in the animal’s flanks up to the rowel heads, I rode as if I were trying to break all the world’s speed records.

“Far beyond the range of outlaw rifles, I met my five game companions. As they had fled from the battlefield, Texas Jack’s horse had been shot dead under him. Holliday had halted and taken Texas Jack up behind him. That was a brave thing for Holliday to do. Characteristic of him, too. But this chivalrous knight of the six-shooter had left me out there by myself among the bullets. However, Doc had now regained his courage.

“ ‘One grand little fight you made, Wyatt,’ he said, riding to my side. ‘Let’s go back in and finish the job. Come on.’

“All the others were also ready to renew the battle. Their courage and high resolve almost brought tears to my eyes.

“ ‘You fellows go back in,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a bellyful.’

“My hat,” added Wyatt Earp in conclusion, “had five bullet holes in it, two in the crown, and three in the brim. Bullets had ripped ragged tents up and down the legs of my pants. The bottom of my coat on both sides, where it had been held out by the holsters and the handles of my six-shooters, had been torn into strings and shreds. But, as by a miracle, I had not received a scratch.”

Now came the great enigma in the story of Curly Bill. Did Wyatt Earp kill Curly Bill? Or did the outlaw captain climb on his cow pony and “jest keep on ridin’,” marry his Mexican sweetheart in Chihuahua and live happily there ever after? The Tombstone country divided on the problem of the outlaw’s death, and the argument blazed from the Pelloncillos to the Huachucas. The question assumed the importance of a public issue.

Wyatt Earp and the five men with him had known Curly Bill and could hardly have mistaken any other man for him. There was no doubt in the minds of any of them that Wyatt Earp had killed Curly Bill. Tell Wyatt Earp today that he did not kill Curly Bill and he will laugh at you. He is as sure that he killed him as that his name is Wyatt Earp.

But the outlaws in the fight at the water hole denied that Curly Bill met death. They admitted the battle took place. They said that Wyatt Earp stood his ground and did all the fighting and the others ran away. But they declared that none of the outlaws had been killed and none wounded. It may be remarked, parenthetically, that the outlaws who hated Wyatt Earp may have been actuated in this denial by a desire to rob him of the credit of killing the outlaw chieftain.

No search for Curly Bill’s body was ever made. No corpus delicti to prove the tragedy was ever produced. A story became current in Tombstone that the outlaws had taken Curly Bill’s body to Charleston and buried it secretly by night. But no man, except possibly the outlaws who officiated at the clandestine funeral rites, ever knew the location of Curly Bill’s grave.

An account of the death of Curly Bill was printed in the Tombstone Epitaph the day after the fight took place. It was based, the paper said, on the story of an eyewitness whose identity was not revealed. It agreed in all particulars with Wyatt Earp’s version. Brighton Springs in the San Pedro Valley a few miles southwest of Tombstone was given as the scene of the battle. But in its next day’s issue, the paper said the statement that the fight occurred at Brighton Springs was intentionally wrong and had been made in a spirit of good sportsmanship to give the Earp party its chance to depart unmolested from Arizona. The Epitaph was friendly toward the Earps. Iron Springs is given here as the scene of the fight on the authority of Wyatt Earp himself.

The Nugget, taking the side of the outlaws, ridiculed the story that Curly Bill had been killed. A heated controversy developed between the Nugget and the Epitaph. The Nugget offered a reward of $1,000 for proof that Curly Bill was dead. The Epitaph answered this challenge by offering $2,000 for proof that Curly Bill was alive.

The story that Curly Bill settled down to peaceful pursuits in old Mexico persists to the present time. Old-timers will tell you that, ten years after his supposed death, Curly Bill was a prosperous cattleman “somewhere in Chihuahua,” with a Mexican wife and a flock of little Curly Bills playing about the patio of his comfortable hacienda. And, these old codgers will add, Curly Bill may be living today.

Soft shadows of legend fell about Curly Bill. Purple mists of romance enfolded him. But after the fight at the water hole, the outlaw rode no more on his raids across the Mexican border. No more did his stolen herds storm thunderously through the valleys of the San Pedro and the San Simon. Mexican smuggler trains with aparejos bursting with gold and silver threaded the mountain defiles in safety. Vanished utterly was Curly Bill. Never again was he seen in Arizona.

Criticism burst about Sheriff Behan’s ears because of the personnel of his posse of sixteen men organized for pursuit of Wyatt Earp and his followers. The posse included Ike and Finn Clanton, John Ringo, Hank Snelling, the two Tyle brothers, and a number of other hard characters, termed by the sheriff “cowboys,” but by persons of less euphemistic phrase denominated outlaws. These men had all been friends of Billy Clanton and the two McLowery boys and were bitter enemies of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Ike and Finn Clanton had a brother’s death to avenge, and John Ringo the death of three friends. The presence of these outlaws in the sheriff’s posse held a hint of ugly possibilities. It suggested that the purpose of the pursuit was as much to pay off personal animosities as to comply with the demands of law and justice, and at the outset, it seemed more than likely that the chase would end in a battle of hatred and vengeance rather than in the capture of the fugitives.

In defense of his men, Sheriff Behan, in an impassioned but unguarded moment, referred to this “sharked up list of landless resolutes” as his “posse of honest ranchmen.” Whereupon Tombstone burst into uproarious laughter. Even the sheriff’s faithful friends had to join in the mirth. John Ringo and Finn Clanton as “honest ranchmen” certainly were immoderately funny. Tombstone papers, on the opposite side of the political fence, seized upon the expression and harped upon it with merry vindictiveness. The “posse of honest ranchmen” became one of Tombstone’s immortal jests, and beneath the relentless jibes, Sheriff Behan quickly must have repented his rhetorical flourish in agony of soul. The sheriff’s pursuit of the Earps added nothing to his laurels. His expedition missed by a hair’s breadth being turned by an unhappy phrase into a joke.

An electric hush settled upon Tombstone. In feverish suspense the town awaited news. Sheriff Behan and his posse had gone out on the trail. For days the desert that had swallowed them gave back no word. What had happened out there in the vast silence? Had a battle been fought? Had the Earps been captured? Were the victors bringing the prisoners home in triumph? Then, suddenly, were the heavens opened and bulletins and communiqués from the sheriff came in a cloudburst over the telegraph wires:⁠ ⁠… The scent is growing hot.⁠ ⁠… The sheriff is close on the heels of the Earps.⁠ ⁠… Capture of the desperate criminals is imminent.⁠ ⁠… The Earps are trapped.⁠ ⁠… They must surrender or be killed.⁠ ⁠… There is no chance for their escape.⁠ ⁠… And so on. These messages from the front kept Tombstone for a time on tiptoe with excitement. But, strangely, the imminent big event never happened. Something went wrong with all the traps. The Earps were not captured. Neither were they killed. Tombstone began to lose interest. Portentous bulletins were greeted with a smile.

The Earp party, after the fight with Curly Bill at the Iron Springs water hole, rounded the Whetstone Mountains on the north, and rode east across the San Pedro and on through Dragoon Gap to Willcox. A letter from Wyatt Earp dated April 4th and mailed at Willcox was printed in the Epitaph.

Deputy Sheriff Frank Hereford [the letter read] was hiding in a corncrib at Henderson’s ranch when we arrived. He decamped, fearing violence. His fears were groundless. He would not have been injured.⁠ ⁠… We rested for a day at Hooker’s Sierra Bonita ranch. Hooker did not, as has been reported, outfit us with fresh horses and supplies. We are all riding the same horses on which we left Tombstone except Texas Jack. His horse was killed in the Curly Bill fight. He purchased another animal.⁠ ⁠… Hooker did not pay me the reward of $1,000 offered by the Arizona Stock Association for the death of Curly Bill. No reward was asked for or tendered.⁠ ⁠… Leaving Hooker’s, we went north within five miles of Eureka Springs.⁠ ⁠… We have kept careful track of the movements of Sheriff Behan and his posse of honest ranchmen. If they possessed even average trailing ability, we might have had trouble with them, which we are not seeking. Neither are we avoiding these honest farmer boys. We thoroughly understand their intentions.

Sheriff Behan and his posse arrived at Hooker’s ranch the morning after the Earp party had departed. Henry C. Hooker, rich and influential, was famous among the pioneer cattlemen of Arizona. Concerning the sheriff’s visit at the Sierra Bonita ranch, the Epitaph printed, in substance, this story:

Sheriff Behan asked Hooker the direction the Earp party had gone. Hooker said he did not know and would not tell if he did.

“If you will not tell me,” said Sheriff Behan, “you are upholding murderers and outlaws.”

“No,” replied Hooker. “I know the Earps and I know you. The Earps have always treated me like a gentleman. Damn you and your posse. Your men are a set of horse thieves and outlaws.”

One of Sheriff Behan’s honest farmers spoke up. “Damn the old son of a gun,” he said. “Let’s make him tell.”

Hooker’s hostler went out and got a rifle and, when he came back, he made the posseman skin back the name he had called Hooker.

When Hooker again criticized the posse, repeating that they were a lot of horse thieves and cutthroats, Sheriff Behan and Deputy Sheriff Woods told him these fellows were not their associates. “They are only with us,” said the sheriff.

“Well,” replied Hooker, “if they are not your associates, I will set an extra breakfast table for you and set them at a table by themselves.” Which he did.

Sheriff Behan went from the Sierra Bonita to Fort Grant, where he offered $500 to Colonel Bidwell for some Indian trailers. “Hooker,” remarked Sheriff Behan to the Colonel, “said he did not know which way the Earp party had gone and would not tell me if he did.” Colonel Bidwell stroked his beard. “Did Hooker tell you that?” he said. “Well, then, you can’t get any scouts here.”

Sheriff Behan’s pursuit ended in failure at the Arizona line. Wyatt Earp and his men passed into New Mexico, sold their horses at Silver City, and at Deming, took a train for Denver. The Colorado capital was their final destination. Efforts made to bring Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday back to Tombstone for trial failed when Governor Pitkin of Colorado refused to honour the requisition issued by Governor Tritle of Arizona.

No man in Tombstone’s history has been more bitterly maligned than Wyatt Earp. On the field from which he withdrew, his enemies were left in inglorious triumph, and what his enemies had failed to do to the man himself they did to his reputation. No charge was too black to be made against him, no slander too atrocious to be believed. Obloquy held an orgy. Political spite and malevolence born of vendetta revenged themselves upon him in a war dance of calumny and hatred. One hears today echoes of these old revilings.

If Wyatt Earp impressed himself upon Tombstone, Tombstone left its indelible mark upon him. When he took his departure he was not the same man he was when he came. The tragic experience of two years had wrought an immeasurable change. The difference was that between a mountain silent and peaceful in the sunshine and the same mountain bursting with volcanic fires and red with streaming lava.

When Tombstone first knew Wyatt Earp, he was an imperturbably calm man, not unkindly, not without humour and a certain geniality, magnanimous to his enemies, generous and loyal to his friends. His rise to a position of authority was a gradual, businesslike climb, unmarked by violence or bloodshed. He was at the peak of his power before he ever had a fight. Long after he had become the acknowledged six-shooter boss of the town, his guns remained silent, and he ruled only by the fear of the unpressed trigger. He nursed no petty grudges and harboured no murder in his heart. He wanted no quarrel with any man. His anger was a cerebral process rather than a passion; he grew wrathful only when he deliberately believed he had just cause for wrath. He was forced into feud warfare by a strange concatenation of circumstances, to a large extent accidental. But when he had to fight, he fought.

But neither the tumultuous developments that led to battle, nor the battle itself, shook him out of his old imperturbable calm. It was not until his enemies had assassinated one of his brothers and left another brother crippled for life that the slumbering whirlwind deep in the soul of him was unleashed. Then the coldly balanced man, apparently devoid of emotions, blazed into inextinguishable fury. Then he became suddenly transformed into an avenger, terrible, implacable, merciless. Up and down through the deserts he raged like a lion ravenous for blood. He tracked down the assassins. He killed them cruelly without pity. There was no flinching in what he did, and no alibis or apologies afterward. He became his own law in a lawless land and atoned for the blood of his brother with the blood of his brother’s murderers. Right or wrong, he believed with absolute faith in the righteousness of the justice he administered at the muzzle of a gun. For the men he slew in vengeance, Wyatt Earp had no regrets. No remorseful memories troubled him. No ghosts came back to haunt him.

So hail and farewell to the lion of Tombstone. Strong, bold, forceful, picturesque was this fighter of the old frontier. Something epic in him. Fashioned in Homeric mould. In his way, a hero. Whatever else he may have been, he was brave. Not even his enemies have sought to deny his splendid courage. The problems of his dangerous and difficult situation, he solved, whether wisely or foolishly, with largeness of soul and utter fearlessness. No halo is for this rugged, storm-beaten head. He was a hard man among hard men in a hard environment. What he did, he did. The record stands. But, weighed in the balance, he will not be found wanting. Judged by all the circumstances of his career, the verdict in his case is clear⁠—Wyatt Earp was a man.

Doc Holliday, as picturesque a desperado as the West ever produced, and as witty and companionable a fellow as ever smiled over the barrel of a murderous six-shooter, died of tuberculosis at Cottonwood Springs, Colorado, fifteen years after his Tombstone career ended. The “coldest-blooded killer in Tombstone” had wasted to a corpse-like fragility, and death seemed merely an incidental and completing detail in the tragedy of his long illness. As the curtain rolled down upon the drama of his stormy career, Holliday looked death in the face, as he had looked life in the face, with his old calm courage and humorous cynicism.

“I used to offer odds of eight to five,” he said, “that in spite of consumption, I’d cash out some day at the end of a six-shooter when I happened to run foul of a man an eighth of a second quicker on the draw. It seems almost like tough luck to lose that bet.”

Holliday’s last words were, “This is funny.” The friends watching at his bedside thought his mind wandering. But, with his sense of humour strong to the last, the doctor doubtless considered it a choice joke that, after all his desperate adventures and narrow escapes, he should be dying in bed with his boots off.

Virgil Earp was for many years chief of police of Colton, California. He died in Goldfield, Nevada, in 1905, of pneumonia, and was buried in Portland, where he had a daughter living. He was sixty-three years old. His widow, who was his second wife, lives in Los Angeles. James Earp died in January, 1926, in Los Angeles.

Warren Earp, youngest of the five Earp brothers, returned to Arizona and was killed in Willcox in 1900 by Johnny Boyet, a cowboy, in a quarrel that grew out of a card game. Though the circumstances of the killing indicated that it was premeditated and deliberate murder, there were no eyewitnesses, it is said, and Boyet was acquitted. Warren Earp had been driving stage between Willcox and Globe, but at the time of his death was a sanitary inspector for the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association and made his headquarters at Hooker’s Sierra Bonita ranch. Morgan and Warren Earp were the only ones of the Earp brothers to die by violence.

Wyatt Earp, after leaving Arizona, spent some time in Denver and the Gunnison country. He kept a saloon in Nome, Alaska, in the flush days of the Klondike gold excitement. He was later in Goldfield and Tonopah, towns that sprang from the Nevada desert overnight in the last great Western gold stampede, and for a brief while gave back to this modern day a vivid picture of the wild boom camps of the old frontier.

Now, at the age of seventy-eight, with a wife at his side, Wyatt Earp is enjoying his declining years in peace, comfort, and prosperity. He owns a gold-mining property in the Mojave country and oil wells near Bakersfield. His home is in Oakland, but to be near his business interests, he lives the greater part of his time in Vidal, near San Bernardino, and in Los Angeles.