It was springtime in southwestern Texas and John Slaughter was
gathering a great herd near the mouth of Devil's River for the long
drive northward over the Pecos trail. Thousands of cattle were moving
slowly in a great mass, obliterating miles of the landscape, trampling
out clouds of dust which rose into the blue sky; the constant
bellowing came down the wind as a deep, pulsating moan which was
audible for miles.
The Man from Bitter Creek reined in his horse and turned in the saddle
to look back upon that scene. He was a small man with hard, quick
eyes; they grew harder as they rested on that wealth of beeves.
In the wild country farther up the Pecos the Man from Bitter Creek was
known by the name of Gallagher. Among the riders who roved over that
Land Beyond the Law, taking their toll from the north-going herds as
gray wolves take it under cover of the night, he passed as the big "He
Wolf," the leader of the pack. Wyoming's sage-brush hills gave
sepulture to eleven of his dead, and since he had fled hither he had
added two graves to the boot-hill cemeteries of the Southwest.
Now as he gazed over John Slaughter's cattle, he promised himself that
when they came on into the region where he maintained his supremacy,
he would seize them and, at the same time, increase his grim list of
victims to fourteen.
It was an era in some respects very much like the feudal days of
Europe, a time of champions and challenges and deeds of arms, a period
when strong men took definite stands for right or wrong and were ready
at all times to defend those positions with their lives. The Man from
Bitter Creek had received John Slaughter's gage within the hour. He
had dismounted from his pony at the cattle-buyer's camp, attracted by
the spectacle of that enormous herd destined to pass through the
country where he and his companions held sway, and he had hung about
the place to see what he could see.
He noted with satisfaction that the cattle were sleek and fat for this
time of the year; and the satisfaction grew as he peered through the
dust-clouds at the riders who were handling them, for every one of the
wiry ponies that passed him carried a swarthy vaquero--and half a
dozen of those Mexicans would not be a match for one of the hard-eyed
rustlers who were waiting along the upper Pecos in that spring of
1876. Just as he was congratulating himself on such easy pickings the
cattle-buyer noticed him.
John Slaughter was in his early thirties but his lips had settled into
an unrelaxing line, and his eyes had grown narrow from the habit of
the long sun-smitten trails. He was black-bearded, barely of middle
stature, a parsimonious man when it came to using words. When he was a
boy fighting under the banner of the Lost Cause he sickened, and his
colonel sent him home, where he did his recuperating as a lieutenant
of the Texas rangers fighting Comanche Indians and border outlaws.
Then he drove cattle into Kansas over the Chisholm and Western trails
and got further seasoning in warfare against marauders, both red and
white. To maintain his rights and hold his property against armed
assault had become part of his every-day life; guardedness was a habit
like those narrowed eyes. And when he recognized the Man from Bitter
Creek, whose reputation he well knew, he lost no time in confronting
him.
So they faced each other, two veteran paladins who had been riding
under hostile banners ever since they first bore arms; and John
Slaughter delivered his ultimatum in three syllables.
"Hit the trail," he said, and clamped his lips into a tight line as if
he begrudged wasting that many words.
His eyes had become two dark slits.
It was a case of leave or fight and the Man from Bitter Creek had
never allowed such a challenge to go unanswered by his gun. But during
the moment while he and John Slaughter stood looking into each other's
eyes he reflected swiftly, and it occurred to him that it would be
wise to postpone this killing until the cattle-buyer had brought the
herd on into the upper country where, without their employer, the
Mexican vaqueros would be of no more consequence than so many sheep.
That was an inspiration: thousands of cattle for his own, where he had
hoped to steal a few hundred at the very outside. He felt that he
could well afford to mount his pony and ride away in silence. Now as
he settled himself in his saddle after that last look backward, his
heart was light with the thought of the wealth which was to come to
him within the next two months. He urged the pony forward at a gallop
toward the Land Beyond the Law.
The days went by, and late springtime found the Man from Bitter Creek
in the upper river country which lies just west of the great Llano
Estacado. Among those lonely hills the badness of the whole frontier
had crystallized that year. Outlaw and murderer, renegade, rustler,
and common horse-thief--all for whom the eastern trails had been
growing too hot--had ridden into this haven beyond the range of the
boldest sheriff until even the vigilance committee could not function
here for the simple reason that there were too many to adorn the ropes
and too few to pull them.
The ranchers of Lincoln County were starting in business, and the
temptation to increase one's herds by means of rope and running-iron--a
temptation which was always strong on the frontier--was augmented
among some by a wholesome regard for their own lives and property:
better to give shelter to outlaws and buy stolen cows for a dollar or
two a head, than to defend your own stock against an overwhelming force
of dead shots. There were others--and these included several of the
bigger cow-men--who held that this was their territory and, deeming all
outsiders interlopers, levied such toll of plunder on them as the old
feudal barons levied on travelers by the Rhine in medieval times.
That was the way they reasoned; and the rustlers had easy pickings,
stampeding range cattle across the bedding-grounds of the trail herds,
gathering unto themselves the strays, disposing of their loot right on
the spot. They were taking full advantage of the opportunity, and the
Man from Bitter Creek was getting his share of the spoils.
But all of this struck Gallagher as petty business now; he was waiting
impatiently for John Slaughter's herd. At Chisum's ranch, where he and
a number of his companions had enforced their presence as unbidden
guests since the passing of the spring, he proclaimed his plan openly
after the manner of his breed; and he even went so far as to exhibit a
forged power of attorney by virtue of which he intended selling the
beeves in the Northern market, after he had killed their owner and
driven off the Mexicans.
"I'll lay for him up Fort Sumner way," he told his fellow-wolves, nor
did he take the trouble to lower his voice because he saw several
cow-boys from neighboring outfits among his auditors. It was a
tradition among those who lived by the forty-five thus to brag and
then--make good. And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln
County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became
generally known, created no excitement.
The Man from Bitter Creek went up the river to the neighborhood of
Fort Sumner when John Slaughter's herd drew near the Chisum ranch. He
made his camp and bided the arrival of the cattle; but that arrival
did not materialize. He was beginning to wonder what could have
delayed them, for the fords were good and this particular section was
one where no drover cared to linger. And while he was wondering a
rider came to him with tidings that brought oaths of astonishment to
his lips. John Slaughter had taken his herd off the trail and made
camp at the Chisum ranch.
Now every one in the country knew that the Man from Bitter Creek was
holding down the Chisum place that season, and the action was nothing
more nor less than a direct challenge. It did not matter whether
sublime ignorance or sublime daring prompted it; it was defiance in
either case. There was only one thing for Gallagher to do--get the
killing over in quick time. Moreover he must attend to the affair by
himself--for just as surely as he took others to help, his prestige
was going to be lowered. So he saddled up at once and rode back to
Chisum's with a double-barreled shotgun across his lap and two
single-action forty-five revolvers at his hips.
He was an old hand at ambush and so he took no chances when he drew
near the ranch but reconnoitered a bit from a convenient eminence. The
house stood on the summit of a knoll; the land sloped away before it
to the river, bare of shrubs or trees. Those of the Mexicans who were
not riding herd were down among the cottonwoods by the stream, busy
over some washing. In the middle of the open slope, two hundred yards
or so from the ranch buildings and a good quarter of a mile from the
nearest vaqueros, a solitary figure showed. It was the cattleman. No
chance for ambush here. The Man from Bitter Creek spurred his pony to
a dead run and came on blithely to shoot his way to wealth.
John Slaughter watched him approaching and waited until he was within
easy range. Whereat he picked up a forty-four caliber rifle and shot
his horse from under him.
Pony and rider crashed down together in a thick cloud of dust. The Man
from Bitter Creek sprang to his feet and the flame of his revolver
made a bright orange streak in the gray-white haze. He left his
shotgun where it had fallen; the distance was too great for it.
As a matter of fact it was over-long range for a Colt forty-five; and
now, as he came on seeking to close in, it occurred to Gallagher that
his prospective victim had used excellent judgment in selecting a
weapon with reference to this battleground. Evidently he was engaged
with one who knew some things about the deadly game himself.
He took good care to keep weaving about from side to side during his
advance, in order that the bead of that Winchester might find no
resting-place with his body outlined before it. And he kept his
revolvers busy throwing lead. One bullet was all it needed to do the
work and he was trying hard to put one into the proper place, using
all the skill he had attained in long practice under fire, when a shot
from John Slaughter's rifle broke his arm. The Texan was firing
slowly, lining his sights carefully every time before he pressed the
trigger. The Man from Bitter Creek was darting to and fro; his
revolver bullets were raising little clouds of dust about the
cattleman. He was nearing the area wherein the forty-five revolver was
more deadly than the clumsier rifle, when John Slaughter shot him
through the body.
But he was made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave
some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His
revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued
this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his
knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound before the
cow-boys carried him up to the ranch-house to die. There, after the
manner of many another wicked son of the border, he talked the matter
over dispassionately with his slayer and in the final moment when
death was creeping over him he alluded lightly to his own misdeeds.
"Anyhow I needed killing twenty years ago," he said.
No one mourned the passing of the Man from Bitter Creek; the members
of the pack who hunt the closest to the big he wolf are always the
gladdest to see him fall. Nor was there any sorrowing when John
Slaughter departed for the north. On the contrary both outlaws and
cow-men watched the dust of his herds melting into the sky with a
feeling of relief.
The outlaws continued as the weeks went by to speak his name with the
hard-eyed respect due one whose death would bring great glory on his
slayer; the cow-men cherished his memory more gratefully because
hundreds of cattle bearing his road-brand were grazing on their
ranges. All hands were more than willing to regard the incident as
closed--all save John Slaughter.
That was not his way. And in the season of the autumn round-up when
the ranchmen of Lincoln County were driving their cattle down out of
the breaks into the valley, when their herds were making great
crawling patches of brown against the gray of the surrounding
landscape, the black-bearded Texan came riding back out of the north.
He visited every outfit and greeted the owner or the foreman with the
same words in every case.
"I've come to cut your herd for my brand."
That was the law of the cattle-trails; every man had the right to seek
out his strays in the country through which he had passed. But it was
not the custom along the Pecos. In that Land Beyond the Law the rule
of might transcended any rule of action printed in the statute-books.
And the new possessors did not fancy giving up the beeves which had
been fattening on their ranges during all these weeks. In those lonely
hills John Slaughter made a lonely figure, standing on his rights.
But those who gathered around him when he made the declaration always
noticed that he had his right hand resting on his pistol-butt and the
memory of what had taken place at Chisum's ranch was still fresh in
every mind. So they allowed his vaqueros to ride into their herds and
in silence they watched them drive out the animals which bore his
brand. Sometimes the affair came to an issue at this point.
Chisum, who was an old-timer in the country and had fought Comanches
all along the river before others had dared to drive up the trail,
produced a bill of sale for sixty rebranded cattle which the Texan's
vaqueros had cut out. John Slaughter allowed his tight lips to relax
in a grim smile.
"You bought 'em all right--but too cheap," he said, and ordered his
foreman to take them away.
Chisum stormed a bit, but that was as far as it went. And John
Slaughter rode off behind his vaqueros without so much as looking
back.
At Underwood's there was trouble. The cattle-buyer had recovered 110
steers from a bunch of 160, and when Underwood heard about it that
evening he stated, in plain and profane terms, that he would kill John
Slaughter unless those beeves were turned back to him. He had a
reputation as a dead shot and he took two friends, who were known as
good gunmen, along with him. They set forth for the Texan's camp. All
three were armed with rifles beside their six-shooters.
But John Slaughter saw them coming, for he was keeping his eyes open
for visitors these days, and dismounted on the opposite side of his
pony. He received them with his Winchester leveled across his saddle
and he answered their hail without lifting his eyes from the sights.
"Where's Underwood?" he demanded.
The cow-man announced his identity; it took more than the muzzle of a
rifle to silence him.
"I bought those cattle and I paid for them," he shouted.
"And I'll pay you," Slaughter proclaimed across his sights, "just as
sure as you try to take them away."
This was about all there was to the debate. The Texan was never strong
when it came to conversation and the other party seemed to realize
that further words would merely amount to so much small talk under the
circumstances. It was a show-down--shoot or ride away. And the muzzle
of that rifle had an unpleasant way of following any one of the trio
who made a move in the saddle. They were men of parts, seasoned
fighters in a fighting land, but they were men of sense. They rode
away.
Some miles farther down the river John Slaughter was biding the
arrival of two half-breeds and a pair of rustlers who had announced
their intention to get him, when a vaquero whom he had summoned to
help him receive the guests showed symptoms of reluctance. While the
vaquero was talking the invaders came into view, riding fast.
"Fight or hit the road," John Slaughter bade his swarthy aide.
The latter announced his choice in Spanish; and the cattle-buyer paid
him off with one hand while he pulled his rifle from its sheath with
the other. The discharged vaquero did not wait to gather his scanty
personal possessions and started down the road as fast as his legs
could take him, but before he was out of sight his former employer had
fortified himself behind his pony and brought the rustlers to a
stand.
A cattleman by the name of Richardson tried swearing out a warrant as
a means of recovering the beeves which John Slaughter cut out of his
herds, but the deputy returned with the paper unserved.
"He told me to keep it in my pocket," the officer explained. "Said I
couldn't serve it."
Richardson met the cattle-buyer riding to his ranch the next day,
having heard in the meantime some stories of what had taken place
farther up the river.
"I've made up my mind to withdraw that complaint," the ranchman said.
"I saw a chance to buy cheap cattle and I guess I got off wrong."
So John Slaughter rode on southward taking with him such of his cattle
as he could find, and men who boasted that they would kill him before
nightfall came back to their companions in the evening, glad that they
were there to tell the tales of their defeats. Finally he vanished
down in Texas with his vaqueros and the salvaged herd.
When he had come up the river that spring one man was seeking his
life; now he left behind him a full score who were as eager to slay
him as the Man from Bitter Creek had been. But the outlaws of Lincoln
County did not see him again for three years.
The next spring he began breaking trail to a new market through a
country where others did not dare to drive their herds. The market was
southeastern Arizona, on whose ranges the grass grew belly-deep; its
stockmen, who were beginning operations in 1877, were in sore need of
cattle. But the interval between the Rio Grande and these virgin
pastures was a savage land; Victorio's bands of turbaned Apache
warriors lurked among its shadowed purple mountains; there were long
stretches of blistering desert dotted with the skeletons of men and
animals who had died of thirst.
John Slaughter brought his first herd west of the Pecos with the
coming of the grass, and his cow-boys lined them out on this
forbidding route. They crossed wide reaches of sand-dunes and alkali
flats--ninety miles was the length of one of those dry drives--where
they never saw a water-hole for days, until the cattle went blind from
thirst and sun-glare and wandered aimlessly over the baked earth
lolling their tongues, moaning for drink, ignoring the red-eyed riders
who spurred their famished ponies through the stifling dust-cloud and
sought by shouts and flaming pistols to hold them to the proper
course.
The Apaches watched them coming from the heights and crept down to
ambush them, but John Slaughter had learned Indian-fighting while he
was still in his teens until he knew its tricks as well as the savages
themselves; and he led his cow-boys out against them, picking his own
ground, swooping down on them from vantage-points, routing them.
The herd came on into the long thin valleys which reach like fingers
from northern Mexico to the Gila River. On the San Pedro the cow-boys
turned them southward and the outfit made its last camp near where the
town of Hereford stands to-day.
Here the Texan established his home ranch, for he had made up his mind
to forsake the valley of the Rio Grande for this new country; and
hither now, over the trail which he had broken, his men drove other
herds; he sold them to the cow-men of southeastern Arizona as fast as
they came in. From now on he devoted himself to stocking the ranges of
the Santa Cruz, the San Pedro, the Sulphur Springs, and the San Simon,
turning a tawny wilderness into a pastoral commonwealth.
For he brought more than Texas cattle into this land which had
heretofore been the hunting-ground of Apaches, the wild refuge of
white renegades more savage than the Indians. Where he came he took
with him the law. It was his way--the way he had taken on the Pecos
and he kept it now--to stand for his own rights, to fight for them if
need be, until he established them; thus he maintained a rule of
action, a rule that accorded with the definition of the old English
jurist, "prescribing what is right and prohibiting what is wrong."
During those days he rode on far journeys, eastward to the Rio Grande,
northward to the country where the land breaks toward the gorges of
the Colorado; and because a cattle-buyer was always a marked man,
carrying large sums of money with him, there were many who sought his
life. But these he slew or drove away.
There came a time when the demand for stock was so heavy that he
looked about him for a new point of supply and saw Mexico. Troops of
bandits rode through the southern republic, gathering tribute where
they willed. He loaded down pack-mules with dobie dollars, led his
cow-boys down across the boundary, played hide and seek with bands of
swarthy murderers in the mountains, and battled with them at the
desert water-holes.
His fame spread until forty-five guerrillas came riding up from
Sinaloa to gain wealth and glory by murdering his little company. They
found John Slaughter and two cow-boys encamped in a hamlet down beyond
Moctezuma with the nucleus of a herd which they were gathering. A
sharp-eyed scout reported two pack-mules, their aparejos bulging with
dobie dollars, in the train. Immediately thereafter the Mexicans whom
the drover had employed as vaqueros and guides deserted him; the
people of the hamlet closed their houses against the trio of gringos.
The bandits watched their prospective victims going from door to door,
seeking four walls to shelter them against attack, and laughed. That
was fine sport to their way of thinking; they held off, just as a cat
holds off from a cornered mouse; there was plenty of time for the
killing, no use of hurrying.
The shadows lengthened between the little adobe buildings; dusk came
on. They had a final round of drinks in a mescal groggery, swung into
their saddles, and went jingling down the street to enjoy the
massacre.
Bad news travels fast. The tidings sped northward like a stray horse
running home. One day a rider came to the ranch on the San Pedro with
the story: how John Slaughter was last seen alive in the dismal hamlet
at the foot of the Sierra Madre, abandoned by his Mexicans, with two
cow-boys as his only companions, and half a hundred well-armed bandits
on their way to murder him. A grim tale for the ears of a woman who
was waiting word from Mexico.
A woman heard it out--John Slaughter's young bride. He had brought her
to the ranch-house a few months before and in these first days of her
happiness, a happiness made the more poignant by those deep anxieties
which the brave-souled women of the frontier had to bear, she listened
to the announcement which abiding dread had foreshadowed during many a
lonely night. When the rider had departed she ordered a team harnessed
to the buckboard and set forth for Mexico within the hour.
It was growing late when she passed the customhouse; they had no
confirmation of the rumor for her there, nor contradiction either; the
best they could do was to try to hearten her and to advise her to
wait. But she shook her head at the advice and drove on southward in
the darkness. She was alone. Blackness hid the land before her; save
for the drumming of the hoofs and the scrape of the wheels in the
rough roadway there was no sound. The wilderness remained silent,
invisible, offering no sign of what tragedy it held for her.
The night passed; gray dawn came; the sky flamed above the ragged
crests of the Sierra Madre; the sun climbed past the mountain wall;
morning grew on toward noon. Far to the south--so tenuous at first
that it barely showed against the clear air, now thickening until it
was unmistakable at last--a gray-brown dust column was climbing into
the cloudless sky. It came on toward her as she urged on the jaded
team, the signal of an advancing herd.
She strained her eyes and saw the thin, undulating line beneath it;
the sun gleamed on the tossing horns of the cattle, their lowing
sounded faint with distance, growing into a deep pulsating moan. She
distinguished the dots of horsemen in the van; and now one rode on
swiftly before the moving mass. She recognized her husband from afar.
John Slaughter had seized his opportunity while the bandits were
drinking to their own good luck and his death in the mescal shop. He
and John Roberts, his foreman, had taken the treasure-laden mules up a
steep-walled canyon five miles away. When the murderers followed the
hot trail they found themselves, with the coming of darkness, in the
narrowest part of the defile, so neatly ambushed that they wheeled
their horses and rode down the gorge in full flight before the fight
had fairly begun.
John Slaughter's wife was a brave woman. She rode beside him now on
many an expedition; into the sand-hills of southwestern New Mexico,
and down across the border into northern Sonora. She saw the smoking
remnants of wagon-trains beside the road, the bodies of Apaches'
victims sprawled among the ruins. She looked upon the unutterably
lonely crosses which marked the graves of travelers where Victorio's
turbaned warriors had traveled before her into Mexico. She slept
beside her husband where the desert night wind whispered of lurking
enemies; and watched enshadowed soap-weeds beyond the ring of
firelight taking on the semblance of creeping savages.
He beheld her drinking deeply from the cup of dread which was the
bitter portion of the strong-hearted women of the frontier. And when
he journeyed away without her he had for company the constant
knowledge of what other men had found on return to their ravaged
homes--what might be awaiting him when he came back. And so he
enlarged the scope of his warfare, which heretofore had been confined
to the defensive; he began a grim campaign to keep the Apaches out of
his portion of the San Pedro valley for all time.
He led his own war-parties out to hunt down every roving band who
passed through the country. He used their own science of reading
trails to track them to their camping-places; and their own wiles to
steal upon them while they rested. He improved on their methods by
making his raids during the darkness when their superstitions made
them afraid to go abroad.
One midnight he was deploying a company of Mexicans about the
mesquite-thicket which sheltered a band of warriors. As he was about
to give the whispered order to close in, the unknown dangers which
awaited them within the blackness became too much for his followers.
They balked, then began to fall back. He drew his forty-five.
"First man that shows another sign of hanging back, I'll kill him," he
said in Spanish, and drove them before him to the charge.
Gradually the Apaches began changing their warpaths into Mexico, and
as they swung away from his ranges John Slaughter increased the radius
of his raids until he and his cow-boys rode clear over the summits of
the passes in the Sierra Madre which lead eastward into Chihuahua.
With nine seasoned fighters at his heels he attacked a war-party in
the heights of the range on the dawn of a summer morning; and when the
Indians fled before the rifle-fire of the attackers--scurrying up into
the naked granite pinnacles like frightened quail--they left a baby
behind them. The mother had dropped it or missed it in her panic, and
the little thing lay whimpering in the bear-grass.
John Slaughter heard it and stopped shooting long enough to pick it
up. With the bullets of her people buzzing around his ears he carried
the brown atom down the mountain-side and took her home on his saddle
to his wife.
That was one of his last expeditions, for his name had become a byword
among the tribes, and Geronimo himself gave instructions to his people
to leave John Slaughter's herds inviolate, to avoid his range in
traveling. With this degree of peace ensured, the cow-man had bought
an old Spanish grant not far from where the town of Douglas stands
to-day and was settling down in the security for which he had been
fighting, when the Tombstone rush brought the bad men from all over
the West into the San Pedro and Sulphur Springs valleys; and with them
came the outlaws of the Pecos who had been waiting to kill him during
these three years.
In the wild cow-town of Charleston where the lights turned pale under
the hot flush of every dawn the desperadoes from the Pecos learned how
John Slaughter had established himself before them in this new land;
how his cow-boys patrolled the range which he still held on the San
Pedro and the new range farther to the east, guarding his herds by
force of arms; and how the silent Texan had already declared war on
the whole incoming tribe of cattle-thieves by driving Ike and Billy
Clanton from his old ranch at revolver's point, bidding them never to
show their faces there again.
They heard these things in the long adobe dance-halls while
rouge-bedizened women went whirling by in the arms of bold-eyed
partners wearing revolvers on their hips. From stage-robber,
stock-rustler, horse-thief, and the cold-faced two-gun man who sold
his deadly talents to the highest bidder, the stories came to them.
And then, to the beat of the piano and the cornet's throbbing blare,
the bad men of the Pecos told of the passing of the Man from Bitter
Creek, and how his slayer came back down the river recovering his
stolen cattle in the autumn.
Now another champion had risen among the bad men of the Pecos since
the day of Gallagher, a burly, headstrong expert with the forty-five,
known by the name of "Curly Bill." Already he had shot his way to
supremacy over the other "He Wolves" who had flocked into the new
country; he had slain Tombstone's city marshal and defied the Earps
when they came into power in the booming mining camp.
When it came to a question of single combat he was acknowledged
champion among those who lived by what toll they could exact at the
muzzles of their deadly weapons; when it came to warfare he was the
logical leader. And so, when John Slaughter's name was spoken in
Charleston's dance-halls, the eyes of his followers were turned on
him. He saw those glances and he read the unspoken question which they
conveyed; he met it with a laugh.
"I'll go and get that fellow," he proclaimed. "I'll kill him and I'll
fetch his herd in to Charleston myself."
He started forth to make good his boast, and twenty-five hard-eyed
followers went riding at his heels. It was a wild project even in that
wild era and Curly Bill deemed it wise to do his massacring down in
Mexico, where it was every man for himself and coroner's juries were
not known. He took his company across the boundary and lay in wait for
John Slaughter on a mesa overlooking a little valley, down which the
herd must pass.
Mesquite-thickets gave the outlaws good cover; the slopes below them
were bare brush; the valley's floor was open ground. They bided here
and watched the country to the south. The dust column showed one
cloudless morning and they saw the undulating line of cattle reveal
itself beneath the gray-brown haze. The herd came on down the valley,
with dust-stained riders speeding back and forth along its flanks,
turning back rebellious cows, urging the main body forward. Curly Bill
spoke the word of command and the twenty-five bad men rode forth from
their hiding-place.
The sun gleamed on their rifle barrels as they spurred their ponies
down the open slope. They rode deep in their saddles, for the ground
was broken with many little gullies and the horses were going at a
headlong pace. They drew away from the shelter of the mesquite and
descended toward the valley bed. Some one heard a rifle bullet whining
over his head. The man glanced around as the sharp report followed the
leaden slug; and now every face was turned to the rear. Twelve
cow-boys were following John Slaughter keeping their ponies to a dead
run along the heights which Curly Bill and his band had so blithely
forsaken.
It was a custom as old as Indian-fighting; this bringing on of the
main force over the high ground whence they could guard against
surprise and hold the advantage over luring enemies. By its result the
ambuscaders were ambushed, riding headlong into a trap.
It was a simple situation, apparent to the dullest mind. Who lingered
on the low ground would never steal cattle again. The outlaws wheeled
their ponies to a man; and now as they raced back up the hill they saw
the cow-boys coming onward at a pace which threatened to cut them off
from the shelter of the mesquite. Then panic seized them and it held
them until the last cow-thief had spurred his sweating horse into the
thickets. By the time Curly Bill had re-gathered his scattered forces
the herd was nearly out of sight.
He did not seek renewal of the attack. He let it go at that. And when
he came to Charleston he announced that so far as he was concerned the
incident was closed; he was going to do his cattle-rustling henceforth
over San Simon way where cow-men did not maintain rear-guards and
scout out the country ahead of them for enemies. He changed his base
of operations to Galeyville within a month and came to Charleston for
pleasure only.
The story spread and every man who deemed himself as bad as Curly Bill
saw his opportunity to demonstrate his qualifications as a killer by
succeeding where the leader had failed. Doc Holliday tried it one
night on the Charleston road. Next to Wyatt Earp he ranked as the
highest in the faction that was ruling Tombstone. Unquestionably he
was an artist with deadly weapons, and the trail of his wanderings
through the West was marked by wooden headboards. On the evening in
question--it was the evening after the bloody and unsuccessful attempt
to rob the Benson stage, and several men were riding hard toward home
and help and alibis--he was spurring his sweating horse to Tombstone
when he got sight of John Slaughter's double rig ahead of him.
The cattle-buyer had drawn ten thousand dollars from the bank that
afternoon and was taking the specie home with him; the fact was known
in Charleston where Doc Holliday had stopped within the last hour. The
vehicle was rounding a long turn; the horseman cut across country
through the mesquite; he reached the farther end of the curve just in
time to draw alongside the team.
John Slaughter's wife was beside him on the driver's seat. She saw the
rider bursting out of the gloom, and then her eyes fell on the
forty-five which he was in the very act of "throwing down."
"That man has a gun in his hand," she cried.