Frederick R. Bechdolt

“ If you buckled on a gun you must be ready to draw it, and once you started to draw it, heaven help you if you did not reckon on going through with the play.
A man could get by, as the saying has it, if he played the part of a neutral; but if, on the one hand, you started in at stealing cattle or if, on the other hand, you pinned on a star—why then, sooner or later, the big issue was going to come to a head; you were going to find yourself faced by a foe or foes, armed like yourself, and like yourself prepared to shoot it out. ”

“ A savage land wherein savage men rode, as packs of gray wolves range in the wintertime when meat is scarce, searching the distant sky-line for some sign of life on which to prey.
For this was no-man's-land. Bands of renegade Apaches lurked among its empurpled peaks. Companies of Mexican smugglers came northward through its steep-walled border cañons driving their laden burros to lonely rendezvous where hard-eyed traders awaited them with pack-mules loaded down with dobie dollars. A few lonely ranch-houses where there was water in the lowlands ”

“ The officer had dropped in the dust of the roadway and Curly Bill had ridden out of town with a thousand dollars on his head. A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars and there was no telling what a man who wore a nickel-plated star might have up his sleeve.
“Mr. Breckenbridge,” the cattle-buyer said as the two palms met, “is here on civil business.”
The eyes of Curly Bill resumed their normal shape. His fingers tightened over the deputy's.
“Howdy,” he said. “What yo' going to have?”
While the sting of the cow-town whisky was still rankling in their throats a man entered the front door. ”

“ Thenceforth he talked freely of his deeds and misdeeds.
“Only one man that ever got the drop on me,” the outlaw said one evening when they were lying on their blankets, enjoying the long inhalations from their after-supper cigarettes, “and that was ol' Jim Burnett over in Charleston, two years ago.”
He paused a moment to roll another smoke. A coyote clamored shrilly beyond the next rise; a horse blew luxuriously feeding in the bunch-grass. Curly Bill launched into his tale. ”

“ As far as law and order went, the country east of the Dragoons was a foreign land; and when Breckenbridge had told the story of his journeyings with Curly Bill, explaining how the outlaw had been zealous in nosing out those citizens whose property was assessable, how he had safeguarded the county's money, then the sheriff saw how he had on his force one whom he could use to good account. ”

“ The wild country is always easier ground in which to trace a fugitive or stolen property than the crowded places for the simple reason that its few inhabitants are likely to notice every one who passes; besides which there are few travelers to obliterate tracks.
And Breckenbridge learned before he had gone very many miles that the badly wanted horse was headed in the direction of the McLowery ranch. The McLowery boys were members of the Clanton gang of rustlers and stage-robbers. ”

“ But it did exist during the early eighties and its life was noisy enough for any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the honest members of the population went out of business; later the Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and the elements finished the business.
But when John Ringo and Curly Bill held forth in Galeyville there was a cattle-buyer in the place who did a brisk business because he asked no embarrassing questions concerning brands. ”

“ IN the early days of Tombstone when miners and merchants and cow-men and faro-dealers and outlaws were drifting into Cochise County from all over the West, a young fellow by the name of William C. Breckenbridge came down from Colorado to the new camp. He was, so the old-timers say, one of those smallish men who can wear a flannel shirt and broad-brimmed hat so jauntily that, although their breeches be tucked into their boot-tops, they still look marvelously neat ”

“ And as the days wore on, each with its own share of mutual hardship to bring these two to closer companionship, they began, as men will under such circumstances, to unfold their separate natures. Under the long trail's stern necessity they bared to each other those traits which would have remained hidden during years of acquaintance among a city's tight-walled streets. ”

“ He was still in his early twenties and the world looked good to him; one of those quiet youths who preface most remarks with a smile because, all other things being equal, they like their fellow-men.
He knocked about the camp, trying this thing and that, and was starting in at mining engineering with an old marine compass as his only instrument when Johnny Behan, who was newly appointed sheriff by the governor, gave him a job as a deputy. ”

“ And sometimes other riders came toward them out of the desert to pass on and to vanish in the hazy distance; men who spoke but few words and watched the right hands of the two riders as they talked. But none attacked them or made a show toward hostility. Now and again the pair stopped at a ranch-house or a mine where Breckenbridge added to the county's money in his saddle-bags. ”

“ He drew his forty-five and held it forth butt foremost in his right hand.
“Don't ever go to take a man's gun that-a-way,” he went on, “for when yo' are figuring that yo' have the drop on him and he is makin' the play to give it up— Jest reach out now to get it.”
Breckenbridge reached forth with his right hand. The outlaw smiled. His trigger-finger glided inside the guard; there was a sudden wrist movement and the revolver whirled end for end. Its muzzle was pressing against the deputy's waist-band.
“Did it slow so's you could see,” said Curly Bill. “Now yo' understand.” ”

“ Now under these circumstances and remembering the absence of several of the best horsemen in the bunch from the ranch-house, many a man would have put his saddle on the thoroughbred that morning. But Breckenbridge had managed to assimilate some of the wiles of diplomacy during these last few months and he reasoned that if there were a pursuing-party waiting for him to leave the ranch they would be prepared for that same contingency. Better let them think him unready ”

“ A rustler might be willing to go through the formalities of giving bail at the county court-house, or even to stand trial, but when it came to turning over stolen property—and doing it without a struggle—that was another matter. ”

“ He was justice of the peace and used to hold co't in those days whenever he'd run on to a man he wanted. Always packed a double-barrel shotgun and he'd usually managed to throw it down on a fellow while he tried the case and named the fine. ”