The deputy told him.
"The superintendent owns that horse," he explained, "and he"s a good friend of mine. Not only that, but if I get it back it means a whole lot to the office; it"ll put Behan solid with those people over at Contention, and that helps me."
The outlaw nodded but made no remark by way of comment. Some time later he sat up at the oilcloth-covered table talking quietly with Frank McLowery. And Brenckenridge saw McLowery scowling. Then he felt reasonably sure who had stolen that blooded animal and who was going to bring it back to Tombstone in the morning.
Bedding-rolls were being unlashed within the half-hour. McLowery brought Breckenbridge a pair of blankets.
"Reckon you"ll have to make down on the floor same as the rest of the boys," the outlaw growled and then, as if it were an afterthought, "That there boss yo" "re looking fer is near the ranch."
And that was all the talk there was on the subject during the evening.
But Breckenbridge spread his blankets and lay down among the rustlers serene in mind. Evidently the horse was going to be in his possession the next morning.
McLowery"s sullenness seemed to have been contagious and there were no good-nights said to the guest. He knew every man in the room; some of them he had known ever since that evening when Curly Bill had taken him to the rustler"s camp is the San Simon. But the best he got from any of them was an averted look; several were scowling openly. Even Curly Bill had put aside his usual heavy joviality. It was clear that the burly leader had strained a point in going as far as he had. Some men might have felt uneasy in dropping off to sleep under the circ.u.mstances, but Breckenbridge understood his hosts well enough to be certain that, so long as he was on the ranch, the sacred rites of hospitality were going to be observed. So he closed his eyes and the last thing he heard was the snoring of outlaws and murderers.
The next morning he awakened to find that several of the company had departed. No one made any comment on that fact and there was no mention of the stolen horse. But when the deputy had downed his last cup of coffee Frank McLowery took him outside and showed him the animal tethered to a hitching-rack.
"Much obliged, Frank," said Breckenbridge.
The stage-robber gave him a sour grin.
"Bet yo" never fetch him back to Tombstone," he answered quietly.
The two looked into each other"s eyes and smiled. You may have seen a pair of fighters smiling in that same way when the gong has sounded and they have put up their hands at the beginning of a finish contest.
Now under these circ.u.mstances and remembering the absence of several of the best hors.e.m.e.n 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 a.s.similate 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; then perhaps they would let him get the lead. And once he got it, luck would have to help him carry out his plan. He saddled the hired pony and rode away, leading the recovered animal.
Before he had gone a half-mile beyond the ranch buildings he saw that he had figured rightly. The floor of the Sulphur Springs valley did not hold so much as a bush by way of cover; and here, off to the left, his eyes fell on a group of hors.e.m.e.n. Evidently they had been watching him ever since he left the corrals and knew the poorness of his mount, for they were making no effort to overhaul him as yet.
But he realized that the gang must have graver business on hand than the recovery of the thoroughbred; they were not going to waste any too much time over this affair and he would not be allowed to travel far if they could help it. Just then a wagon outfit climbed out of a dry wash directly ahead of him and he saw how luck had given him his chance.
He rode on, leisurely closing in upon the train. Off there to the left the outlaws were keeping pace with him, but as yet they were making no attempt to lessen the distance between them. He came up with the last wagon, turned off the road beside it, and had the clumsy covered vehicle between him and the rustlers. Then he dismounted.
The wagons kept on moving; now and again the teamsters glanced toward him curiously. He barely heeded them save to see that they made no sign to the now invisible outlaws. It took all the skill that he owned to keep both his horses walking while he unsaddled the one and threw the saddle upon the other. But at last the change was made and he flung himself upon the thoroughbred"s back. Shouting to the nearest teamster to lead the abandoned pony back to Tombstone, he put spurs to his fresh mount and came out in the road ahead of the foremost span of leaders on a dead run.
There were six of the outlaws and they were less than half a mile away. Breckenbridge had been out of sight behind the wagons just a little too long to suit them and they were cutting in toward the road now at top speed.
From the beginning it was a stern chase and they had only one hope of winning. Nothing less swift than a bullet could ever catch that thoroughbred. They pulled up at once and began shooting. But although some of the slugs from their rifles came uncomfortably close none found its mark and Breckenbridge was fast drawing away from them.
However, they were not the men to give up so long as there was any chance remaining, and they swung back into their saddles to "burn up the road" in his wake.
Now all hands settled down to make a long race of it, and it was not until he was climbing the first slopes toward South Pa.s.s in the Dragoon Mountains that Breckenbridge looked back for the last time and saw the shapes of those six hors.e.m.e.n diminishing in the distance as they jogged back toward the McLowery ranch.
So through the good-will of Curly Bill young Breckenbridge recovered the thoroughbred from the man who had stolen it and brought it to Tombstone without being obliged to reach for his own gun. And moreover there were no hard feelings about it when he rode back into no-man"s-land the next time. So far as Frank McLowery and the Clanton boys were concerned the incident was closed. The deputy had won out and that was all there was to it.
As a matter of fact only a month or so later a horse-thief from Lincoln County, New Mexico, came to grief at Galeyville because he did not understand Breckenbridge"s status in the rustlers" metropolis.
This bad man from the Pecos had a pretty sorrel pony and the deputy, who was in the place on civil business, happened to notice the animal at the hitching-rack in front of the hotel.
"Say," he said to its possessor, who was standing near by, "that"s a nice horse; where"d you get him?"
The remark was a careless one in a country where ponies often changed owners overnight, and the man from the Pecos was sensitive enough on the subject to resent the question from one who wore a star. He answered it by drawing his gun.
Breckenbridge, who was as dexterous with his left hand as with his right, reached down as the weapon came forth from its holster and gripped the stranger"s wrist. He gave a sharp wrench and the revolver clattered down on the sidewalk. And then Curly Bill, who had witnessed the incident, stepped forward and ordered the visitor out of Galeyville.
"Yo"-all don"t need to think," the desperado added, "that you can come here and make a gun-play on our deputy. We get along all right with him and I reckon we ain"t going to stand for any cow-thieves from Lincoln County gettin" brash with him."
Something like two years had pa.s.sed now since young Billy Breckenbridge first rode across the Dragoon Mountains into no-man"s-land and, as the old-timers who had been watching him all this time well knew, things could not go on in this way forever. The show-down was bound to come. It came one day at the Chandler ranch and the old-timers got the answer to their question.
There were two young fellows by the name of Zwing Hunt and Billy Grounds who had been working at Philip Morse"s sawmill over in the Chiracahua Mountains.
Somehow or other they had got mixed up with the stock-rustlers and the temptation to make easy money proved too strong for them. One evening they went over to the Contention mill and held up the place, killing the man in charge.
Johnny Behan was out of town at the time with several deputies after the Earps who had departed from Tombstone. The under-sheriff detailed Breckenbridge on the case and drafted a posse of three men to help him.
"No, sir," the former said when the young deputy remonstrated against the presence of these aides. "This ain"t a case of talking John Ringo into coming over and putting up a bond. This here"s murder and those lads are going to show fight."
Orders were orders; there was no use arguing further. The erstwhile diplomat made the best of a bad matter and rode away with his three companions. It was evening when they left Tombstone and the Chandler ranch lay several hours distant. Those who saw them leave the camp spread the news. And now the old-timers settled down, certain that when Billy Breckenbridge returned they were going to know just what he was made of.
He came back the next evening, riding alongside a lumber-wagon. In those days the mining companies maintained a hospital at the edge of the town. The vehicle made one stop at this inst.i.tution and unloaded three of its occupants. It made a second stop before the establishment of a local undertaker, where two bodies were removed. And then young Breckenbridge rode on alone to the court-house. Two outlaws and four men in the deputy sheriff"s party makes six altogether. Out of the six he was the only one left on his feet.
"And the hull thing didn"t last five minutes," said "Bull" Lewis, the driver of the wagon. "I was asleep in the ranch-house along with these two outlaws when some one knocked on the door. Right away I heard a shot in the next room and I busted out with my hands up and yelling that I was a nootral. Before I"d gone twenty yards Hunt and Grounds had killed two of the posse and by the time I was over that rise behind the house they"d laid out the other. And then I watched this little deputy get the two of them.
"He was out in the open and they were inside, and both of "em were sure burnin" powder mighty fast. But he waited his chance and tore the top of Grounds"s head off with a charge of buckshot when he stepped to the door to get a better shot. And a second or two later Zwing Hunt came out of the cabin, firing as he ran. The little fellow dropped him with a bullet from his forty-five before he"d come more "n a half a dozen jumps."
But Breckenbridge was a long way from being jubilant when Johnny Behan and the under-sheriff congratulated him on his behavior.
"If you hadn"t wished those three fellows on me I"d have brought both these boys back without firing a shot," he told the under-sheriff.
"The blamed posse made such a noise coming up to the cabin that the two of "em thought "t was a lynching-party and opened fire on us. Yes, sir. I could have talked them into coming--if I"d only been alone."
And so when it did finally come to the show-down all hands learned of just what material young Breckenbridge was made.
THE Pa.s.sING OF JOHN RINGO
There were all kinds of bad men in the days of the old West. John Ringo was one sort and Buckskin Frank was another. While this tale deals most with the former, still it concerns the two of them.
In its wild youth the town of Tombstone knew both men. To this day the old-timers who witnessed the swift march of events during the years 1879, 1880, and 1881 will tell you of their deeds. But things were happening fast when those deeds took place. There was, if one may be allowed to use a poetic figure, a good deal of powder-smoke floating in the air to obscure the vision. And so although no men were ever more just in pa.s.sing judgment than these same old-timers, the story has its sardonic ending.
John Ringo was the big "He Wolf" among the outlaws, a man of quick intelligence who did not seem to care much whether he or the other fellow died. To him who wants the ornate trappings of the motion-picture bad man or the dialect which makes some desperadoes popular in fiction, Ringo would prove a disappointing figure as he showed up in southeastern Arizona.
For he wore no hair chaps, nor do those who saw him tell of a knotted colored handkerchief about his throat. Like most of those riders who drifted into the territory when other portions of the West had grown too hot for them, his costume was un.o.btrusive: light-colored jean breeches tucked into his boot-tops, a flannel shirt and the gray Stetson peculiar to the country west of the Pecos, a limp-brimmed hat with a high crown, which may be creased after the old "Southern Gentleman" fashion but was most often left with such dents as come by accident. Of hardware he carried his full share; sometimes two forty-five revolvers and a Winchester; but if he were in town the arms were as likely as not concealed.
It would take a second look to separate him from the herd. That second look would show you a fine, lean form whose every movement was catlike in its grace, a dark face whose expression was usually sullen, whose eyes were nearly always somber; slender hands and small feet. And his speech, whenever you heard it, was sure to be comparatively free from the idioms of the region; the English was often more correct than otherwise. A man of parts, and he looked it; they all say that.
This was John Ringo. He had fought in one of those numerous cattle wars which raged throughout western Texas during the seventies. Before that period a certain California city had known him as the reckless son of a decent family.
And in pa.s.sing note the fact that he still got letters from his people after he came to Tombstone with a price on his head. Which helps to explain that somber demeanor, the whisky which he drank--and the ending of his life"s story.