ison did not even draw until after the other had fired.

Several weeks later Number Two was found in Tombstone, Arizona, a town
of the good old frontier sort that had little use for coroners and
juries, so the fighting was half fair. Half an hour after landing from
the stagecoach, Allison encountered his man in a gambling-house.
Number Two remained in Tombstone--permanently--while Mr. Allison
resumed his travels by the evening coach.

The hunt for Number Three lasted several months. Allison followed him
relentlessly from place to place through half a dozen States and
Territories, until he was located on a ranch near Spearfish, Dakota.

They met at last, one afternoon, within the shadow of the Devil's
Tower. In the duel that ensued, Allison's horse was killed under him.
This occasioned him no particular inconvenience, however, for he found
that Number Three's horse, after having a few hours' rest, was able to
carry him into Deadwood, where he caught the Sidney stage.

With this task finished, Mr. Allison was able to return to commercial
pursuits. He settled at Pope's Crossing on the Pecos River, in New
Mexico, bought cattle, and stocked the adjacent range. Pecos City, the
nearest town, lay fifty miles to the south.

Started as a "front camp" during the construction of the Texas Pacific
Railway in 1880, for five or six years Pecos contrived to rock along
without any of the elaborate municipal machinery deemed essential to
the government and safety of urban communities in the effete East. It
had neither council, mayor, nor peace officer. An early experiment in
government was discouraging.

In 1883 the Texas Pacific station-agent was elected mayor. His name
was Ewing, a little man with fierce whiskers and mild blue eyes. Two
nights after the election a gang of boys from the "Hash Knife" outfit
were in town; fearing circumscription of some of their privileges, the
election did not have their approval. Gleaming out of the darkness
fifty yards away from the Lone Wolf Saloon, the light of Mayor Ewing's
office window offered a most tempting target. What followed was very
natural--in Pecos.

The Mayor was sitting at his table receiving train orders, when
suddenly a bullet smashed the telegraph key beside his hand and other
balls whistled through the room bearing him a message he had no trouble
in reading. Rushing out into the darkness, he spent the night in the
brush, and toward morning boarded an east-bound fr