rought
matters to a crisis by killing an engineer from the mill.

Johnny Behind the Deuce was an undersized, scrawny specimen of the
genus which is popularly known as "tinhorn," a sort of free-lance
gambler, usually to be found sitting in at a poker-game. The engineer
was a big man and abusive.

There was a game in which these two participated; and when he had lost
his wages to Johnny Behind the Deuce, the engineer sought solace first
in vituperation, then in physical maltreatment. Whereat Johnny Behind
the Deuce shot him. Charleston's constable took the slayer into
custody. The rustlers and other exiles from Tombstone knew the
prisoner for a friend of the Earps, and so they decided to lynch him.
They sent one of their number to get a reata for that purpose.

The constable learned what was going on. He commandeered a buckboard
and a team of mules, put Johnny Behind the Deuce aboard, and drove
the animals on the dead run for Tombstone.

When the man who had been sent for the reata returned, the rustlers
set out after the prisoner and found they were five minutes too late.
They saddled up and started in pursuit.

The road wound along the lower levels between the foot-hills of the
Mule Mountains; there were two or three dry washes to cross, some
sharp grades to negotiate, and several fine stretches which were
nearly level,--a rough road, admirably suited for making a wild race
wilder.

And this was a wild race. The constable and the prisoner were just
getting their team nicely warmed up when they heard a fusillade of
revolver-shots behind them. They glanced over their shoulders and saw
more than fifty horsemen coming on at that gait which is so well
described in the vernacular as "burning the wind." From time to time
one of these riders would lean forward and "throw down" his
six-shooter; then the occupants of the buckboard would hear the whine
of a forty-five slug, and a moment later the report of the distant
weapon would reach their ears.

The mules heard these things too. What with the noise of the firearms
and the whoops of the pursuers they were in a frenzy; they threw their
long ears flat back and entered into the spirit of the occasion by
running away. The constable, who was a cool man and a good driver,
centered his energies on guiding them around the turns and let it go
at that.

Now as the miles of tawny landscape flashed behind them the two
fugitives saw that they were being overhauled. And the pursue