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 institution 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