nd shot
him through the body. He did not drop, but staggered back against the
wall; and so he stood there, crippled of old and now wounded to death,
but so fierce a human tiger that his very looks struck dismay into this
gang of professional fighters. They actually withdrew around the house
and left him there!

Each claimed the credit for having shot the victim. "No," said Charlie
Bowdre, "I shot him myself. I dusted him on both sides. I saw the dust
fly out on both sides of his coat, where my bullet went clean through
him." They argued, but they did not go around the house again.

Roberts now staggered back into the house. He threw down his own
Winchester and picked up a heavy Sharps' rifle which belonged to Dr.
Appel, and which he found there, in Dr. Blazer's room. Brewer told Dr.
Blazer to bring Roberts out, but, like a man, Blazer refused. Roberts
pulled a mattress off the bed to the floor and threw himself down upon
it near an open window in the front of the house. The gang had
scattered, surrounding the house. Dick Brewer had taken refuge behind a
thirty-inch sawlog near the mill, just one hundred and forty steps from
the window near which this fierce little fighting man was lying, wounded
to death. Brewer raised his head just above the top of the sawlog, so
that he could see what Roberts was doing. His eyes were barely visible
above the top of the log, yet at that distance the heavy bullet from
Roberts' buffalo gun struck him in the eye and blew off the top of his
head.

Billy the Kid was now leader of the posse. His first act was to call his
men together and ride away from the spot, his whole outfit whipped by a
single man! There was a corpse behind them, and wounded men with them.

Thirty-six hours later there was another corpse at Blazer's Mill. The
doctor, brought over from Fort Stanton, could do nothing for Roberts,
and he died in agony. Johnnie Patten, sawyer and rough carpenter, made
one big coffin, and in this the two, Brewer and Roberts, were buried
side by side. "I couldn't make a very good coffin," says Patten, "so I
built it in the shape of a big V, with no end piece at the foot. We just
put them both in together." And there they lie to-day, grim
grave-company, according to the report of this eye-witness, who would
seem to be in a position indicating accuracy. Emil Blazer, a son of Dr.
Blazer, still lives on the site of this fierce little battle, and he
says that the two dead men were buried separ