ointed toward me, went off as he fell, but he fired
high. As I sprang up, I fired once more, but did not hit him, and did
not need to, for he was dead.

"I don't know that he ever knew who it was that killed him. He could not
see me in the darkness. He may have seen me stoop over and pull. If he
had had the least suspicion who it was, he would have shot as soon as he
saw me. When he came to the bed, I knew who he was. The rest happened as
I have told you. There is no other story about the killing of Billy the
Kid which is the truth. It is also untrue that his body was ever removed
from Fort Sumner. It lies there to-day, and I'll show you where we
buried him. I laid him out myself, in this house here, and I ought to
know."

Twenty-five years of time had done their work in all that country, as we
learned when we entered the little barbed-wire enclosure of the cemetery
where the Kid and his fellows were buried. There are no headstones in
this cemetery, and no sacristan holds its records. Again Garrett had to
search in the salt grass and greasewood. "Here is the place," said he,
at length. "We buried them all in a row. The first grave is the Kid's,
and next to him is Bowdre, and then O'Folliard."

Here was the sole remaining record of the man hunt's end. So passes the
glory of the world! In this desolate resting-place, in a wind-swept and
forgotten graveyard, rests all the remaining fame of certain bad men who
in their time were bandit kings, who ruled by terror over half a Western
territory. Even the headboard which once stood at the Kid's grave--and
which was once riddled with bullets by cowards who would not have dared
to shoot that close to him had he been alive--was gone. It is not likely
that the graves will be visited again by any one who knows their
locality. Garrett looked at them in silence for a time, then, turning,
went to the buckboard for a drink at the canteen. "Well," said he,
quietly, "here's to the boys, anyway. If there is any other life, I hope
they'll make better use of it than they did of the one I put them out
of."

Chapter XIX

Bad Men of Texas--_The Lone Star State Always a Producer of
Fighters_--_A Long History of Border War_--_The Death of Ben Thompson_.

A review of the story of the American desperado will show that he has
always been most numerous at the edge of things, where there was a
frontier, a debatable ground between civilization and lawlessness, or a
border between opposin