ew Mexico line. The
census claimed two hundred, but it was a well-known fact that it was
exaggerated. One instance of this is shown by the name of Tom Flynn.
Those who once knew Tom Flynn, alias Johnny Redmond, alias Bill Sweeney,
alias Chuck Mullen, by all four names, could find them in the census
list. Furthermore, he had been shot and killed in the March of the
year preceding the census, and now occupied a grave in the young but
flourishing cemetery. Perry's Bend, twenty miles up the river, was
cognizant of this and other facts, and, laughing in open derision at
the padded list, claimed to be the better town in all ways, including
marksmanship.

One year before this tale opens, Buck Peters, an example for the more
recent Billy the Kid, had paid Perry's Bend a short but busy visit. He
had ridden in at the north end of Main Street and out at the south. As
he came in he was fired at by a group of ugly cowboys from a ranch known
as the C 80. He was hit twice, but he unlimbered his artillery, and
before his horse had carried him, half dead, out on the prairie, he had
killed one of the group. Several citizens had joined the cowboys
and added their bullets against Buck. The deceased had been the best
bartender in the country, and the rage of the suffering citizens can
well be imagined. They swore vengeance on Buck, his ranch, and his
stamping ground.

The difference between Buck and Billy the Kid is that the former never
shot a man who was not trying to shoot him, or who had not been warned
by some action against Buck that would call for it. He minded his own
business, never picked a quarrel, and was quiet and pacific up to
a certain point. After that had been passed he became like a raging
cyclone in a tenement house, and storm-cellars were much in demand.

"Fanning" is the name of a certain style of gun play not unknown among
the bad men of the West. While Buck was not a bad man, he had to rub
elbows with them frequently, and he believed that the sauce for the
goose was the sauce for the gander. So be bad removed the trigger of his
revolver and worked the hammer with the thumb of the "gun hand" or the
heel of the unencumbered hand. The speed thus acquired was greater than
that of the more modern double-action weapon. Six shots in a few seconds
was his average speed when that number was required, and when it is
thoroughly understood that at least some of them found their intended
bullets it is not difficult to realize t