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It was thus with him when Ed Lyle and Cap Stilwell waylaid him on the road to the Empire ranch over near Port Huachuca. These two, who had endured humiliation under the muzzle of the Texan’s pistol on the Pecos trail, brought four others along with them and planned to do the murder in the night. Three took their stations on one side of the wagon track and three on the other, all well armed. They had spotted the victim’s buckboard several miles back.

Now when it came on to the spot which they had selected, the two trios galloped up to do the killing–and found John Slaughter leveling a double-barreled shotgun while his wife held the reins. One glimpse of that weapon at the cattle-buyer’s shoulder was enough; they did not wait for him to pull the trigger but fled.

John Slaughter was wearying of this sort of thing. Lyle and Stilwell were men of parts; good men of whom to make examples. He sought the former out in Charleston. They met in front of a saloon on the main street. John Slaughter drew and, as he threw down–

“I’ve got no gun,” Lyle cried.

“If you were armed,” the cow-man said, “I’d kill you now. But if I ever see you in this country again, I’ll kill you anyhow.”

Lyle left and Cap Stilwell, receiving his sentence of banishment in the same manner, departed within a week. From that time the bad men let John Slaughter alone; he was too big for them. He took his family to his new San Bernardino ranch and it was beginning to seem as if the days of constant warfare were over. He was settling down to enjoy peace in his home, when a call for help made him forsake the security which had been so hard to earn.

That security was unknown elsewhere in Cochise County. The strong men who had seized the reins in Tombstone, wielding their power for their own selfish ends, were gone; they had ridden away with warrants out against them. The outlaw leaders were dead: John Ringo, Curly Bill, the Clantons, and others who had swaggered where they willed, had met violent ends.

With their passing the courts were trying to administer the statutes, but the courts were impotent. The statutes were mere printed words. For the rank and file of the bad men were raiding and murdering under the guidance of new leaders who furnished them with food and ammunition, notified them of the movements of the officers, procured perjured witnesses to take the stand in their behalf, and bribed jurymen.

Money and influence were taking the place of deadly weapons to uphold a dynasty whose members reigned unseen and under cover, whose henchmen looted express-cars, stole cattle, and murdered men on the highways, until things had come to such a pass that President Arthur had issued a proclamation threatening martial law in Southeastern Arizona.

And now the people of Tombstone, grown sick with blood and much violence, called to John Slaughter to take the office of sheriff and bring the law to them. It meant the abandonment of his herds just as he was getting them well started, the putting aside of plans which he had cherished through the years. But he answered the call and forsook the San Bernardino ranch for the dingy little room beside the court-house entrance. Before he had got fairly acquainted with the new quarters war was on.

Cochise County was being used as a haven by bandits throughout the Southwest. Four train-robbers fled hither from Mexico, where they had looted an express-car and killed the messenger, soon after John Slaughter’s term began. He took his chief deputy, Bert Alvord, and two others and followed their trail high into the Whetstone Mountains. In the night-time the posse crawled through the brush and rocks to the place where they had located the camp of the fugitives.

A man must leave many things to chance when it comes to choosing his position in the dark, and it so happened that when dawn came the sheriff and his deputy found themselves right under the nook where the bandits were ensconced; the other members of their party had become separated from them.