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These are the two men; and as for Tombstone, it was booming. The mines were paying tremendously; business was brisk twenty-four hours a day. An era of claim-jumping, faro-playing, dance-halls, the Bird-Cage, Opera House, Apache scares, stage hold-ups; and, of course, gun-fighting.

The Earps virtually ran the town government; they enforced the local laws against shooting up the place and so forth very much after the manner of Dodge City; and they were strong, resolute men. Buckskin Frank was on good terms with their henchmen; he was, if the statements of the old-timers are to be believed, anxious to remain in the good graces of these stern rulers.

John Ringo, on the other hand, was at outs with them; and soon after their advent into power he drifted away from Tombstone along with the other outlaws. To use the expression of the times, he was “short” in the mining town, which means that when he came there he had to be ready at all times to defend his life and liberty.

And now that you have seen the men and the town, the tale can go on; it is a mere recital of certain incidents which took place during the last year or two of John Ringo’s life; incidents which show the difference between his breed of bad man and the breed to which Buckskin Frank belonged. To the chronicler these incidents appeal for that very reason. The days of the old West strike one as being very much like the days of old knighthood; they were rude days when some men tried hard to live up to a code of chivalry and some men made themselves mighty by very foul means indeed. And while we may not always be sure that the names which have come down to us–from either of these wild eras–are those that should have been coupled with fame, still we can be certain of one thing: the chivalry existed in both periods.

According to the code in the Middle Ages the challenge and the single combat were recognized institutions; and they say that knights-errant used to go riding through the country seeking worthy opponents. And according to the cow-boy code in southeastern Arizona during the early eighties among the outlaws, a champion must be ready to try conclusions in very much that same way on occasion.

It was one of those traditions which some men observed and some–wisely–ignored. This desperado John Ringo was among those who observed it; and one day, like poor old Don Quixote, he found himself trying to force conclusions with men whose ideas were more modern than his own, which led him–like Cervante’s lean hero–into a bad predicament and also brought him to a strange friendship.

The Earp brothers and their followers, as has been said, were ruling Tombstone, and the outlaws had fled into the country east of the Dragoon Mountains. But the outlaws did not fancy remaining out in the open country; sometimes they came back to town in force and hung about the place for days; always they were hoping to return permanently. And always the Earps were looking to drive them out of the country for good and all.

Eventually the situation came to a climax in the great Earp-Clanton gun-fight, and there was a long period when this battle was brewing. During this period whenever they came to town the desperadoes used to stay at the Grand Central Hotel; and Bob Hatch’s saloon, where the Earp boys and their friends were accustomed to take their “morning’s morning,” was directly across the street. Things came to a pass where the noon hour would often find a group of outlaws on the sidewalk before the hotel and a number of the Earp faction in front of the saloon, both outfits heavily armed, the members of each glowering across the street at those of the other.

Now Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others of the law-and-order party had come here with big reputations from Dodge City, where they had taken part in more than one affair when the lead was flying. They had sustained those reputations by their deeds in Tombstone; they were champions–“He Wolves.” And so one noontime when he was standing on the sidewalk among his fellow outlaws, John Ringo was seized with an idea.