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"Got a warrant for you," he announced when the desperado had demanded to know who was there. "Highway robbery." There was a bit of parleying through the closed door and finally "Man by the name of Johnson is the complaining witness," young Breckenbridge elucidated. "According to what I hear, the play came up along of a poker game." John Ringo swore lightly. "Come in," he bade the deputy.
He waved his hand toward the wide flat lands which lay shimmering like an enormous lake a thousand feet below them. Ringo raised his somber face toward the blazing heavens and launched another volley of curses upon them before he rode away. And that was the last time young Breckenbridge saw him alive.
John Ringo was one sort and Buckskin Frank was another. While this tale deals most with the former, still it concerns the two of them. In its wild youth the town of Tombstone knew both men. To this day the old-timers who witnessed the swift march of events during the years 1879, 1880, and 1881 will tell you of their deeds. But things were happening fast when those deeds took place.
It is easy enough to see how John Ringo was behind the times when he made that proposition on Tombstone's main street. It is easy also to imagine his feelings when without a word by way of answer or acknowledgment the members of the Earp faction stood regarding him.
On the afternoon in question John Ringo was the only outlaw in the place; his followers were absent on some wild errand or other and he was putting in the time at a poker-game. There were four men seated around the table in the dingy bar-room, silent as four owls, mirthless as high priests at a sacred rite.
Thence to the Ringo alehouse, and thither sent for a belt-maker, and bought of him a handsome belt for second mourning, which cost me 24s., and is very neat. 29th. My mind not pleased with the spending of this day, because I had proposed a great deal of pleasure to myself this day at Guildhall.
But Kettle-Belly Johnson shook his head. "Easy come," said he, "easy go. Get out and rustle some more cows or hold up the stage again. We ain't a-runnin' no pawn-shop." John Ringo left the room without more words, and the three tin horns fell to cutting for low spade to while away the time.
And when this was accomplished with the aid of a device known as a "hold-out" his moist, plump fingers clutched a full house jacks on kings. The betting went briskly to the bitter end. John Ringo scowled down on the hand which beat his; pushed back his chair, fumbled briefly at his vest, and laid his gold watch on the table. "Lend me a hundred," he growled. "She's worth a hundred and fifty."
Those were queer days, and if you judge things from our twentieth-century point of view you will probably find yourself bewildered. John Ringo was known to be a cattle-rustler, stage-robber, and according to the law a murderer. And Breckenbridge, whose duty it was to enforce the statutes, set out for the county seat alone on the strength of that promise.
It was no more than natural that the desperado should ask himself whether he was right in blaming fortune for the cards which he drew. There came a new deal and time to draw again. "Two," John Ringo muttered. Kettle-Belly Johnson held up a single finger; and when he had got his card, performed one of those prestidigital feats by which he made his living.
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