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The rustlers and other exiles from Tombstone knew the prisoner for a friend of the Earps, and so they decided to lynch him. They sent one of their number to get a reata for that purpose. The constable learned what was going on. He commandeered a buckboard and a team of mules, put Johnny Behind the Deuce aboard, and drove the animals on the dead run for Tombstone.
Lawyers came into the town and henceforth provided a dead man's friends had money killing an opponent no longer settled a dispute. There remained such complications as indictment, sworn testimony, and the jury. The good old days were passing. Sheriff Johnny Behan charged the Earps with participation in robberies and wilful cognizance of murders.
And now the statement was made in Tombstone that the members of this faction had promised to shoot the Earps on sight. One October evening Ike Clanton came to town with Tom McLowery, and Virgil Earp arrested the two on the charge of disturbing the peace. He did it on the main street and disarmed them easily enough. The justice of the peace, whose name was Spicer, fined the prisoners fifty dollars.
So while dissatisfaction was crystallizing among the miners of Tombstone a keen rancor against the Earps was developing over by the San Pedro. This was the state of affairs when Johnny Behind the Deuce brought matters to a crisis by killing an engineer from the mill.
How much the Earps knew of what their henchmen did is beyond the telling in this story. An official history of Arizona published under the auspices of the State legislature and written by Major McClintock, an old Westerner, states that first and last they were accused of about 50 per cent. of the robberies which took place in the town.
But the team took fright at the noise and ran away and the eighty thousand dollars went on up the road in a cloud of dust. Johnny Behan, the sheriff, said that the Earp brothers sent Doc Holliday out with the Clanton brothers to commit the crime. Ike Clanton said that he was rustling cattle at the time down in Mexico, and accused the Earps of sole responsibility.
One thing is certain; the Earps did protect their friends, and some of those friends were using very much the same methods which the Apaches employed in making a living. To a certain extent this was necessary. What one might call the highly respectable element of the town was busy at its own affairs. Mine-owners and merchants were deeply engrossed in getting rich.
Justice of the Peace Spicer held an examination and exonerated the slayers on the ground that they had done the thing in performance of their duty as officers, but friends of the Clantons had money. Some one retained lawyers to assist in prosecuting the Earps. The sheriff saw his opportunity and became active getting testimony.
Now another champion had risen among the bad men of the Pecos since the day of Gallagher, a burly, headstrong expert with the forty-five, known by the name of "Curly Bill." Already he had shot his way to supremacy over the other "He Wolves" who had flocked into the new country; he had slain Tombstone's city marshal and defied the Earps when they came into power in the booming mining camp.
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.
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