Billy the Kid did not kill John Chisum, though all the country wondered at that fact. There was a story that he forced Chisum to sign a bill of sale for eight hundred head of cattle. He claimed that Chisum owed money to the McSween fighting men, to whom he had promised salaries which were never paid; but no evidence exists that Chisum ever made such a promise, although he sometimes sent a wagonload of supplies to the McSween fighting men. John Chisum died of cancer at Eureka Springs, Missouri, December 26, 1884, and his great holdings as a cattle king afterward became somewhat involved. He could once have sold out for $600,000, but later mortgaged his holdings for $250,000. He was concerned in a packing plant at Kansas City, a business into which he was drawn by others, and of which he knew nothing. Major Murphy died at Sante Fe before the big fight at Lincoln. Jimmie Dolan died a few years later, and lies buried in the little graveyard near the Fritz ranch. Riley, the other member of the firm, went to Colorado, and was last heard of at Rocky Ford, where he was prosperous. The heritage of hatred was about all that McSween left to his widow, who presently married George L. Barber, at Lincoln, and later proved herself to be a good business woman--good enough to make a fortune in the cattle business from the four hundred head of cattle John Chisum gave her to settle a debt he had owed McSween. She afterward established a fine ranch near Three Rivers, New Mexico. Dad Peppin, known as the "Murphy sheriff" by the McSween faction, lived out his life on his little holding at the edge of Lincoln _placita_. He died in 1905. His rival, John Copeland, died in 1902. The street of Lincoln, one of the bloodiest of its size in the world, is silent. Another generation is growing up. William Brady, Major Brady's eldest son, and Josefina Brady-Chavez, a daughter, live in Lincoln; and Bob Brady, another son of the murdered sheriff, was long jailer at Lincoln jail. The law has arisen over the ruin wrought by lawlessness. It is a noteworthy fact that, although the law never punished the participants in this border conflict, the lawlessness was never ended by any vigilante movement. The fighting was so desperate and prolonged that it came to be held as warfare and not as murder. There is no doubt that, barring the border fighting of Kansas and Missouri, this was the greatest of American border wars. Chapter XV The Stevens County War--_The Bloodiest County Seat War of the West_--_The Personal Narrative of a Man Who Was Shot and Left for Dead_--_The Most Expensive United States Court Case Ever Tried_.