Dodge City (Kan.) -- Fiction; Masterson, Bat, 1853-1921 -- Fiction; Western stories
Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday rode as far as Tucson. They would have gone
to California with the dead Morgan, but they did not have the time. It
was now their duty to get the scalps of the San Simon four who had
worked the destruction of Morgan. Also, to save their reputations and
secure their prey, they must move at once before the trail grew cold.
Fortune and luck were theirs. As the train, bearing the dead Morgan,
drew into Tucson, the hawk-like gray eyes of Mr. Holiday showed him
Messrs. Stillwell and Clanton on the station platform. He pointed out
the red-hand ones to Wyatt Earp.
The two swung from the train.
The quarry separated, Mr. Clanton running craftily in and out among the
crowd, while Mr. Stillwell, with an utter dearth of war-wisdom, fled
along the lonely track. Wyatt and Mr. Holiday pursued Mr. Stillwell, and
brought him to bay near the water tank. Filling him full of lead, they
returned, and rapped on the car-window to attract the attention of
Virgil.
“One!” cried Wyatt, holding up a finger.
Virgil looked up; the funeral sadness of his face for a moment gave way
to a smile. He nodded, and then the train pulled out.
That night Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday turned Tucson upside down hunting
for the evanscent Mr. Clanton. He had fled and left no sign.
“I must sleep, Wyatt,” said Mr. Holiday, at last.
One is not to forget that Mr. Holiday was an invalid, with days not only
numbered, but few. His fatigue was excusable. That he was wearied to a
standstill his yellow moustache, a-tremble with the nervous twitching of
his lip, made proof.
Speaking of Mr. Holiday’s moustache—the colour of corn: Is it not the
thing strange how those gentlemen of guns and perils should have been
every one of the gray-eyed strain? Or was it that the desperate drop in
the veins of each came from some old forgotten viking ancestor of that
yellow-haired, battle-axe breed which once foraged and fought along the
coasts of Northern Europe?
Mr. Holiday was vastly repaired by a long night’s sleep. The morning
found Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp in the saddle, their belts heavy with
cartridges, war-bags bulging with provant. They rode out of Tucson, and
their desperate campaign of revenge commenced. They invaded the San
Simon and blotted out the Mexican Florentine. This was slight work, like
the killing of a jack-rabbit. There should be braver game in the San
Simon.
The San Simon ranks, however, were growing thin. Mr. Spence,
fear-winged, had fled into Mexico. The surviving Mr. Clanton had made
good his flight begun that Tucson evening, and was never traced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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