The remark was a careless one in a country where ponies often changed owners overnight, and the man from the Pecos was sensitive enough on the subject to resent the question from one who wore a star. He answered it by drawing his gun. Breckenbridge, who was as dexterous with his left hand as with his right, reached down as the weapon came forth from its holster and gripped the stranger's wrist. He gave a sharp wrench and the revolver clattered down on the sidewalk. And then Curly Bill, who had witnessed the incident, stepped forward and ordered the visitor out of Galeyville. "Yo'-all don't need to think," the desperado added, "that you can come here and make a gun-play on our deputy. We get along all right with him and I reckon we ain't going to stand for any cow-thieves from Lincoln County gettin' brash with him." Something like two years had passed now since young Billy Breckenbridge first rode across the Dragoon Mountains into no-man's-land and, as the old-timers who had been watching him all this time well knew, things could not go on in this way forever. The show-down was bound to come. It came one day at the Chandler ranch and the old-timers got the answer to their question. There were two young fellows by the name of Zwing Hunt and Billy Grounds who had been working at Philip Morse's sawmill over in the Chiracahua Mountains. Somehow or other they had got mixed up with the stock-rustlers and the temptation to make easy money proved too strong for them. One evening they went over to the Contention mill and held up the place, killing the man in charge. Johnny Behan was out of town at the time with several deputies after the Earps who had departed from Tombstone. The under-sheriff detailed Breckenbridge on the case and drafted a posse of three men to help him. "No, sir," the former said when the young deputy remonstrated against the presence of these aides. "This ain't a case of talking John Ringo into coming over and putting up a bond. This here's murder and those lads are going to show fight." Orders were orders; there was no use arguing further. The erstwhile diplomat made the best of a bad matter and rode away with his three companions. It was evening when they left Tombstone and the Chandler ranch lay several hours distant. Those who saw them leave the camp spread the news. And now the old-timers settled down, certain that when Billy Breckenbridge returned they were going to know just what he was made of. He came back the next evening, riding alongside a lumber-wagon. In those days the mining companies maintained a hospital at the edge of the town. The vehicle made one stop at this institution and unloaded three of its occupants. It made a second stop before the establishment of a local undertaker, where two bodies were removed. And then young Breckenbridge rode on alone to the court-house. Two outlaws and four men in the deputy sheriff's party makes six altogether. Out of the six he was the only one left on his feet.