"And the hull thing didn't last five minutes," said "Bull" Lewis, the driver of the wagon. "I was asleep in the ranch-house along with these two outlaws when some one knocked on the door. Right away I heard a shot in the next room and I busted out with my hands up and yelling that I was a nootral. Before I'd gone twenty yards Hunt and Grounds had killed two of the posse and by the time I was over that rise behind the house they'd laid out the other. And then I watched this little deputy get the two of them. "He was out in the open and they were inside, and both of 'em were sure burnin' powder mighty fast. But he waited his chance and tore the top of Grounds's head off with a charge of buckshot when he stepped to the door to get a better shot. And a second or two later Zwing Hunt came out of the cabin, firing as he ran. The little fellow dropped him with a bullet from his forty-five before he'd come more 'n a half a dozen jumps." But Breckenbridge was a long way from being jubilant when Johnny Behan and the under-sheriff congratulated him on his behavior. "If you hadn't wished those three fellows on me I'd have brought both these boys back without firing a shot," he told the under-sheriff. "The blamed posse made such a noise coming up to the cabin that the two of 'em thought 't was a lynching-party and opened fire on us. Yes, sir. I could have talked them into coming--if I'd only been alone." And so when it did finally come to the show-down all hands learned of just what material young Breckenbridge was made. THE PASSING OF JOHN RINGO There were all kinds of bad men in the days of the old West. 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. There was, if one may be allowed to use a poetic figure, a good deal of powder-smoke floating in the air to obscure the vision. And so although no men were ever more just in passing judgment than these same old-timers, the story has its sardonic ending. John Ringo was the big "He Wolf" among the outlaws, a man of quick intelligence who did not seem to care much whether he or the other fellow died. To him who wants the ornate trappings of the motion-picture bad man or the dialect which makes some desperadoes popular in fiction, Ringo would prove a disappointing figure as he showed up in southeastern Arizona.