And the last of the three part series from Earp-
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http://home.earthlink.net/~knuthco1/HistoricalDocuments/SFarticle3source.htm
The Examiner
~San Francisco~
Sunday Morning
August 16, 1896
Wyatt Earp's Tribute to Bat Masterson,
The Hero of 'Dobe Walls
Five men, riding to the summit of a knoll, caught sight of a deserted adobe house in a hollow at their feet. As the sun sank toward the edge of the prairie they found their refuge for the night.
The solitude of the building was more painful than the solitude of the plains; the yellowish walls glimmered like the walls of a vault in the gloom that had settled in the hollow as sediment settles in a glass. But those things did not matter, for there was water close by, and those grim walls were thick enough to stop bullets as well as arrows.
The five men watered their weary horses at the creek, and then drove picket-pins into the ground within a stone's throw of the house, where there was plenty of grass, and tethered the animals thereto with their lariats. Next they unlimbered their heavy saddles and carried them into the house. The plainsman's saddle is more precious to him than jewels. In this case, bacon, coffee and army biscuit were involved. More important still, there was ammunition, and plenty of it.
It was a quarter of a century ago. The five men were scouts, carrying dispatches from Dodge City to Camp Supply, through a country depopulated, and laid waste by the Cheyennes. Their camping place was within forty miles of Camp Supply, in the heart of that No-Man's Land known as the Panhandle of Texas.
When the first rays of sun came slanting over the prairie one of the men went out to water the horses, while his comrades prepared breakfast. Ping! A rifle shot startled the solitude. The four men rushed to the door. The fifth was laying face downward two hundred yards from the house. The horses were plunging and tugging at the ropes. In another second or two they had broken lariats or torn up picket-pins and galloped madly away. A horse can smell an Indian.
Another moment, and a hail of bullets and arrows spattered against the 'dobe walls. Then five hundred yelling Indians galloped from behind a knoll and charged the building.
The four surviving scouts were ready for them. Everything was orderly and precise. It did not need that many words were spoken. What few laconic orders were given came from the youngest boy in the party. He was a mere boy -a bright, sturdy boy, whose wide, round eyes expressed the alert pugnacity of a blooded bull-terrier. To look at him one could not doubt that nature had molded him for a fighter.
The plan of defense was very simple. Like all buildings in that wild country, the old 'dobe-house was provided with portholes on every side. It was a question of shooting fast and shooting straight through those portholes, and the scouts knew how to shoot both fast and straight. The fire was more than the Cheyennes could stand. With a baffled yell they wheeled and retreated, picking up their killed and wounded as they galloped to cover behind one of the many knolls that encompassed the house like the mighty billows of a frozen ocean.
That one charge was the history of the day. It was repeated again and again, first on one side of the house and then on another. Each charge found the scouts prepared, and each time the Indians carried a dozen or more of their dead off the field.
Toward evening there was a brief breathing spell.
"I'm going to bring him in," said the youngest scout -the boy with the bull-terrier eyes- pointing at the body lying on its face near the stampeded picket.
"Better not try, Bat. They'll get ye, sure."
"We can't leave him lying there like that."
And taking his rifle in his hand the boy went. He ran out under fire and he staggered back under fire with the body in his arms.
More charges, followed by a sleepless night, to guard against surprises. And at day break the fighting began again. Never before were Indians known to make such a stubborn fight. Never before did such a handful hold such a horde at bay. The face of the plain was befreckled with blood up to a radius of fifty yards of the house, but how many dead Indians had been carried off the beleaguered men had no means of knowing. One of them had his leg half shot away and all were sick from exhaustion, when at midafternoon a company of cavalry came riding over the plain and the Indians fled.
Thus was fought the "battle of 'dobe walls," the event which made young Bat Masterson a hero on the frontier.
It was not long afterward that Bat drifted to Sweetwater, where he became a lively citizen of as lively a town as ever subsisted on the patronage of a frontier army post. Bat was no more a laggard in love than he was a dastard in war, and Annie Chambers was proud of her handsome little hero as he was fond of his dashing, red-haired beauty. I had never met Bat at that time, but I had known Annie both in Leavenworth and Ellsworth. She was a fine a girl as ever set a frontier town by the ears, and she was better educated than most women of her kind.
Sergeant King, one of the most notorious bullies and gun fighters in the army, wanted to dance with Annie one night, and because she refused he pulled his six-shooter and shot her in the breast. Even as she fell, dying, into Bat's arms the latter jerked his gun on the soldier and shot him dead, but not before King had pumped some lead into Bat's groin.
That was one of the killings for which Bat Masterson has been held up by some ignorant writers as a shocking example of ferocity and lawlessness. But of the many men he killed there was not one who was not in the wrong, and not one who did not start in with the best of the fight. Shocking as it may seem to civilized souls, we had our crude code of honor on the frontier. When I speak of a fair fighter I mean who will not fight for what he knows to be a bad cause, and who will not take his enemy at a disadvantage. Such a man is Bat Masterson.
Bat was acquitted, of course, and soon afterward came over to Dodge City, where I had just been installed as City Marshal.
His fame as a hero of 'dobe walls and the slayer of Sergeant King had preceded Bat to Dodge, and he attracted no end of respectful attention as he limped from one gambling house to another, still pale and weak from the effect of King's bullet. Bat was somewhat of a dandy in those days, but before all else he was a man. Not that his physique entitled him to attention beyond other men, for in his case nature had packed a big consignment of dynamic energy into a small compass and corded it up tight. But there was something in the way his bullet-shaped head was mounted on his square shoulders, something in the grain of his crisp, wiry hair, something in the tilt of his short nose that bespoke an animal courage such as not every man is endowed withal.
Mere animal courage has made many a man a brute and an assassin. But Bat Masterson had a wealth of saving graces which shone from the honest fullness of his face. I have already spoken of his eyes. They were well-nigh unendurable in conflict -so bold, to bright, so unmitigable was their gaze, but n moments of peace they danced with mischief, with generosity, with affection. A small and carefully nurtured coal-black mustache half hid a mouth which was readier to soften in mirth than to harden in anger, and the stubborn chin beneath was cleft with the dimple that physiognomists interpret as the symbol of a kindly heart.
In moving from Wichita to take the Marshalship of Dodge City at my own salary I had stipulated that I should have the appointment of my own police force. A fair judge of manhood as I esteemed myself, what wonder that I should have fastened hungry official eyes upon the hero of 'dobe walls.
"Bat," said I, "will you join the force?"
"I'd like it first-rate," he replied.
"Then throw away that cane and get to work," I said.
And forthwith Bat was sworn in to protect the peace.
During the summer that he served with me -before he ran for Sheriff and was elected- stirring events came to pass in Dodge City. And like the Arizona feud of which I have already written, they all arose out of one small incident. That incident was the killing of "The Nightingale."
One night a Texan desperado named Kennedy was diverting himself at a dancehall by flourishing his six-shooter. Mayor Kelly happened to be there, and as there was no officer present to restrain the Texan he took it upon himself to interfere.
"You'd better give them guns to the bartender, my boy," he said, kindly, "or some of my officers will arrest ye."
Kennedy resented the suggestion and there was a dispute. But there was no word or thought of killing at that time. The Mayor's remonstrance in Kennedy's mind, however, and at 2 o'clock in the morning he started out to kill the Chief Executive.
So mounting his horse, so as to be in readiness for flight, the Texan rode down to the house where Kelly lived. The room where the Mayor and his wife slept opened on to the street, and Kennedy knew the direction in which the bed lay at the opposite end of the room. On the other side of a slender partition was another bed, occupied by Willett and his wife. Willett was a clerk for a neighboring grocer, his wife was a vaudeville woman of varied experience on the frontier, and so sweet a singer that she was called "The Nightingale." Ask any man who knew Deadwood or Dodge in its prime to tell you how she sang "Killarney."
And so, making a careful estimation of the elevation of the Mayor's bed, Kennedy began to empty his Winchester through the panels of the door. He calculated well, for two bullets went through the down comforter under which the Kellys slumbered. Nearly all the shots penetrated the partition behind their bed.
About the time Willett half awoke and turned over on his side, throwing his arm around his wife. At his touch her body fluttered like that of a wounded bird, and something bubbled in her throat. Willett was wide awake in and instant -he did not know why. His hand touched something wet on her breast and he asked her what it was, but there was no reply. It was blood upon the woman's breast. A bullet had torn its way clear through her body. The Nightingale was dead.
Poor Willett ran over to me and I pulled on my clothes in a hurry. The only house where there was a light on was the Long Branch saloon, so I went in there for information. Kennedy was there, sitting on a monte table, swinging his legs.
"Was he here when the shots were fired?" I whispered to the bartender.
"For God's sake don't say anything here," was the reply. "Come into the back room and I'll tell you all about it."
"Kennedy's the man," he continued excitedly, when he had retired out of earshot. "He left here with another man just before the shooting and immediately afterward he came in the back way and took a big drink of whisky."
I ran back into the bar, but Kennedy had gone.
Bat joined me just then. He had been down to the house and the Mayor had told him all about the trouble in the dance hall. In searching the town for Kennedy we ran across the man in whose company he had left the saloon, and this fellow more than confirmed our suspicions of the Texan's guilt. Moreover, he led us to the alley where the murderer had tied his horse, and from there we picked up a clear trial leading out of the city.
At daylight Bat, Bill Tillman and I started out on the trail, taking this man along with us. For two days we followed it across the prairie toward the Texas border, and then a heavy rainstorm came up and swept away all vestige of a hoofprint.
At a distance of nearly 100 miles from Dodge we made a circuit of fifteen miles in order to get to a ranch for the night.
"Some of these here Texans are going home pretty early, ain't they?" was the ranchman's greeting. "Kennedy was here yesterday afternoon, and he seemed in a hurry, too."
Thus we picked up another trail, only to lose it again the next day, when we were overtaken by more rain. In this predicament we made for a ranch twenty miles further on and reached the place at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Our horses were fagged out, so we turned them out to grass and prepared to rest ourselves. After a while we caught sight of a horseman four or five miles away across the prairie, evidently making for the ranch. We watched him with idle curiosity, and when he came within a couple of miles of us Bat said, with conviction: "That's Kennedy. I know him by the way he rides, and besides, I know his horse." And when the stranger had arrived within a mile of the ranch we all new that Bat, who had the eye of a hawk, was right.
Our horses were scattered over the pasture and it was too late to attempt to capture them. We agreed that it would be unwise to wait until Kennedy should get too close, lest he should recognize our horses and wheel in his tracks. So we ambushed ourselves behind a heap of earth that had been thrown out to form a new well, first agreeing that if he should scent danger and turn to make a run for it I should kill the horse and Bat attend to the man.
When he came within seventy-five yards of us we rose up and called on him to halt. He whipped out his gun, firing at us as he wheeled his horse. True to our agreement I shot the horse, which dropped just as Bat put a bullet in Kennedy's shoulder.
Well, we took away his six-shooters and his Winchester, hired a team and drove him back to Dodge. But the brute was never convicted. He was a son of a multi-millionaire cattleman by a Mexican mother, and his father's money procured him endless delays, and finally an acquittal.
But the incidents connected with the wounding and capture of Kennedy for the murder of the Nightingale deepened the hatred bestowed upon Bat Masterson and myself by the Texan rustlers, from whose violence we tried to protect the citizens of Dodge. Dodge had become the center of the cattle trade then, and the periodic incursions of cowboys, whose chief ambition was to be able to go back to Texas and boast of having "killed an orf'cer" were the curse of the community. The townspeople hated the Texans, and the Texans despised the townspeople. In the vernacular of the feud the Southerners were "long horns," the Northerners "short horns."
It was after Bat Masterson had been returned as Sheriff that I paid a visit to Mexico, during which I first met Doc Holliday and his Big-nose Kate, as told in a previous story. During my absence Ed Masterson, Bat's elder brother, acted as my deputy. A crowd of cowboys started shooting in the Birdcage dance hall one night, and Ed went over to see about it. He disarmed them all and made them pile their guns behind the bar. Then he returned across the deadline -the avenue formed by the railroad tracks, which decided the decent from the disreputable part of the town. Not long afterward, however, the cowboys recovered their six-shooters and began firing again. Ed went back to restore order and tried to disarm the first cowboy he encountered. The two men were scuffling for possession of the gun, when another cowboy fired at Ed Masterson and killed him.
Just at that moment Bat Masterson had appeared, attracted by the shooting. He saw his brother fall, and with a quick drop killed the man who had fired the shot. The rest began to run away, shooting, and Bat winged the man with whom Ed had been scuffling. He died a few days later, while they were taking him back to Texas.
Thus was perpetrated another of the so-called atrocities with which the hero of 'dobe walls was to be reproached in after years by writers whose knowledge of the frontier was derived from Bowery melodramas.
In view of the bloody confrontations closing in on my narrative, it is high time that I introduce Bob Wright, the deus-ex-machina of much of the violent work that followed. Bob Wright was a tower of strength to the Texas faction. He had lived in their country and he depended on their patronage for the prosperity of his store, which was one of the largest in the city. He was a legislator, too -duly elected representative from the county.
Bob Wright sought to interfere with me one night because I was taking one ill-behaved cattleman, who happened to be worth some millions of dollars, to the calaboose. My prisoner had tried to kill an inoffensive Dutch fiddler for not playing his favorite tune often enough to please him. The cattleman appealed to Wright, and Wright threatened to have me put off the city force if I persisted in the arrest. The upshot of it was that I threw Wright into the calaboose to keep his friend company for the night. It was soon after that incident that the Texans began to hatch plots to kill me by foul means or fair -preferably the former.
The first attempt fell to the lot of a desperado named Hoyt, who was no 'prentice in the art of assassination. I was standing on the sidewalk outside a saloon one bright moonlight night, talking to Eddie Foy, who was leaning against the doorway, when Hoyt came riding down the street on a white horse. I noticed that he had his right hand by his side, but did not suspect anything until he came within ten steps of where I was standing. Then he threw his gun over like lightning and took a shot at me. By the time he was on a level with me he had taken another shot, but both missed.
I ran out, intending to pull him off his horse, and, failing that, I tried to grab his horse's tail as it passed me. But the horse was too quick for me, and as Hoyt dug in his spurs he wheeled in his saddle and fired at me again. With that I crouched down in the middle of the road for a steady aim, and emptied my gun after him as he tore down the road. I saw him disappear over the bridge that spanned the Arkansas river, and made sure I had missed him. But five minutes later, when I was telling the story to Bat Masterson and a crowd of citizens, the white horse came galloping back, mounted by a boy, who told us that its rider was lying, badly shot, just beyond the bridge. Half suspecting an ambush, Bat and I took shotguns and went back with the boy. There, sure enough, was Hoyt, full of lead and remorse, and groaning most dolefully. Two or three days later he died.
This episode was not without its humorous side, for to this day Eddie Foy, the comedian, is fond of telling how, at the first shot, he threw himself under a monte table and stayed there till the shooting was over.
Undeterred by Hoyt's fate, the plotters sent for Clay Allison, and the noted Colorado gun-fighter hastened to Dodge City to kill the City Marshal. Let not the gentle reader, unused to frontier ways, jump to the conclusion that Allison was a hired bravo. It was reputation he was after, not money. To have killed me would have meant for him to bask in the chaste effulgence of frontier fame for the rest of his days.
) I find that I am drifting toward lower-pressure solutions that push large masses at moderate velocities. Hence, the thought about a 10ga "tactical" buck load. Something like twice the payload of the usual 12ga tactical buck load at similar velocities.