herself evacuated of more than two hundred men who, while they had been
for a time her most conspicuous citizens, were such as she was glad
enough to spare. In twenty-four hours Bill Stoudenmayer had made his
word good and fairly earned his wages; indeed he had accomplished
single-handed what the most hopeful El Pasoites had despaired of seeing
done with less authority and force than two or three troops of regular
cavalry.

Then El Paso settled down to the humdrum but profitable task of laying
the foundations for the great metropolis of the Farther Southwest.
Since then, an occasional sporadic case of _triggerfingeritis_ has
developed in El Paso, usually in an acute form; but never once since
the night Stoudenmayer turned the El Paso Street Portals into a
shambles has it threatened as an epidemic.

Unluckily, Bill Stoudenmayer did not last long to enjoy the glory of
his deed. He was a marked man, merely from motives of revenge harbored
by friends of the departed (dead or live), but as a man with a
reputation so big as to hang up a rare prize in laurels for any with
the strategy and hardihood to down him. It was therefore matter of no
general surprise when, a few weeks after his resignation as City
Marshal, he fell the victim of a private quarrel.

A few years later, Hal Gosling was the U. S. Marshall for the Western
District of Texas. Early in Gosling's regime, Johnny Manning became
one of his most efficient and trusted deputies. The pair were wide
opposites: Gosling, a big, bluff, kindly, rollicking dare-devil afraid
of nothing, but a sort that would rather chaff than fight; Manning a
quiet, reserved, slender, handsome little man, not so very much bigger
than a full-grown "45," who actually sought no quarrels but would
rather fight than eat. Each in his own may [Transcriber's note: way?],
the pair made themselves a holy terror to such of the desperadoes as
ventured any liberties with Uncle Sam's belongings.

One of their notable captures was a brace of road-agents who had
appropriated the Concho stage road and about everything of value that
travelled it. The two were tried in the Federal Court at Austin and
sentenced to hard labor at Huntsville. Gosling and Manning started to
escort them to their new field of activity. Handcuffed but not
otherwise shackled, the two prisoners were given a seat together near
the middle of a day coach. By permission of the Marshal, the wife of
one and the sister of the ot