becoming altogether too promiscuous. The town, they said, needed a
business administration; and forthwith they selected Bat Masterson as
marshal. He established, and enforced, a rule which amounted to this:

If a man pulled his gun he did it at his own peril. Whoever fired a
shot within the town limits, whether he did it for sport or murder,
faced arrest.

Resistance followed. There were nights when the main street echoed
with the roaring of firearms. But, by the force of his personality and
by his remarkable ability at the quick draw, Bat Masterson subdued the
rebels. It came about that of what killing was done he did his full
share, which greatly diminished the death list.

Wyatt and Virgil Earp succeeded Bat Masterson in this office and
carried on its administration with a boldness which left them famous.
With the coroner behind them they were lords of the high justice, the
middle, and the low; and they sustained their positions by good
straight shooting.

At such times as they were not performing their functions as peace
officers they were dealing faro; and when the imminence of a less
interesting era was made apparent in the dwindling of the trail herds
and the increase of dry farmers, they left the good old cow-town along
with many other professional gamblers.

They arrived in Tombstone in the days when the outlaws were rampant,
and they began dealing faro in Oriental. They found many a friend--and
some enemies--from those years in western Kansas among the more
adventurous element in the new town. Former buffalo-hunters,
teamsters, quiet-spoken gamblers, and two-gun men sat down before
their layouts and talked over bygones with them. There was an election
at about this time. Virgil was chosen town marshal, and Wyatt got the
appointment of deputy United States marshal soon afterward.

Old friends and new rallied around them. Of the former was Doc
Holliday, a tubercular gunman with the irascible disposition which
some invalids own, who had drifted hither from Colorado. Among the
latter were the Clanton brothers and Frank Stilwell, who robbed the
stage and rustled cattle for a living. John Ringo, who was really the
brains of the outlaws, and Curly Bill, who often led them, are listed
by many old-timers among the henchmen in the beginning.

It was a time when the old spoils system was recognized in its
pristine simplicity. If you trained with the victorious political
faction you either wore a star or had some