heriff by
the governor, gave him a job as a deputy. Then straightaway the eyes
of men were turned upon him, and the query arose:

"How's he going to stack up when it comes to a show-down?"

Those were the days, you understand, when--to indulge in a Scriptural
figure--he who took up the sword must be prepared to perish by the
sword. If you buckled on a gun you must be ready to draw it, and once
you started to draw it, heaven help you if you did not reckon on going
through with the play.

A man could get by, as the saying has it, if he played the part of a
neutral; but if, on the one hand, you started in at stealing cattle or
if, on the other hand, you pinned on a star--why then, sooner or
later, the big issue was going to come to a head; you were going to
find yourself faced by a foe or foes, armed like yourself, and like
yourself prepared to shoot it out. Then when the show-down came you
would comport yourself according to the stuff that you were made
of--the material which was hidden away deep down under your skin--and
according to your conduct the world would judge you.

So naturally enough in those days men asked this question and waited
for events to bring its answer. And those among them who were not
gifted with the faculty of reading character but needed to see a man
for themselves when the guns were blazing--those individuals had to
wait a long time.

As for the others, what they said to themselves as one adventure
followed another now in the career of Billy Breckenbridge you who read
these words can judge, if you be blessed with ordinary perspicacity.
For many things took place and many months went by before he reached
down along his lean right thigh toward the butt of his forty-five
single-action revolver.

It is quite likely that Johnny Behan was among those who wanted the
new deputy to give a demonstration of the stuff he was made of.
Perhaps that was the reason the sheriff sent young Breckenbridge over
into the eastern end of the county to collect the taxes before the
latter had worn his star long enough to get used to it.

In those days the sheriff's office levied assessments and did the
collecting on personal property at the same time. Payments were made
in cash; bank-checks were virtually unknown in Cochise County. And
thus far the country east of the Dragoon Mountains had yielded no
revenues for the simple reason that it looked as if nothing short of a
troop of cavalry could go forth into that r