until first
thing we knew our bunch was all the' was stickin' it out.

"Along about that time the preacher decided he'd quit too, and he was
edging off to head for the back door when I got up and told him to
stop. Folks said afterwards that I throwed down my fo'ty-five on him
but that wasn't so. Wasn't any need of a gun-play. I only said that
we'd come to see this deal out and we meant to have it to the turning
of the last card and if he'd go ahead everything would be all right.

"So he did, and give out a hymn and the boys stood up and sang; and he
preached a sermon, taking advantage of the chanc't to light into us
pretty rough. Then it come time for passin' round the hat and I'll bet
the reg'lar congregation never done half so well by the collection as
we did.

"Well, sir, next mo'nin' I was sittin' in front of the hotel in the
shade of those big cottonwoods, sort of dozing, having been up kind of
late after the church-going; and the first thing I knew somebody was
saying--

"'Hanzup.'

"I opened my eyes and here was ol' Jim Burnett with that double-barrel
shotgun throwed down on me, I knew there was no use tryin' to get the
play away from him, either; only a day or two before that he'd stuck
up Johnny Harker and fined him a bunch of three-year-old steers for
shootin' up the town. So I obeyed orders and--

"'Curly Bill,' says he, 'yo' 're tried herewith and found guilty of
disturbin' the peace at the Baptis' Church last evenin'; and the
sentence of this co't is twenty-five dollars' fine.'

"I shelled out then and there and glad to do it, too. Them two muzzles
was lookin' me right between the eyes all the while."

Up in the San Simon country they ran short of grub and after going two
days on scanty rations--

"The' 's a canyon fifteen miles south of here," the outlaw said. "I
reckon some of the boys might be camping there now."

They rode hard that afternoon and reached the place some time before
sundown. The boys of whom Curly Bill had spoken were there all right,
ten of them, and none of the number but was known at the time over in
Tombstone either as a rustler or a stage-robber. His guide introduced
Breckenbridge with the usual terseness of such ceremonies among his
kind.

Whatever of constraint there was at the beginning wore away during the
progress of the evening, and on the next morning before they left the
gorge the young deputy worked his way into the good graces of his
hosts by winning twenty d