young Breckenbridge was made.

THE PASSING OF JOHN RINGO

There were all kinds of bad men in the days of the old West. John
Ringo was one sort and Buckskin Frank was another. While this tale
deals most with the former, still it concerns the two of them.

In its wild youth the town of Tombstone knew both men. To this day the
old-timers who witnessed the swift march of events during the years
1879, 1880, and 1881 will tell you of their deeds. But things were
happening fast when those deeds took place. There was, if one may be
allowed to use a poetic figure, a good deal of powder-smoke floating
in the air to obscure the vision. And so although no men were ever
more just in passing judgment than these same old-timers, the story
has its sardonic ending.

John Ringo was the big "He Wolf" among the outlaws, a man of quick
intelligence who did not seem to care much whether he or the
other fellow died. To him who wants the ornate trappings of the
motion-picture bad man or the dialect which makes some desperadoes
popular in fiction, Ringo would prove a disappointing figure as he
showed up in southeastern Arizona.

For he wore no hair chaps, nor do those who saw him tell of a knotted
colored handkerchief about his throat. Like most of those riders who
drifted into the territory when other portions of the West had grown
too hot for them, his costume was unobtrusive: light-colored jean
breeches tucked into his boot-tops, a flannel shirt and the gray
Stetson peculiar to the country west of the Pecos, a limp-brimmed hat
with a high crown, which may be creased after the old "Southern
Gentleman" fashion but was most often left with such dents as come by
accident. Of hardware he carried his full share; sometimes two
forty-five revolvers and a Winchester; but if he were in town the arms
were as likely as not concealed.

It would take a second look to separate him from the herd. That second
look would show you a fine, lean form whose every movement was catlike
in its grace, a dark face whose expression was usually sullen, whose
eyes were nearly always somber; slender hands and small feet. And his
speech, whenever you heard it, was sure to be comparatively free from
the idioms of the region; the English was often more correct than
otherwise. A man of parts, and he looked it; they all say that.

This was John Ringo. He had fought in one of those numerous cattle
wars which raged throughout western Texas during the seventies. B