question of the new town's name had evoked a
multitude of suggestions. Amusements were still few; the purveyors of
hectic pleasure had thus far succeeded in bringing only one piano and
a half-dozen dance-hall girls--all decidedly the worse for wear--into
the camp; and either faro or whisky has its limitations as a steady
means of relaxation. So it came about that any advocate could usually
find an audience to harken to his arguments for his pet selection.

At intervals when they were not toiling at assessment work in the
shafts which pocked the hillside or dodging Apaches in the outlying
country, the citizens found diversion in discussing the ideas thus
submitted. And the merits of these propositions were debated by groups
in the brief street, by players seated before the tables in the
gambling-halls, by members of the never-absent lines before the bars,
and by dust-mantled travelers within the Concord stages which came
tossing over the weary road from Tucson.

Gradually public opinion began to crystallize. One name was spoken
more often as the days went by. Until it became evident that the great
majority favored it, and it was chosen.

They called the town Tombstone and placed one more tradition on the
Western map.

The old-timers always showed a very fine sense of the fitness of
things when they christened a river, mountain range, or town. If one
were to devote his time to studying the map of our country west of the
Mississippi River and resuscitating the tales whose titles are printed
thereupon, he could produce a large volume of marvelous stories. But
the entire compilation would contain nothing more characteristic of
the days when men carried rifles to protect their lives than the story
of that name--Tombstone.

It deals with a period when southeastern Arizona was Apache-land.
Geronimo, Victorio, and Nachez were constantly leading their
naked warriors into the mountain ranges which rise from those
mesquite-covered plains, to lurk among the rocks watching the lower
country for travelers and when these came to descend upon them for
the sake of loot and the love of murder. A few bold cattlemen,
like John Slaughter and Peter Kitchen, had established ranches in
this region; these held their homes by constant vigilance and force
of arms. Escorts of soldiers frequently guarded the stages on
their way to and from Tucson; and there was hardly a month in the
year when driver, guard, and passengers did not make a runni