Such sport became monotonous. The pugilists and their friends gave up the El Paso idea, and, still accompanied by the Rangers, took the train for Langtry, a point where the Southern Pacific Railway touches the Rio Grande. The State of Coahuila lay across the river, and Langtry itself was at that period the proper gateway to a pugilists' paradise, its law being administered by one Roy Bean, justice of the peace and saloon-keeper, whose sign read:
MIXED DRINKS
LAW WEST OF THE PECOS.
It is said that Bean's drinks were about on a par with his law, and that the latter was administered with a gun. He tried court cases, granted divorces, and handed down decisions without the trammel of a jury or other assistance. Once when a citizen killed a Chinaman in his place, Bean consulted the statutes, and finding nothing in reference to the murder of a Chinaman in his saloon, discharged the prisoner as having committed no offense. At another time, when a man walking across a high bridge over the Pecos had fallen and broken his neck, and the matter was brought before Bean, the dispenser of "Law West of the Pecos," discovered that the pockets of the unfortunate contained a six-shooter and forty-one dollars in money; whereupon he fined the dead man twenty-five dollars and costs for carrying a concealed weapon, and appropriated the forty-one dollars and the six-shooter, in settlement. A whole chapter could be written about Bean and his official service, but this is not the place for it. It is the place, however, for another incident concerning a Chinaman—a case in which, though tried west of the Pecos, the Chinaman's rights were sustained.
The train bound for Langtry with the pugilistic party and Rangers aboard stopped at Sanderson, a small wayside station in the desert, for lunch. Everybody was hungry and hurried over to a Chinese restaurant for something to eat, and the Chinese waiters scurried about to serve them. They were doing their best, but it was not easy to satisfy everybody at once. Next to Captain McDonald sat Bat Masterson. Bat has since given up all his reckless ways and become a good citizen, but at that time he was training with the unreformed and not feeling very well, anyhow. It seemed to Bat that a Chinese waiter was not getting around as promptly with food as he might and he set in to admonish him. The Chinaman replied to the effect that he was doing his best, whereat Masterson decided to correct him with a table-castor. Captain Bill had been sitting quietly, saying nothing; but as Masterson raised the castor the Ranger Captain clutched his arm.
"Don't you hit that man!" he said.
Masterson wheeled.
"Maybe you'd like to take it up!"
Captain Bill regarded him steadily for an instant.
"I done took it up!" was his quiet answer.
The castor was put down. Masterson reflected silently while he waited for his food. Perhaps that was the beginning of his reform.