Fortune and luck were theirs. As the train, bearing the dead Morgan, drew into Tucson, the hawk-like gray eyes of Mr. Holiday showed him Messrs. Stillwell and Clanton on the station platform. He pointed out the red-hand ones to Wyatt Earp.
The two swung from the train.
The quarry separated, Mr. Clanton running craftily in and out among the crowd, while Mr. Stillwell, with an utter dearth of war-wisdom, fled along the lonely track. Wyatt and Mr. Holiday pursued Mr. Stillwell, and brought him to bay near the water tank. Filling him full of lead, they returned, and rapped on the car-window to attract the attention of Virgil.
“One!” cried Wyatt, holding up a finger.
Virgil looked up; the funeral sadness of his face for a moment gave way to a smile. He nodded, and then the train pulled out.
That night Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday turned Tucson upside down hunting for the evanscent Mr. Clanton. He had fled and left no sign.
“I must sleep, Wyatt,” said Mr. Holiday, at last.
One is not to forget that Mr. Holiday was an invalid, with days not only numbered, but few. His fatigue was excusable. That he was wearied to a standstill his yellow moustache, a-tremble with the nervous twitching of his lip, made proof.
Speaking of Mr. Holiday’s moustache—the colour of corn: Is it not the thing strange how those gentlemen of guns and perils should have been every one of the gray-eyed strain? Or was it that the desperate drop in the veins of each came from some old forgotten viking ancestor of that yellow-haired, battle-axe breed which once foraged and fought along the coasts of Northern Europe?
Mr. Holiday was vastly repaired by a long night’s sleep. The morning found Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp in the saddle, their belts heavy with cartridges, war-bags bulging with provant. They rode out of Tucson, and their desperate campaign of revenge commenced. They invaded the San Simon and blotted out the Mexican Florentine. This was slight work, like the killing of a jack-rabbit. There should be braver game in the San Simon.