Now the pretty pistol was handed back to Grant and he stuck it in his scabbard.
A little later Grant stepped behind the bar, so as to face the crowd, and jerking his pistol, he began knocking glasses off the bar with it. Eyeing “Billy the Kid,” he remarked: “Pard, I’ll kill a man quicker than you will, for the whiskey.”
The “Kid” accepted the challenge. Grant fired at the “Kid,” but the hammer struck on an empty chamber. Now the “Kid” planted a ball between Grant’s eyes and he fell over dead.
At the Bosque Grande, on the Pecos river, the three Dedrick boys, Sam, Dan, and Mose, owned a ranch, which became quite a rendezvous for the “Kid’s” and Tom Cooper’s gangs. From here the herds of stolen Panhandle, Texas, cattle were started across the waterless desert to the foot of the Capitan mountains, a distance of about one hundred miles.
Here Dave Rudabaugh, who had the previous fall killed the jailer in Las Vegas in trying to liberate his friend, Webb, joined “Billy the Kid’s” gang. Also Billy Wilson and Tom Pickett joined the party, and their time was spent stealing cattle and horses.
CHAPTER VIII.
“BILLY THE KID” ADDS ONE MORE NOTCH TO HIS GUN AS A KILLER. TRAPPED AT LAST BY PAT GARRETT AND POSSE. TWO OF HIS GANG KILLED. IN JAIL AT SANTA FE.
In the year 1879, rich gold ore had been struck on Baxter mountain, three miles from White Oaks Spring, about thirty miles north of Lincoln, and the new town of White Oaks was established, with a population of about one thousand souls.
The “Kid” had many friends in this hurrah mining camp. He had shot up the town, and was wanted by the law officers.