Mr. Curington rode up to his friend, “Billy the Kid,” and had a friendly chat.
The “Kid” told Mr. Curington to tell Montgomery Bell that he would return his horse, or pay for him.
When Curington reported the matter to Mr. Bell, he was satisfied and searched no more for the animal.
After the “Kid’s” escape from Lincoln, Sheriff Pat Garrett “laid low,” and tried to find out the “Kid’s” whereabouts through his friends and associates.
In March, 1881, a Deputy United States Marshal by the name of John W. Poe arrived in the booming mining camp of White Oaks. He had been sent to New Mexico by the Cattlemen’s Association of the Texas Panhandle. Cattle King Charlie Goodnight, being the president of the association, had selected Mr. Poe as the proper man to put a stop to the stealing of Panhandle cattle by “Billy the Kid” and gang.
After the “Kid’s” escape, Pat Garrett went to White Oaks and deputized John W. Poe to assist him in rounding up the “Kid.”
From now on Mr. Poe made trips out in the mountains trying to locate the young outlaw. The “Kid’s” best friends argued that he was “nobody’s fool,” and would not remain in the United States, when the Old Mexico border was so near. They didn’t realize that little Cupid was shooting his tender young heart full of love-darts, straight from the heart of pretty little Miss Dulcinea del Toboso, of Fort Sumner.
Early in July, Pat Garrett received a letter from an acquaintance by the name of Brazil, in Fort Sumner, advising him that the “Kid” was hanging around there. Garrett at once wrote Brazil to meet him about dark on the night of July 13th at the mouth of the Taiban arroyo, below Fort Sumner.
Now the sheriff took his trusted deputy, John W. Poe, and rode to Roswell, on the Rio Pecos. There they were joined by one of Mr. Garret’s fearless cowboy deputies, “Kip” McKinnie, who had been raised near Uvalde, Texas.
Together the three law officers rode up the river towards Fort Sumner, a distance of eighty miles. They arrived at the mouth of Taiban arroyo an hour after dark on July 13th, but Brazil was not there to meet them. The night was spent sleeping on their saddle blankets.