They rode hard that afternoon and reached the place some time before sundown. The boys of whom Curly Bill had spoken were there all right, ten of them, and none of the number but was known at the time over in Tombstone either as a rustler or a stage-robber. His guide introduced Breckenbridge with the usual terseness of such ceremonies among his kind.
Whatever of constraint there was at the beginning wore away during the progress of the evening, and on the next morning before they left the gorge the young deputy worked his way into the good graces of his hosts by winning twenty dollars from them shooting at a mark.
By this time they were nearing the end of their tour and it was only a few days later, when they were crossing the Sulphur Springs valley toward the frowning Dragoons, that Curly Bill bestowed a final confidence 119 upon his companion. They were nooning at the time and somehow or other the usual question of revolver-handling had come up.
“I’m goin’ to tell yo’-all something,” said Curly Bill, “that mebbe it will come in handy to remember. Now here.”
He drew his forty-five and held it forth butt foremost in his right hand.
“Don’t ever go to take a man’s gun that-a-way,” he went on, “for when yo’ are figuring that yo’ have the drop on him and he is makin’ the play to give it up––Jest reach out now to get it.”
Breckenbridge reached forth with his right hand. The outlaw smiled. His trigger-finger glided inside the guard; there was a sudden wrist movement and the revolver whirled end for end. Its muzzle was pressing against the deputy’s waist-band.
“Did it slow so’s you could see,” said Curly Bill. “Now yo’ understand.”
And Breckenbridge nodded, knowing now the manner in which Marshal White had met his death on the day when his companion had fled from the law.
In no-man’s-land they shook hands at parting.