“Hanzup!”
They obeyed and the ensuing silence was broken by the pleasant chink of money as John Ringo’s left hand raked the winnings into his pocket. There was no 143 pursuit as he rode away down Galeyville’s main street; but he spurred his pony hard, for self-righteousness was boiling within him and he had to find relief some way.
“Damn bunch of robbers!” he told the horse.
Ordinarily the incident would have closed then and there; but fate so willed it that Kettle-Belly Johnson came to Tombstone a few days later and voiced his plaint in Bob Hatch’s saloon, where he found himself suddenly surrounded by sympathizers. He did not know––and if he had he would not have cared one way or the other––that the new law-and-order party had grown to a point where it wanted to get action in the courts; that its members were looking for an opportunity to swear out a warrant against some of the bigger outlaws in order to “show up” Johnny Behan, who––so men said––was unwilling to arrest any of the cow-boy faction. The grand jury was in session; they got Kettle-Belly Johnson sober enough to face star-chamber inquisition and led him to the court-house in the morning.
So it came that young Billy Breckenbridge, whose business was serving warrants and not bothering over the whys and wherefores of their issuance, knocked at the door of John Ringo’s cabin in Galeyville a few days later; and then, being a prudent man, stepped to one side where he would be beyond the zone of fire.
“Got a warrant for you,” he announced when the desperado had demanded to know who was there. “Highway robbery.”
There was a bit of parleying through the closed door and finally––
“Man by the name of Johnson is the complaining 144 witness,” young Breckenbridge elucidated. “According to what I hear, the play came up along of a poker game.”
John Ringo swore lightly.
“Come in,” he bade the deputy. “I’ll get my clothes on in a minute.”