Adventure Magazine Cover — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 dugout, with the fugitives roweling their lathered ponies and the pursuers taking turns to slacken up while they lined the sights of their Winchesters seeking to set their enemies afoot. But Baker and Morton gained their shelter, anid what had been a running fight settled down to a siege. All that night and ail the next day the posse lay behind the rocks firing volleys at the mouth of the narrow passageway which led into the bank. At intervals a puff of smoke came from the entrance, and a bullet buzzed close to some one of the besiegers. Toward evening the pair inside the dug- out found their cartridges running low and called for a parley. Dick Brewer crept within earshot and made terms with them. They were to get safe conduct to the Lincoln jail. There was some dissatisfaction over this, and the story goes that Billy the Kid voiced a hot protest. “We could have killed them where we were,” he said, “and now you’ve tossed away the chance.” The posse struck off for Lincoln and rode hard until they reached the Chisum ranch, for there were several cowmen in the neigh- borhood of the battle who were arrayed with the Murphy & Dolan faction. From Chisum’s they went on to the hamlet which has since become Roswell and turned west- ward toward the county seat. When they were in the cafion of the Bonita fifteen miles or so from the valley, they made a detour from the proper trail toward Black- water Springs. Now Morton and Baker grew suspicious, fearing the same thing which they had done to young Tunstall; and when the party was strung out in the cafion, with Billy the Kid and Charley Bowdre, a young Texan who owned a little farm up on the Ruidoso, rid- ing in the lead, one of the prisoners edged his horse close to a posseman named Mc- Closkey and managed to steal his revolver. It was all over a few seconds afterward. McCloskey fell, shot through the throat. Morton and Baker urged their ponies to a run. Billy the Kid had his Winchester out and in action before his companions really knew what was taking place. Two long shots. at swiftly moving targets, and the buck-toothed youth who had done the big talking that night when they were sitting up with John Tunstall’s body had begun tomake his deadly reputation in Lincoln County. Adventure There are those who maintain to this day that the killmg was the result of a pre- arranged plan. Whether that or the fore- going version be the truth, one fact remains undisputed: Bill Morton and Frank Baker died out in the hills near Picacho with more chances for escape than they had ever given young Tunstall over on the Ruidoso, and a sheepherder buried their bodies a few days later. Then the posse struck off Into the moun- tains on the trail of Shotgun Roberts, who was known to be somewhere about the Mescalero Indian Reservation near the summit of the range. Frank Coe and his cousin George left their farms on the Ruidoso to join this expedition. The band of thirteen reached the agency at Blazer’s Mill one morning along toward noon. Their man was not there, but they learned that he was expected to ride in during the day. They sat down in the agent’s house to dinner, and they left one of their number outside on guard. Before the meal had fairly started the sentry appeared in the door. “There’s a fellow just rode up, well armed,” he announced, “and I heard one of the men down by the corral call him Roberts.” Dick Brewer nodded to Frank Coe, the Ruidoso farmer, who knew Roberts well and had been on friendly terms with him. “Go out and see if it’s the right man,” he said. Coe left and met Roberts among the adobe buildings. “Hello, Frank,” the latter cried and greeted him with outstretched hand. ‘‘What are you doing here?” ~ Coe told him briefly and explained that the posse held a warrant for him on the charge of murder. “Oh, ——! You mean that Englishman. Come along; I’ve got a Los Cruces paper with an account of it that explains the whole thing.” And Roberts led the way to one of those long adobes which were so common at the period in New Mexico, with every room opening to the outside. He started to enter the first door; but Coe glanced within and saw two rifles standing against the wall. Roberts was known as a seasoned warrior, one of that breed that would rather die with his boots on than be taken alive; and Coe realized that this little room, with its COMMICLOoOokKs (C@