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army and rose to the rank of sergeant; as a soldier he took part in campaigns against the Kiowas and Comanches and was badly shot in an Indian battle. He had been a member of the Texas Rangers and saw hard service with them along the Rio Grande. He had killed a man somewhere in Texas, it was said, and when twenty-five Rangers came to arrest him, he turned at bay and they riddled him with bullets before they took him. He carried a considerable quantity of lead in him for the rest of his life. Wherefore he was known as "Buckshot Bill" Roberts. These old wounds had left him so badly crippled he could not raise a rifle to his shoulder. Inability to raise a rifle to his shoulder was a serious handicap in that part of the country. He overcame his handicap by learning to shoot from his hip with remarkable accuracy.

Roberts was settled on a little ranch in Ruidoso Valley when the Lincoln County war broke out. There are two stories as to his attitude toward the feud. While he had been a friend of Murphy he had been no enemy of McSween and, it is said, he declared his intention of remaining neutral. Neutrality was not regarded just then as a crowning virtue. War was in the air and no pacifist was tolerated. A man had three choices: he had to be either against Murphy or against McSween or against public sentiment; and one choice was about as dangerous as another. When one of his neighbours asked him about this report of his neutrality, Roberts, it is said, replied in his slow way: "I don't aim to take sides. I've seen enough fighting. All I ask is to be let alone. My fighting days are over."

This is one story.

But, according to the other, Roberts allied himself with the Murphy faction. When, as the tale goes, Murphy