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the story of the tragedy as best they might in what tell-tale evidence remained. The monte layout was still spread on the table, the matches and scattered deck of cards near it and the jack of hearts on the floor. Bell's six-shooter with one chamber empty was found in the armoury where the Kid had laid it when he rearmed himself. At the turn of the back stairs, the bullet that had killed Bell was embedded in the wall. The hole is there to this day. It must have been a centre shot. Between the top of the stairs and the hole in the wall is a straight line about on a level with a man's heart.

Though at least two hours elapsed, by the most reliable estimates, between the time Bell and Ollinger were killed and the moment the Kid rode away, no plans of any kind were made by Lincoln citizens to prevent his escape. Alec La Rue, the storekeeper, had a thought of interfering and Lincoln still talks about his thought as rather heroic. When he heard the shot that killed Bell, La Rue stepped out on the front porch of his store in time to see Ollinger fall. Then, hurrying back into the house, he got his shotgun and was on the point of rushing out when his wife threw her arms around his neck and dissuaded him. So, instead of rushing out, he locked up his store and remained discreetly inside until the Kid was well on his way to the mountains.

"I was a little boy," says Miguel Luna, "and was spinning tops with Savero Gallegos in the road in front of La Rue's store. When I heard the shot that killed Bell, I stood looking toward the courthouse wondering what it meant. I saw Ollinger run across the street and the Kid lean out the window with a queer smile on his face and shoot him down. Savero Gallegos and I hid among the ruins of the old McSween home and watched develop-