Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-02-12

|
 something about this chap, Wyatt Ea didn't take much account of what u
 said about him. One fellow leaned oJ
 the ring as I loafed in the corner, d
 said:
 t'There's job out to do you, Bob.
 they have to kill you to get away vii 1t. Watch out for the gum
 And then some one dragged him
 the ropes, and didn't get the rest
 didn't pay much attention to it, anj
 way, because I never believed Vi
 going to be shaken down like a come-o
 and the tip the chap handed me fade away. When Sharkey came into th
 ring and we walked over to this bo Earp, took good look at him. II didn't look crooked to me, though h had sort of a set eye that read lik 1t wouldn't stand for any argnmenl
 When heytalked, he made it pretty plai
 that what he said had to go, and gues
 both Sharkey and myself felt we'd b
 as good as pair of Sunday school ladd
 We'll, nearly everyone knows how th fight went. I had the sailor gassinj about for seven rounds, and was get ting ready to hand him the wallop tha would put, him down in dreamland That solar plexus punch was coming along towards my way of thinking, and when the eighth was going along wellI just stepped in and handed it to Toml He went down as if he'd been hit with a| pile driver. and then he began to actl It wasn't so much real acting though as lot of folks think That punch hurt him, because he got it where and| when he wasn't looking for it, and them I got the jolt of my life. Toms seconds| hopped into the ring and claimed the| foul, and I was laughing at the way| they were going to get fooled, when this lad Earp stood up and handed me mine. ] He allowed the foul and gave the fight to Sharkey. I'm not a quick mover, as far as the brain is concerned, and per haps didn't think it was as bad as itI was. Anyhow. by the time got it into| my, head that I'd been trimmed, there| was a gang in the ring and all around it putting up the biggest kind of howl The police broke in, too, and then the| fur began to fly in good shape. Earp| pulled gun and backed his say-so against anything that the rest could put up, and the police chased the mob out of the building.
 The rest of the story is history, Everyone knows how brought suit td| get that money back, but they also knowi how it was decided against me. want| to say right here that was robbed just as much as if that gang had broken into| my house, plugged me with A andI taken the dough out of the safe. They call me an old man whole lot, but those that do would have figured me pretty| small kid if they could have seen mel that night. l don't know for sure if Il cried or not. but know felt like it.| It's pretty rough for man to bel trimmed out of small fortune by oneI measley gang of crooks. and that's al fact. Of course. I found out all about it, but the worst of all was the charge| that I'd deliberately sold the fight.
 I've been misquoted a whole lot. anal I've been roasted whole lot. and some| of the newspaper boys showed it to ms| good and hard before got chance toI show up my side. As rule, the boys are good boys, and they made it right when,they found they had got it wrong: but it didn't cure the hurt. There was an organized gang that put up that job. l don't know what they cleaned up, but I've been told since that they cinched close to half a million. all told. They put Wyatt Earp there for that purpose, because they knew there'd be scream. and they knew that the average man would weaken when the roar came, and they also knew he wouldn't.
 The thing was fixed a week after the match was made, and the job came from the east; want to say that. Of course, a good bunch of the west was in on the play. but the job came from the east. When get it handed to me want to know how it was done. and went around asking questions when it was all over. wanted to know about this fellow. Wyatt Earp, and when I heard his history. didn't wonder he was able to bluff that gang that night.
 Maybe some of you haven't heard about the Earp boys. so I'm going to tell. you what learned about them. There were three of them originally, and they were born in Illinois. They went west, and took up with any good steady job. There was Wyatt-my friend-virgil and Morgan. Wyatt was town marshal down in New Mexico oonce-Albuquerqus 1 think 1t was, and his brothers were handy around. A gang of COW punchers had been holding up stages around there a whole lot. and they did the job just once too often. They showed up in AL buquerque. and were having a whole lot of fun. when Wyatt collected his two brothers and chap named Doc Houi- day, and went after them. The outlaws got the worst of it. but one of them got away, and two weeks later he shot Virgil Earp at a railroad station. and Doc Holiday got him later. and come near getting lynched for it. Morgan was. l think. shuffied on some time later. but our good Wyatt is still living in Cali fornia and taking life easy. don't know what he got for his job. but it was enough to make him pull the triA. As far as could find out. there was never anything illegal about the Earp gang. but they were looked on as handy men t0ohaye around and worth watching when the game vas going round. don't mean they were dishonest. but