Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-15
A nFR|EhD OF 'TEX'S'"
Identity of Richards Little Red
Haired Companion.
NICHOLAS N. BANKSTREET
Was Day Marshal of Tombstone When
It Was Young.
HELD THE "TERRoRs" IN CHECK
Employed Strategy as Well as Six
Shooters to Quiet Rufaed Spirits
Of the "Ba-a-d Men"
NICHOLAS N. BANKSTREET
HELD THE ''TERRoRs" IN CHECK

| SAOOSCAS W du1CI nQASQ oplIlIS
Of the "Ba-a-d Men"
When Tex Richard, the Goldfeld boz
nanza mine man and fight promoter,
| breezed into New York the other day he
| attracted lot of attention, and the New
| York newspapers. gave him a great deal of
| space. They published all kinds Of pictures
| OF him and printed. talks with him about
the Gans-Neison go. the faxed pictures of
the same, the mining game In Nevada the
| Mormons In the same state and so on.
The smallish, sawed-off, elderly man with
| the pale face and red hair, wearing a store
frock coat and wide, bufr sombrero. who
accompanied Richard to New York. at
| tracted no attention at ALL Nobody knew
who he was. Nobody asked who he was.
AS friend o. Tex's," the dead-eames
J over there tossed the little red-haired eld-
erly man glance and word or two. but
he didn't get his pictures in the papers
and none OF the reporters was asked to in
tervfew him W "
And yet this unassuming friend O. Tex's"
was man Of good deal of note in his
Gay. His name Is Nicholas NJ Bankstreet
ana he was day marshal of Tombstone
when tombstone was bad. I recognized
MIN as he sat at table in the hotel with
lex Hckard. for I had met him in San
francisco about ten years previously He
didn't have much to say He rarely or
never adverts to his Tombstone experiences
The sure-enough game men of the old
camps were ever silent men. But Bank
streets management of Tombstone when II
was bad Is a part Of the history of the
southwest. He Is now a prosperous holder
OF several Goldfelds properties, wears billed
shirts and removes his boots every night
n Prff
In any way minimize nor Offset the way he
played the game when Tombstone was his
camp and he was day marshal there.
Inere were lot OF gun-sooners in Tomb
got the drop on Nick Bankstreet He was
day marshal there when a mans life in
Iompstone wasn't generally held to be
worth much more than a buzzard tamale
or plate OF frijoes. Bankstreet MON
sooned into Tombstone about six months
after the boom there began, and he sue
ceeded Turk Patrick as day marshal of the
camp-Turk had been SO mined up in a
knife fight with a couple of haIf-breed
gtla-eaters that he had to be hiked I'D to
Manitou, In Colorado. to win back his
strength.
Tactturn and Unassuming.
Bankstreet was a taciturn, very unas-
Stunning sawed-off in those days. as always.
He had cowlfcky auburn hair and a pair
OF topaz eyes. like mountain cats, that
seemed to grow darker and to spit sparks
when he was getting busy.
In accepting the day marshaIs billet Nick
Bankstreet delivered himself, in form, of
the following expressions:
Il hain't calclatin' on gittin' shot nm
none whilst. holdin' down this yere lob I
shore can't see no fun in this thing o. layin'
a a with 2" nun rot O zigzag punctures ip
nain.t a-goin' t let no gun-fannin' ombrey
IN TINS we're camp stick me up an poke
lead into my frame. / jes' nachully like t
be swingin' along on tn soles O. my boots.
an they gotta show me this we're thing O:
layin back on bunk in dark room
whilst TIL holes Is healin an countin' tn
centipedes a-workin' their way in through
tn ceilin an sides O. tn 'dobe-they hain't
enough action in that kind o. work.
The TombStoners who heard Nick thus
express his natural objection to being lead
plugged hoped that he would get by with
his determination. but none of them had
much of an idea that Nick would be able
to make that determination stick for very
long. Bankstreet had never shown the
camp anything in the line Of strategy, and
so. OF course, there was no way of figuring
on the line of stuff that he would develop
But just two days after he pinned on his
badge husky, green-eyed chap named
Flag O'Rourke. who had drifted down to
Tombstone from the Santa Anita noun
tains. where he had grown sulky after years
OF unsuccessful prospecting, knocked off
work at noon, absorbed about half GAL
a.
phragm and then archly shot the right ear
from the head of a Chinese keeper of a
grub joint
After doing this O'Rourke strolled out
into the middle of the street-Tombstone
being a one-street camp-and announced
very audibly, that he couldn't abide any
kind Of grub joint that didn't provide its
patrons with stewed puff-adders. fricasseed
tarantulas and scorpions la Chihuahua
adding that the same was the only kind
Of vittles that he cared to eat when he felt
real good, as he happened to be feeling
just at that moment of speaking.
Obviously referring to Day Marshal Nick
Bankstreet o'Rourke wound up something
as follows:
(Which. If any red-headed runts what
think they're some few on gun breezin'
wants t dispute, I'm shore here a-perchin',"
and ORourke left the middle of the road.
leaned up against the front of the Git-App
Mule honkatonk and, with his thumbs
tucked in his gun belt, blinked boozily in
the sunshine.
The Surprise in the Box.
Presently a dray, hauled by a fea-bitten
and demure mule and driven by Mexican
smoking corn-shuck cigarette, pulled
alongside the plank sidewalk in front of
the honkatonk against which O'Rourke was
leaning and glowering. A large square
pine box Of the sort that blankets for west
ern shipment used to be packed in was the
dray's load
O'Rourke gazed idly at the mule and the
dray and the box. He did not observe
that the top OF the box was missing. But |
when the muzzles Of two blue-steel forty
fives. held by pair of freckled. hairy |
hands, appeared over the edge of the box |
and tousled red head, uncovered by any |
hat followed the guns, bobbing up jumping
jack-wise, ORourke suddenly became a |
heap observant.
Point EN- both at tn buzzards, Flag" |
said the day marshal of Tombstone In a |
persuasive sort of way, resting his arms |
on the edge of the box and drawing a fine |
bead with both his guns on ORourke's |
torso-and before Bankstreet had got the |
words out that greaser driver, rightly fore |
seeing that there'd be considerable action |
In that immediate neighborhooC presently,
dropped backward off his seat and |
od for rarofan ion, fho Co. L