Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-02-02

the room followed his example.
Peabody was dumbfounded for an
instant, and then told them that it
was much larger contribution than
he had expected, but it was for a
good cause and he knew they would
never regret it.
peabody was a fine athlete, and
was named the official referee in all
baseball games and other outdoor
sports that were carried on by the
young men of Tombstone. His
decisions were never questioned, as
he was known as being absolutely
square and he had no favorites. He
loved a. good horse-race, and fire.
quently attended the gymnasium
where he kept himself in fine phys
ical condition by exercise; he never
refused an invitation to put on the
gloves with anyone and never was
bested."
Bad Man "Backs Down."
Perhaps that fact had something
to do with the breakdown" Of one
of the bad men who infested Ari-
iona in those days when he tried
to bluff the fearless preacher"
Breckenridge tells the story thus:
''In the summer of 1881 the Rev.
erend Mr.. Peabody was invited
down to Charleston to deliver a SER
mon. His subject was the evil of
the cattle-stealing rustlers and the
drinking and carousing cowboys.
Billy Claybourn, the would-be bad
man who had killed one or two in
saloon fights in Charleston and who
was afterwards killed by Frank Les
lie in Tombstone, heard of the SER
mon and sent word to Mr.. Peabody
that if he ever came to Charleston
again and preached such a sermon,
he, Claybourn, would come to the
church and make him dance. Pea
body told the man who delivered
the message that he expected to re-
turn to Charleston in about two
weeks, and would preach a SER
mon that he thought appropriate,
and if Mr.. Claybourn would come to
the church and listen to it, and then
thought he could make him dance,
to try it.
peabody was known to 60 into
the saloons and gambling-houses
and 60 up to the gambling-tables
when they were in operation, with
crowd around them, and say Gen
tlemen, am going to preach SER
mon on the evil of gambling Sum-
day night, and ! would like to have
you all come to the church and lis
ten to it. All who could get away
went to hear him. He had large
audiences always"
Less than two weeks after the
death of DR.. Peabody, the wires car
ried the news that Albert Bacon Fall
had died at the age of SO in Ell Paso,
Texas. The news Of his passing
served to recall briefly a great ma
tional scandal in the recent past
how Senator A. B. Fall of New Mex
leo was appointed secretary of the
interior in President Harding's cab
met, how he was one of the chief
figures in the Teapot Dome oil case,
and how he became the first cabi-
net officer in American history to
serve prison sentence for crime.
Again few, if any, of the newspa-
per accounts gave much space to his
career as young lawyer in the
Southwest nor told of his associa-
ton with some of the notables of
the frontier. Yet he was the attor-
ney for the defense who won free
dom for the slayers of two famous
gunfghters-both of whom illustrate
the truth of the age-old saying that
she who takes the sword perishes
by the sword"
One of these gunfighters was John
Wesley Hardin of Texas, possibly
the most notorious killer in the an
nails of the wild West" and popu-
larly credited with 40 notches on his
six-gun-39 of them before he was
81 years old.
The 10th notch-it was Deputy
Sheriff Charles Webb of Brown coun-
ty-put Hardin in the penitentiary
for Is years. He employed them
usefully, studying law, and after his
release in 1894 he hung out his shin
gle in various Texas towns, ending
up in Ell Paso the following year.
There he became involved in a dis