“I met Ike Clanton, Frank McLowery, and Joe Hill in Tombstone one day, and told them I had a business proposition to lay before them. They went with me into the back yard of the Oriental saloon, and there we sat for an hour or more and held our conference.
“ ‘There is a reward of $1,200 each for the capture of Leonard, Head, and Crane,’ I told them. ‘I have an ambition to be sheriff of Cochise County. The murder of Bud Philpot and Peter Roerig in the stage holdup has incensed the public, and if I can capture the highwaymen, I believe it will mean my election as sheriff. Moreover, Johnny Behan’s crowd has been trying to give Doc Holliday the worst of it and make it appear that he was mixed up in the attack on the stage and in Philpot’s murder. Holliday had nothing to do with it, and you know that as well as I do. If I can catch the three road agents, I can prove out of their own mouths that Holliday is innocent. If you three boys will help me capture Leonard, Head, and Crane, I will give you the entire reward of $3,600 to be split among yourselves as you see fit. All I want is the glory of capturing them.’
“ ‘I would like to see them captured,’ said Ike Clanton. ‘Leonard claims a ranch that I also claim, and if I could get him out of the way, I’d have no further trouble over the land.’
“ ‘I’d like that money,’ said Frank McLowery, ‘but if it ever came out that we had turned up these fellows, our lives wouldn’t be worth a nickel.’
“ ‘I’ll give you my word that I will never reveal my source of information,’ I answered. ‘I’ll organize a posse and go out and get the men and you boys need never be known in the matter at all.’
“ ‘You’ll have a fight on your hands if you ever run on them,’ said Clanton.
“ ‘I’ll take care of all the fighting that has to be done,’ I replied.
“ ‘They’ll never be taken alive.’
“ ‘Then I’ll take them dead,’ I told him.
“ ‘But in case you have to kill them, does the reward still go? Does the reward for them say “dead or alive”?’
“I wasn’t sure on this point. So I told him I’d see Marshall Williams of the Wells-Fargo Company and learn definitely.
“I told Marshall Williams that same day to telegraph to the Wells-Fargo offices in San Francisco and settle this matter officially. He received an immediate answer by wire that the reward would be paid for the bandits dead or alive. Next day, I met Ike Clanton and Joe Hill on Allen Street in front of the little cigar store next door to the Alhambra and told them the telegram had come and they would get the reward even if Leonard, Head, and Crane were killed. They didn’t take my word for it, but demanded to see the telegram. I got the message from Williams and showed it to them, and later showed it to Frank McLowery.
“I held another conference with the three outlaws in the back yard of the Oriental and it was arranged that Joe Hill should go to Eureka, New Mexico, near which they said Leonard, Head, and Crane were hiding, and lure them to the McLowery ranch at Soldier Holes where I would be on hand with a posse and capture them.
“ ‘But how are you going to get them to the McLowery ranch?’ I asked.
“ ‘We have already talked that over and agreed on a plan,’ replied Ike Clanton. ‘Hill is to tell them there will be a paymaster going from Tombstone to Bisbee soon with a big swag of payroll money for the Copper Queen mine and we plan to stick up the paymaster and want them to come in and help us. We are leaving it to Hill to play this robbery up as an easy game that will make us all rich and, in view of the fact that Leonard, Head, and Crane missed $80,000 in the Benson stage holdup and didn’t get a cent, we figure it’s a cinch they will jump at the chance to come in and help pull off a big robbery on the Bisbee road.’
“ ‘How long,’ I asked, ‘will it take Hill to make the trip?’
“ ‘I know right where to find the three boys,’ Hill replied, ‘and I believe I can ride over there, put over the deal, and get back in about ten days.’
“So far,” Wyatt Earp continued, “my plan was working fine. Joe Hill set out for New Mexico on horseback next day, and before starting, as an evidence of good faith, he gave me his watch and chain and about three hundred dollars in money to hold for him until he got back. I said nothing to anyone about my plan. I didn’t tell even Doc Holliday, who is about as close a friend as I had. I wanted to hear from Hill as to when Leonard, Crane and Head would be at the McLowery ranch before I organized my posse and laid my trap to capture them. Finally Hill returned with news that was bitterly disappointing.
“ ‘I saw Bill Leonard and Harry Head in Owl City, New Mexico,’ he said, ‘but they were corpses in pine-board boxes and all ready to be buried. I arrived one day too late. They had been killed the day before by Ike and Bill Haslett.’
“This, I supposed, ended the matter but, as it turned out, it was only the beginning. As bad luck would have it, Marshall Williams got drunk. I had not told Williams of my negotiations with Clanton, McLowery, and Hill, but he had got wind of the back yard conferences I had been having with them at the Oriental, and in view of the telegram I had instructed
