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was convened and sat for six weeks at Fort Stanton. As a result of the hearing, Colonel Dudley was exonerated. His defense was that he had no authority to interfere in the battle because Sheriff Peppin was on the ground and in command of the situation. The court decided that his position was technically sound. It may have been' so; at least it was technically plausible. But the fact remains that while Colonel Dudley was splitting hairs over the technical question of his authority, the McSween home went up in flames and five men were slaughtered within two hundred yards of his camp where he had two well-armed squadrons of cavalry and two pieces of artillery. In arriving at its verdict, the court seems to have lost sight of the human tragedy in weighing the niceties of military law.

Billy the Kid added to his list of killings on August 5th during a horse-stealing raid on the Mescalero Apache reservation. Joe Bernstein, Indian agency clerk, saw the outlaws rounding up some horses not far from Blazer's sawmill, scene of the "Buckshot" Roberts fight. Supposing them to be cowboys labouring under a mistaken idea of ownership, he rode out to them. "Hey," he shouted, "what are you fellows about? Don't drive those horses off. They belong on this range." His blunder cost him his life. Without stopping to argue the matter, Billy the Kid shot him. "The horses didn't belong to him," the Kid explained afterward, "and it takes a bullet to teach some people to keep their noses out of other men's business. He was only a Jew, anyway."

Jimmy Dolan, Billy Matthews, Bill Campbell, and Jesse Evans foregathered in Stockton's bar. It was a