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Ollinger and Billy the Kid, had this to say: "One was a genuine bad man and the other the genuine imitation of a bad man. They were really as far apart as the poles and they are so held in the tradition of that bloody country to-day. Throughout the West there are two kinds of wolves—the coyote and the gray wolf. Either will kill and both are lovers of blood. One is yellow at heart and the other is game all the way through. In outward appearances both are wolves and in appearance they sometimes grade toward each other so closely that it is hard to determine the species. The gray wolf is a warrior and is respected. The coyote is a sneak and a murderer and his name is a term of reproach throughout the West."

The day after the Kid had been sentenced, Deputy Ollinger and Woods set out on horseback with the prisoner through the mountains for Lincoln. Throughout the long journey, Ollinger never ceased to revile the Kid in tirades of scurrility and billingsgate.

"If you don't like the idea of cashing out through a trapdoor, Billy," he said, "why don't you try to escape? There's a good spot in the road ahead of us to make a break for it. Suppose you just fall off your horse and take to the woods. Then I'd have my chance to pot you like a rabbit. My only objection to the gallows for you is that it will rob me of the pleasure of murdering you."

Occasionally the Kid sent back a joking reply to his tormentor's sallies but usually he kept silent.

So at last they arrived in Lincoln. The Lincoln jail being insecure, the Kid was confined in an upper room in Murphy's old store. There, manacled hand and foot and under close guard, he awaited the hour set for his death upon the gallows.