In September of 1878, Clay Allison was in his final year as a feared gunman of the West when he reportedly stalked the streets of Dodge City looking

for assistant marshal Wyatt Earp. Back in July, a group of drunken Texas Cowboys had galloped

down Front Street, the main street of Dodge, and fired shots into the Kameek Theater. Inside,

Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Batmon, and Bat's younger brother Jim were watching

a vaudeville show.

They and everyone else hit the floor when the bullets blasted through the building.

The lawman ran outside.

Wyatt Earp and Jim Masterson fired up the street at the Cowboys.

One of the Cowboys, George Hoy, fell from his horse with a bullet wound to his arm.

No one could be sure which lawman fired the shot, but the legend quickly arose that it was

fired by Wyatt Earp.

When George Hoy died a few days later, the legend took its final form, that during the rowdiest years of

Dodge City's existence, Wyatt Earp killed only one man, George Hoy. Clay Allison apparently

knew George Hoy, and Allison showed up in Dodge two months later looking to settle the score.

Wyatt Earp provided the first known account of their meeting when he narrated his version

of events to the San Francisco Examiner.

And so Clay Allison came to town, Wyatt said, and for a whole day behaved like a veritable

Chesterfield. But the next morning,

one of my policemen woke me up to tell me that the bad man from Colorado was loaded

up with a pair of six shooters and a mouthful of threats. Straight away, I put my guns on and

went down the street with Bat Masterson. Now, Bat had a shotgun in the district attorney's office.

He thought the weapon might come in handy in case of trouble, so he skipped across the street

...