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133 Though the Snaky Four took cover in Mexico after their discomfiture at Steins Pass, they did not remain there for long. The posse that had joined forces with the rurales to hunt them through northern Sonora and Chihuahua returned to the United States in mid-January. The Ketchum gang may not have been far behind them. For the last six or eight weeks of the winter they loitered in and around Cochise County. They hid out mostly in the Swisshelm Mountains or in the Wildcat. Outwardly, at least, they were still welcome with the cowpunchers, prospectors, and small ranchers. The Milton-Scarborough expedition which hauled in John Vinnedge made them steer clear of Tex Canyon and the Wildcat for much of February, but never came close to rounding them up. One man whom they regarded as a menace was John Slaughter, owner of the San Bernardino ranch and sometime sheriff. One day, while the gang were passing the time of day at a cabin near Mud Springs, in Sulphur Spring Valley, the conversation touched upon Slaughter. Tom Ketchum glared balefully. “Let’s go down and kill that little rat-headed son of a bitch,” he proposed to the other three. But before they had made up their minds how to do it, Slaughter drove up in his buggy. Seeing the four badmen lounging outside the house, he handed the reins to Mrs. Slaughter and ostentatiously rested his shotgun across his knees. As he passed by he looked them over, as if to dare them to make trouble. The outlaws said nothing until the rig was out of sight. Finally, one of them remarked drily: “Well, there he is, fellers; if you want him, go get him.” Tom Ketchum, it developed, did not want him all that badly, after all.1 Slaughter apart, those who really objected to the Ketchums were too afraid of them to turn informer; since, moreover, most of the local officers were cordially disliked or mistrusted, few people wanted dealings with the law anyway. Events after the Steins Pass holdup had afforded a vivid lesson of what was likely to happen in Cochise County when lawmen came looking for outlaws. The Ketchums, for their + 10 ∂ DYNAMITE AND SIX-SHOOTER 134 The Deadliest Outlaws part, were wise enough after this not to imperil themselves by holding up another train in the neighborhood; to provoke a further incursion of deputies into eastern Cochise County might be to overstretch the tolerance of the inhabitants for the Ketchums and their like. Flat broke as they were—despite the massive haul at Lozier and the respectable returns from Folsom—and confirmed in their outlawry, only one course was open to them. In contrast with Tom and Sam, Berry cut no caper and prospered. Toward the end of September, 1897, while his brothers, Carver, and Atkins were preparing to escape southwestwards across New Mexico to hole up in Wildcat Canyon, Berry was completing the purchase of Justice W.F. Holt’s ranch near Knickerbocker.2 As was usual with Berry, the deal was “a.p.t.” More than four months had gone by since the Lozier robbery; surely enough of an interval to forestall rumors that he was financing his ranching interests with money stolen by Tom? With the coming of spring in 1898, the four men laid plans for the future. The first item was the dissolution of the Snaky Four. Atkins could stand no more of Tom Ketchum’s brutality and vicious temper. Tom still bore rancor towards Atkins because he had let liquor loosen his tongue while they were planning the Steins Pass robbery; moreover, he spoke of him as a coward.3 Atkins was anything but a coward; but he may have lacked the depressive fatalism that steeled the others to fight against desperate odds. But, like Tom, he had a quick temper. At length, somewhere in Cochise County, there was a flare-up between the two men and Atkins left. Sam stuck loyally with his brother, perhaps in the belief that he could manage him and keep him out of worse trouble. Carver’s concerns may have been more practical; despite the calamity at Steins Pass, the four of them had done well out of armed robbery, and the three could do as well or better in the months ahead. Their targets may already have been in their sights. If, with Atkins gone, they needed a fourth, they knew of several potential replacements.4 Although the breach...

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