Excerpt from Gunfighters of the Western Frontier
© 1999 ProofmarkJohn H. 'Doc' Holliday
Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and under the influence of liquor was a most dangerous man. In this respect he was very much like the Missourian who had put in the day at the crossroad groggery and, after getting pretty well filled up with bug juice of the moonshine brand, concluded it was time for him to say something that would make an impression on his hearers; so he straightened up, threw out his chest and declared in a loud tone of voice that he was 'a bad man when he was drinking and managed to keep pretty full all the time'. So it was with Holliday.
Physically, Doc Holliday was a weakling who could not have whipped a healthy fifteen-year-old in a go-as-you-please fistfight, and no one knew this better than himself, and the knowledge of that fact was perhaps why he was so ready to resort to a weapon of some kind whenever he got himself into difficulty. He was hot-headed and impetuous and very much given to both drinking and quarreling and, among men who did not fear him, was very much disliked.
He possessed none of the qualities of leadership such as those that distinguished such men as H.P. Myton, Wyatt Earp, Billy Tilghman, and other famous western characters. Holliday seemed to be absolutely unable to keep out of trouble for any great length of time. He would no sooner be out of one scrape before he was in another, and the strange part of it is he was more often in the right than in the wrong, which has rarely ever been the case with a man who is continually getting himself into trouble.
...
It was Doc Holliday who, along with Wyatt Earp, overtook and killed Frank Stillwell at the railroad station in Tucson for having participated in the murder of Morgan Earp in Tombstone. He was by Wyatt's side when he killed Curly Bill at the Whetstone Springs outside of Tombstone. Damon did no more for Pythias than Holliday did for Wyatt Earp.
After Wyatt and his partner had run down and killed nearly all their enemies in Arizona, Holliday returned to Denver, where he was arrested on an order from the Arizona authorities, charged with aiding in the killing of Frank Stillwell. This happened in the spring of 1882. I was in Denver at the time, and managed to secure an audience with Governor Pitkin who, after listening to my statement in the matter, refused to honor the Arizona requisition for Holliday. I then had a complaint sworn out against Holliday, charging him with committing a highway robbery in Pueblo, Colorado, and had him taken from Denver to Pueblo, where he was put under a nominal bond and released from custody. The charge of highway robbery against Holliday, at this time, was nothing more than a subterfuge on my part to prevent him from being taken out of the state by the Arizona authorities after Governor Pitkin went out of office, but the Colorado authorities did not know it at the time. Holliday always managed to have his case put off whenever it would come up for trial, and by furnishing a new bond, in every instance would be released again.
