According to legend, Wyatt Earp single-handedly held off a mob of Tombstone miners attempting to string up a gambler. The actual facts are these: on January 14, 1881, Mike O’Rourke, alias Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, shot and killed a popular mining engineer named Phillip Schneider. A large group of miners showed up in front of the Tombstone saloon where lawmen were holding the killer. Fearing a lynching, the lawmen, including Virgil Earp, Johnny Behan, Marshal Sippy and Wyatt Earp, put the prisoner in a light wagon and kept the mob at bay as they transported the prisoner to Tucson. Ironically, the prisoner escaped from the Tucson jail and was never apprehended.
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