September 1881. Two masked gunmen held up the Sandy Bob stage headed from
Tombstone to Bisbee. Cow-boys Pete Spence (in photo) and Frank Stilwell were
arrested.
The incident inflamed the clash between the Cow-boys and the Earp faction; Wyatt and
Virgil Earp were in the posse that arrested the pair.
Charges were eventually dropped, but Spence and Stilwell were rearrested on October 13 by Virgil Ear

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus