22. Wyatt faced down a lynch mob, though the tale is exaggerated
Following a fight between two miners which proved fatal to one of the combatants, friends of the dead man formed a mob which threatened to lynch the survivor. A tale arose among early biographers of Wyatt Earp that the lawman faced down the growing mob single-handed, ordering their dispersal. According to contemporaneous accounts in the Tombstone Epitaph, Earp was present, but only one of a group of several lawmen including Virgil Earp, Johnny Behan, and Ben Sippy, then serving as City Marshal for Tombstone, a job for which he had beaten out Virgil Earp the preceding autumn.
