—J. A. WOODWARD SINCE HIS BRIEF STINT as Billy the Kid’s attorney in 1881, Albert Jennings Fountain had solidified his power and influence in southern New Mexico Territory. The fiery Republican had served in the territorial legislature as Speaker of the House. He had chased raiding Apache warriors, rustlers, and thieves, as the leader of a mounted militia unit he had organized himself, and he served ably as assistant U.S. district attorney in the county seat of Las Cruces. In 1894, when a group of prominent cattlemen formed the Southeastern New Mexico Stock Growers’ Association, they hired Fountain as a special investigator and prosecutor. In less than a year’s time, Fountain’s dogged efforts resulted in fifteen men finding new lodgings in the territorial prison—and that was only the beginning. In January 1896, in the same Lincoln County courthouse from which Billy Bonney had escaped nearly fifteen years before, Fountain obtained thirty-two indictments against twenty-three men for cattle theft and the defacing of brands.
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