Gallardo gave them the show they’d come for, doing some of his flashiest work yet. The bull held up his end, and the matador’s escapes from the rushing horns became slimmer with each furious charge. After several near-misses, the enraged animal pinned Gallardo against a gate, giving the crowd (and the little tailor, no doubt) one truly breathless moment. The plucky matador recovered himself, to the crowd’s astonishment, and got down to deadly business. On the Cowboy Band’s musical cue, W.K. Moore leaned from the stands and handed Gallardo the heirloom sword. Excitement crackled through the crowd—all eyes locked on the combatants. After a few minutes’ thrust-and-parry, Gallardo found his mark and his gallant opponent went down under the Toledo blade.

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After the hullabaloo leading up to this moment the animal’s death might have seemed anti-climactic, but he’d given the crowd a thrill or two and, like a true Texan, had gone out game. Even the jaded New York Times scribe now gave him his due, gleefully reporting that Gallardo, “was severely injured about the ribs” and “may not recover.” He’d have likely been crushed by the Dodge City Times’ report a few days later that Gallardo was nursing only a couple of broken ribs and would live to stitch a few more britches in Chihuahua.

By most accounts, the fighting the following day was livelier, if far less bloody. It was still a thriller, a near miss or two keeping onlookers’ adrenaline high, though it fell far short of the bloody spectacle the press frenzy had predicted. No bulls were killed and at the end of the day, probably a bit to the crowd’s chagrin, all five bullfighters walked away. Despite Nick Klaine’s grumpy post-bullfight reports in the Times, Dodge’s bullapalooza was a financial success. Though record rains and the resultant track washouts had caused at least one train derailment and innumerable delays, Dodge had welcomed a record number of visitors. Saloons, along with the more savory businesses, had done a whopping trade. In the carnival atmosphere, nearly everyone had found a way to cash in; one ad hoc money-maker had been the hawking of bullfight souvenirs, particularly photos of Gallardo and his troupe.

The fallout from the week’s events was nearly as lively as the bullfights. In a gale-force rebuke to Governor Glick days later, Henry Bergh wrote that, “Humanity and public decorum have been trampled under foot and the blood-red flag of barbarism elevated above them,” then worried that on our nation’s founding holiday, “Dodge City alone unblushingly announces that the tastes and habits of the heathen and the savage are to be inaugurated upon its soil.” He boasted of quashing a bull-baiting exhibition in New York City in 1880, clearly peeved that after succeeding in “the greatest city of the Republic,” he’d been unable to do so in a dusty, hell-bent burg in uncouth Kansas. To wrap up his windy communiqué, Bergh quoted verbatim, as though it mattered now, the Kansas statute declaring mistreatment of horses or cattle a misdemeanor punishable by a $50 fine. Glick’s politically predictable response assured Bergh that the bullfight, for all its hoopla, had been a “rather tame and insignificant affair,” and made the dubious claim that he hadn’t received Bergh’s telegraphed protest until July 7th.

The Kansas Cowboy exulted, “Take it all in all, Dodge City considers its worth of keeping the Fourth a great success.” The Globe thumbed its nose at a rival town, pointing out, “Caldwell is way behind the times as a cattle town. They didn’t have any bullfight on the Fourth.” Klaine, meanwhile, published a slightly bipolar account that began on a gloating, almost joyous note, “The Bull fight did not attract as many visitors as the managers anticipated,” leveled off with neutral statements about the horse racing being “declared fine,” then dipped into the doldrums with a gloomy conclusion that many Dodge Citians were ashamed of participating in the bullfight, but “there must be a good deal of penitence before the stain is fully wiped out.” Unable to let the matter drop, a sarcastic Klaine elsewhere informed readers, “The boys contemplate drilling a few old steers for a Christmas festivity.”

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