For his part, Doc Holliday was still residing in the territorial capital of Prescott, rooming with future acting-governor John J. Gosper. When the Earp caravan pulled out of Prescott for Tombstone in November 1879, Holliday chose to remain behind, preferring to let the brothers scout out the new town while he stayed with a sure thing in the bustling center of government, instructing initiates in the mysteries of the faro box and collecting a handsome fee for his expertise. Since by 1880 the one-time dentist was making his living almost exclusively at the green felt tables, it was a sensible choice.

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The Slopers were quick to size up the opportunities in Tombstone. Their leader was John E. Tyler, a 40-year-old Texan. Before deciding to exploit the silver boom in Arizona Territory, he had spent time in San Francisco, and a killing blotted his record there. A petition circulated at the Oriental on August 18, 1880, less than a month after it opened, bore his name along with the signatures of such dubious characters as Pete Spencer, Andrew Ames and Andy McCauly.

Direct evidence as to where Tyler and Holliday first crossed paths is lacking, but a compelling possibility is at the San Augustin Festival in Tucson during late August and early September 1880. A Tucson paper, the Arizona Star, reported on August 27, 1880, that J.E. Tyler of Tombstone had registered at the Palace Hotel the previous day, and August 27 marked the grand opening of the festival. It was a magnet for gamblers from far and wide. Wyatt Earp’s old chum John Shanssey, formerly a saloon owner in Fort Griffin, Texas, had taken the train in from San Francisco 10 days earlier, and John Behan, a gambler as well as a lawman and perpetual office-seeker, signed in with his son at the Palace on September 12.

Holliday was verifiably in Tombstone on September 27, and if he had decided to travel south from Prescott in August, there is small chance he would have neglected to stop over in the ‘Old Pueblo,’ particularly since the San Augustin Festival drew large crowds throughout its duration, one local paper reporting, ‘It is hardly possible to make a step in the gambling room in which there seems to be an attraction to all classes of society.’ And if Doc needed further incentive to make Tucson his destination, Virgil and Wyatt Earp rode up from Tombstone on separate occasions, Virgil en route to visit his parents in California and Wyatt in his capacity as deputy sheriff, ferrying a prisoner to district court. Given the proclivities of the brothers, it is safe to assume they would have made a pasear or two through the gambling enclosure before leaving town.

The festival came to an end on September 16, and Tyler was back in Tombstone by September 23, as the Epitaph of the 24th attests: ‘An altercation occurred at Vogan & Flynn’s saloon [where Jim Earp tended bar] yesterday between Tony Kraker and Johnny Tyler, two well-known sporting men during which a weapon, or weapons, were drawn. Friends interfered and further hostilities were prevented.’ Kraker was a known associate of the Earps, a trusted comrade — so trusted, in fact, he would be delegated to bring them $1,000 the day of the gunfight with Curly Bill Brocious at Iron Springs in March 1882.

Another flare-up followed within a few weeks, this time not in a rather modest locale such as Vogan & Flynn’s, but in one more palatial and profitable. The Daily Epitaph on October 12, 1880, related the following incident: ‘About 12:30 on Sunday night [October 10] a shooting affray took place at the Oriental saloon…between M.E. Joyce, one of the proprietors and a man named Doc Holliday….’ What brought this about, the article further describes: ‘During the early evening, Holliday had an altercation with Johnny Tyler which boded a shooting scrape. Shortly before the shooting referred to occurred, Holliday and Joyce [Tyler?] came into the Oriental. Joyce went to Tyler and told him to leave the saloon, as he didn’t want trouble. Tyler complied and Joyce made the same request to Holliday. Holliday demurred and Joyce and he got into an altercation.’

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