Cowboy Marsh Johnson described a night in a tent city saloon along the Chisolm Trail in 1868: The dance floor was crowded with women and girls with their partners of cowboys, halfbreeds, and toughs of every description – regular cutthroats. . . . Suddenly amid the hum of voices and laughter a shot rang out . . . the next few minutes were given to a bombardment of whiskey bottles, bullets, and rocks. Then as suddenly as it had started, the music began and . . . the proprietor yelled out, ‘on with the dance; there is only one man killed.'”

Marshall L. Johnson, Trail Blazing: A True Story of the Struggles with Hostile Indians on the Frontier of Texas, Dallas: Mathis Publishing Co., 1935.