It’s amazing how what seem to be simple little altercations can mushroom into a full scale catastrophe in a very short period of time. Take the situation below for example. Here we have a town full of good people, except for some rowdy, alcohol infused, unsavory, unwashed, profane but blasphemous black-hearted villains, who tend to cause trouble just by being in the proximity of good folks. Then we have the good folks who tend to be just a little touchy around their less than civilized neighbors. Throw in a saloon with its tenants standing on the boardwalk making rude comments to the womenfolk as they pass by and there you have it. Chaos in a handbasket. One of the more inebriated fellows made a remark about a passing lady’s bustle and she in turn replied by smacking him in the ear with her parasol. He and his cohorts thought that might have been an overreaction and the following altercation ensued.

The rowdies seen here on the left have formed into an indignant mob demanding satisfaction and have threatened bodily harm or murder and certainly mayhem at the least, to the good folks who demanded an apology and the termination of the neer-do-wells’ occupancy in the good town of Wichita. Many insults were slung accompanied by rude gestures of the rudest kind to make their point.

On the right, in every sense of the word, we have the good folks who include husbands of the aforementioned ladies, who cannot abide rudeness in any form to their womenfolk.

After a prolonged session of taunts, provocating goading, not to mention derision and mockery, there was a comment made by one of the ladies about a fellows mustache, which of course caused guns to be drawn and shots to be fired. As you are no doubt aware, one should never make any comment about a man’s moustache. Those are not only fighting words but they demand a fight to the death.

The good folks will not stand for shots fired at them in anger or any other type of mood you happen to be in and shots were quickly returned to great effect and self-righteous efficiency. Due to their calm steel-like nerves of the insulted, but decent folks, the bad guys were dropping like flies with little or no loss of life on their side as good prevailed.

As can be seen here it does not pay to have a gunfight after one has been hanging out in the saloon all day. Four men down and things are just getting started. Many times in gunfights a killed person’s leg will jerk up like that and stay that way. Just an idiosyncrasy of the old west.

On the good folks side the ladies have cast aside their indignation as bullets began poking holes in their parasols and they gathered their skirts and lit out like a herd of scalded turtles. Safety trumping vanity and insult. The menfolk however, being staunch-hearted fellows stand their ground and coolly decimate their opponents, proving beyond doubt, that good always triumphs over evil. Unless one of the good guys gets shot in the back which would happen occasionally. Then it wouldn’t.

The upshot of all this is the provocateurs wound up being just about totally kilt and none left to make more than a feeble attempt at defiance. The good folk got to walk around feeling good about themselves for giving them their comeuppance with little reprisal from their adversaries, and the town was, after a brief respite while the streets were cleared, back to normal in a short while.