nearly ten o'clock before
With these two fools drunk it was a veritable cinch , he thought . Matlock , for some occult reason , was not so sanguine . He would be more at ease when it was all over and he shrewdly made arrangements for a hasty departure in case of mishap . It was nearly ten o'clock before the chicken-hearted sheriff deemed the two cowpunchers sufficiently drunk enough to take chances with . At that hour he valiantly descended upon the Red Light saloon with a full posse and accomplished the arrest with scarcely any difficulty , the only casualty being to the sheriff 's nose , which Red could not help flattening with the butt of his six-shooter . Emerging from the jail after the incarceration of his prisoners , the sheriff encountered Marshall Ballard in charge of two heavily-ironed captives whom he was exultantly informed were two dangerous counterfeiters . He overheard the marshall request the turnkey to place them in the steel dungeon in the basement , as they were important prisoners and very dangerous characters .