All were more or less concerned, for Tate was supposed to have intentions of giving evidence against the Bay State Company concerning some of their acquisition of land from the government, and the empty saddle looked bad, for Jimmy was a good rider, even when intoxicated. "Long" (Wyatt) Heard, now (1919) and before of Uvalde county, Texas, then headquartered on Pumpkin creek, was telling about it. He said that the story they got from Johnny was that Tate had fallen from his horse and was killed.

"But how do you know that he is dead?" was asked.

With all sincerity Frantz told them that he had stopped, and called to Tate several times, and received no answer, and then he had "rode over him two or three times, and he never moved."

Jimmy came out of it all right, but afterwards died with his boots on, in the same old town of Sidney, and many believed that his revelations concerning the land matters had something to do with his sudden and violent death. He now lies in "Boots Graveyard," a part of the Sidney cemetery, that was set aside for the boys who died in the classic way of the early west.

"Bad men" were always drifting in and out of the early camps, and through the frontier towns, and it was somewhat difficult to distinguish the real from the make-believe. Occasionally one would make his bluff stand up for a time, but he eventually met someone that "called him."