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Black Ben didn’t hang. He was given three years of hard labor at a prison camp outside of Santa Fe. There, he was rehabilitated into a hardened outlaw. He fell in with another boy from back East who believed the nonsense he read in dime store novels. A fella by the name of Billy the Kid.
In 1878, Black Ben was shot in the chest by Buckshot Roberts, a buffalo hunter that Billy the Kid and his Lincoln County Regulators took exception to. It is said that Black Ben shot Buckshot Roberts in the chest as well. Whatever the case, they both died on the same day in the New Mexico dirt on April 4th, 1878.
Hap Morgan eventually left town and made his way to Austin to pledge his service to the newly reinstated Texas Rangers. Frank joined him. They quit in disgust not long after and became full t
