The New Mexico Territory was a wild and violent land, never more so than in the 1870s and '80s. The most dangerous places seemed to be in what are today the counties of Socorro, Otero, Chavez and, of course, Lincoln.

One source referred to the counties as "infested with outlaws, thieves and bandits to the exclusion of almost all else."

Recently, I stumbled upon a brief account of an incident from the bloody Lincoln County War, recorded by Eugene Manlove Rhodes in 1933. At that time, he was a well-known author of southwestern novels who had lived and written for a while in Tesuque.

Gene Rhodes spent his youth breaking horses on ranches east of present-day Truth or Consequences. That was in the 1890s when survivors of the war in Lincoln County littered the landscape. From one or more of them, he heard this story.

At its center is the young Tom O'Folliard from Zavala County in southern Texas, who showed up in southeastern New Mexico at the height of the Lincoln war.

He attached himself to the faction headed by attorney Alexander McSween. Another of the members was the charismatic Billy the Kid.

Arrayed against the McSween partisans were the forces of corrupt merchant James J. Dolan, collectively described as "the most notorious gang of cutthroats in Southern New Mexico."

In mid-July 1878, Alexander McSween's large U-shaped house in the center of Lincoln town was besieged for five days by some 30 or more of his enemies. About 10 of his own men on hand assisted McSween in defense of the building. Among them were Billy the Kid, Tom O'Folliard and Harvey Morris.

Not long before, Morris, 30, had come out from Kansas hoping that New Mexico's climate would cure his bad case of tuberculosis. He began "reading law" under McSween's direction, so by accident he happened to be in the besieged residence.

O'Folliard idolized Billy the Kid (they were about the same age), and soon developed a liking and respect for the older Morris.

Early on the fifth day, an attacker managed to start a fire at the end of one of the U legs. During the day, the blaze moved slowly from room to room, with the occupants retreating ahead of it.

By nightfall, the McSweenites were cornered in the last room and were forced to break out or be burned to death. Billy with four or five others decided to dash through the east door into the very teeth of their foes. They hoped, by serving as a decoy, to give McSween and two others a chance to escape by the north side.

Billy the Kid led the way, firing as he ran. Behind him, Harvey Morris stepped into the open and was instantly killed by a single shot.

Tom O'Folliard followed. What happened next was the incident that Gene Rhodes wrote about in 1933. According to him, Tom had just started to run the gantlet through a hail of lead when he reached the body of Harvey, lying face up.

He stopped in flight, bent down and gently picked up his friend in his arms. Only then did he realize the man was dead. So slowly he laid the body down again, being careful not to drop it.

How could he have made such a pause and lived? Rhodes explains that the moment O'Folliard stopped and leaned down, the two dozen black-hearted assailants, all in the same instant, held their fire.

It was part of their heritage and tradition, the author claimed, to value high courage and loyalty to a fallen friend. Not a single one of the shooters, even in their bloodlust, was willing to kill Tom O'Folliard in that brief golden interval.

But as soon as he was running again, all bets were off and the spray of bullets resumed. Tom and Billy miraculously survived and escaped, but not so Alexander McSween and the two men at his side.

The deaths that night of July 19, 1878, concluded the "Five Days Battle" and also ended at last the Lincoln County War.

A year and a half later, on Dec. 19, 1880, O'Folliard was slain by Sheriff Pat Garrett on the edge of Fort Sumner. At the same place, as is famous in Western lore, Garrett killed Billy the Kid in the Pete Maxwell house on the evening of July 14, 1881.

Today the two young outlaws lie buried side by side in the historic Fort Sumner cemetery. Another follower of the Kid who died by the gun, Charlie Bowdre, is also there. A single large tombstone for the threesome has one word at the top: "Pals."

In my wide reading of the literature on the Lincoln County War, I'd not found confirmation of O'Folliard's "heroism" at the break-out, as described by Rhodes.

Then a few days ago, I discovered a couple of lines on the incident by a leading historian of the era, Frederick Nolan. In his imposing book The West of Billy the Kid, he classifies the O'Folliard story as one of the many myths that have grown up around the Lincoln County War.

That could well be. Or as is the case with myths, they often can have some kernel of truth buried within them. About this one, we will probably never know the answer for certain.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.