This fight cost McSween his life just at the point when he thought he had attained success. Four days before he was killed, he had word from the United States Government's commissioner, Angell, that the President had deposed Governor Axtell of New Mexico, on account of his appointment of Dad Peppin as sheriff, and on charges that Axtell was favoring the Murphy faction. General Lew Wallace was now sent out as Governor of New Mexico, invested with "extraordinary powers." He needed them. President Hayes had issued governmental proclamation calling upon these desperate fighting men to lay down their arms, but it was not certain they would easily be persuaded. It was a long way to Washington, and a short way to a six-shooter.
General Wallace assured Mrs. McSween of protection, but he found there was no such thing as getting to the bottom of the Lincoln County War. It would have been necessary to hang the entire population of the county to execute a formal justice. Almost none of the indictments "stuck," and one by one the cases were dismissed. The thing was too big for the law.
The only man ever actually indicted and brought to trial for a killing during the Lincoln County War was Billy the Kid, and there is many a resident of Lincoln to-day who declares that the Kid was made a scapegoat; and many a man even to-day charges Governor Wallace with bad faith. Governor Wallace met the Kid by appointment at the Ellis House in Lincoln. The Kid came in fully armed, and the old soldier was surprised to see in him a bright-faced and pleasant-talking boy. In the presence of two witnesses now living, Governor Wallace asked the Kid to come in and lay down his arms, and promised to pardon him if he would stand his trial and if he should be convicted in the courts. The Kid declined. "There is no justice for me in the courts of this country now," said he. "I've gone too far." And so he went back with his little gang of outlaws, to meet a dramatic end, after further incidents in a singular and blood-stained career.
The Lincoln County War now spread wider than even the boundaries of the United States. A United States deputy, Wiederman, had been employed by the father of the murdered J. H. Tunstall to take care of the Tunstall estates and to secure some kind of British revenge for his murder. Wiederman falsely persuaded Tunstall _père_ that he had helped kill Frank Baker and Billy Morton, and Tunstall _père_ made him rich, Wiederman going to England, where it was safer. The British legation took up the matter of Tunstall's death, and the slow-moving governmental wheels at Washington began to revolve. A United States indemnity was paid for Tunstall's life.