to me that virgil and morgan earp have sort of been pumped into the background as have tom and frank mcquarrie. vergil wanted to be a good lawman. i think he was very pragmatic about the way he enforced the law. ep for giving people a chance to back away without embarrassing them or having their pride attack. he did his best that day to lead the cowboys settled down and ride on out of town, and finally felt forced to act. when he did, he called on the people he trusted most, his two brothers. and then, of course, there was doc who was never going to miss an occasion like this. it was a terrible tragedy that this happened. and i think if things had happened differently in one or two instances, if a virgil hadn't been approached by a couple of town leaders offering vigilante, if white and tom mcquarrie hadn't had that, if the cowboys walking to the okay corral i think really meaning to leave town, not wanting to leave too fast because they didn't want all the onlookers you think the earp's head back and out and made him leave. any number of things might have prevented this. but even if it had be