Later, Kate and Doc, in their constant love-hate relationship, had another of their frequent, violent quarrels. Furious, Doc saddled his horse and headed out, winding up in Trinidad, Colorado.  Shortly after he arrived, he was goaded into a fight by a young gambler, known as “Kid Colton”. The “Kid”, either wishing to make himself a reputation, or very unaware of Doc's gunmanship, wound up in the dusty street with two bullets.

Not wanting to linger, Doc rode on to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where, in late summer of 1879, he hung out his shingle for the last time. However, this idea was short lived and only a few weeks later he bought a saloon.

In late August, 1879 Doc got into an argument with a local gunman, named Mike Gordon. The two took the argument to the street where Doc politely invited Gordon to start shooting whenever he felt like it. Gordon obviously accepted this invitation and wound up dead with three shots in his belly.

Again, a lynch mob formed with plans to lynch Holliday and Doc headed back to Dodge City. However, he arrived only to find that Wyatt had gone to a new silver strike, in a place called Tombstone, Arizona. Big Nose Kate was also nowhere to be seen in Dodge City. There being nothing to hold him there, Doc struck out West, bound for Tombstone .

When Doc arrived in Tombstone, not only did he find Wyatt, but all of the Earp brothers including Morgan from Montana, James who traveled with Wyatt from Dodge City, and Virgil from Prescott, where he had just been made a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Wyatt and his brothers were mining silver and James was dealing Faro at Vogan’s Saloon. Virgil appointed Wyatt as the acting City Marshal, and also swore in Morgan as an officer.

"The only way anyone could have appreciated the feeling I had for Doc after the Driskill-Morrison business would have been to have stood in my boots at the time Doc came through the Long Branch doorway."

-- Wyatt Earp