Editing Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (section)

=== Ike Clanton's conflict with Doc Holliday ===

Wyatt Earp testified after the gunfight that five or six weeks prior he had met Ike Clanton outside the Alhambra Hotel. Ike told Wyatt that Doc Holliday had told him he knew of Ike's meetings with Wyatt and about Ike providing information on Head, Leonard, and Crane, as well as their attempted robbery of the stage. Ike now accused Earp of telling Holliday about these conversations. Earp testified that he told Ike he had not told Holliday anything. Wyatt Earp offered to prove this when Holliday and the Clantons next returned to town.<ref name=wyatttestimony/>

A month later, the weekend before the shootout, Morgan Earp was concerned about possible trouble with the Cowboys. He asked Doc Holliday to come back to Tombstone from a fiesta celebration in Tucson where Holliday had been gambling. Upon his return, Wyatt Earp asked Holliday about Ike's accusation.<ref name=wyatttestimony/>

On the morning of Tuesday, October 25, 1881, the day before the gunfight, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury drove {{convert|10|mi}} in a [[wagon|spring wagon]] from Chandler's Milk Ranch at the foot of the [[Dragoon Mountains]] to Tombstone. They were in town to sell a large number of beef [[livestock|stock]], most of them owned by the McLaurys.<ref name=lubet/> Fred Dodge, an undercover detective for Wells Fargo, heard from J.B. Ayers, another undercover Wells Fargo man in Contention, that Frank McLaury, Billy Clanton, and Billy Claiborne were in town and planning to join Ike and Tom in Tombstone Wednesday afternoon. Dodge, who had been sick, got up and went looking for city marshal Virgil Earp. He found Tombstone Deputy City [[Marshal]] Morgan Earp at the Alhambra Saloon instead and told him the news.<ref name="hornung">{{cite book |last1=Hornung |first1=Chuck |title=Wyatt Earp's Cow-boy Campaign: The Bloody Restoration of Law and Order Along the Mexican Border, 1882 |date=2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9781476624655 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gPcWDAAAQBAJ |access-date=July 21, 2018 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|87}}

Near midnight, Holliday saw Clanton in the Alhambra Saloon and confronted him, accusing him of lying about their previous conversations. They got into a heated argument. Wyatt Earp (who was not wearing a badge) encouraged his brother Morgan to intervene. Morgan took Holliday out onto the street and Ike, who had been drinking steadily, followed them. City Marshal Virgil Earp arrived a few minutes later and threatened to arrest both Holliday and Clanton if they did not stop quarreling. Wyatt Earp walked over to the Oriental Saloon and Ike followed him. They talked again, and Ike threatened to confront Holliday in the morning. Ike told Earp that the fighting talk had been going on for a long time and that he intended to put an end to it. Ike told Earp, "I will be ready for you in the morning." Wyatt told Ike to go home "because there was no money in it." Ike sat down near Wyatt, his revolver in plain sight, and told Earp "You must not think I won't be after you all in the morning." Virgil Earp went to the Occidental Saloon across the street.<ref name="wyatttestimony"/><ref name="hornung"/>{{rp|88}}