Oklahoma was a perfect place for the Dalton boys to get their revenge on the train system after Grat made his long journey back from California. Oklahoma was a more familiar territory for the boys, it was wild and lawless as they could come the “land of the six-shooter”, they had more friends and family close by than in California, and also there were certainly plenty of trains that came through the territory to get revenge for the banged up trial that Gratton had gone through and almost cost him many a year in the San Quinton Prison. One other thing that helped the boys also was the towns in Oklahoma were use to seeing men carry firearms not like California’s sleepy little towns where people noticed them carrying guns with them all of the time even to the dances that they much enjoyed. The people there even knew that they slept with these guns! One man in one article over the years that I have read stated that there was a tree that he witnessed the boys shooting at, when they were staying in the San Joaquin Valley area, and they would go around and around shooting and practicing for hours at a time doing this. Bob even in the “Fort Smith Elevator” was mentioned as being the best shot in the territory with his Winchester and was stated to be exceptionally deadly shooting from the hip! When Gratton reunited with his brother's in Oklahoma it was not just a reuniting of brothers but a reuniting of a familiar training ground when they were marshals as well.
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