 The events leading up to the gunfight seem to have started with around 75 Mexicans riding into El Paso looking for two young vaqueros who had been killed.The mercenaries, paid by a wealthy Mexican ranch owner, were looking for two missing farm hands, Sanchez and Juarez, and 30 of stolen cattle.Ben Schuster, the mayor of El Paso, had made an exception for the Mexicans, enabling them to enter the city limits with their guns.