Early in his career the impression became general that his
favorite tint was crimson.

And yet Mr. Allison was in no sense an assassin. I never knew him to
kill a man whom the community could not very well spare. While engaged
as a ranchman in raising cattle, he found more agreeable occupation for
the greater part of his time in thinning out the social weeds that are
apt to grow quite too luxuriantly for the general good in new Western
settlements. His work was not done as an officer of the law either.
It was rather a self-imposed task, in which he performed, at least to
his own satisfaction, the double functions of judge and executioner.
And in the unwritten code governing his decisions all offences had a
common penalty--death.

Mr. Allison was born with a passion for fighting, and he indulged the
passion until it became a mania. The louder the bullets whistled, the
redder the gleaming blades grew, the more he loved it.

Yet no knight of old that rode with King Arthur was ever a more
chivalrous enemy. He hated a foul blow as much as many of his
contemporaries loved "to get the drop," which meant taking your
opponent unawares and at hopeless disadvantage. In fact in most cases
he actually carried a chivalry so far as to warn the doomed man, a week
or two in advance, of the precise day and hour when he might expect to
die. And as Mr. Allison was known to be most scrupulous in standing to
his word, and as the victim knew there was no chance of a reprieve,
this gave him plenty of time to settle up his affairs and to prepare to
cross the last divide. Thus the estates of gentlemen who happened to
incur Mr. Allison's disapproval were usually left in excellent
condition and gave little trouble to the probate courts.

Of course the gentlemen receiving these warnings were under no
obligations to await Mr. Allison's pleasure. Some suddenly discovered
that they had imperative business in other and remote parts of the
country. Others were so anxious to save him unnecessary trouble that
they frequented trails he was known to travel, and lay sometimes for
hours and days awaiting him, making themselves as comfortable as
possible in the meantime behind some convenient boulder or tall nopal,
or in the shady recesses of a mesquite thicket. But they might as well
have saved all this bother, for the result was the same. Mr. Allison
could always spare the time to journey even from New Mexico to Montana
where it was necessa