sses all swore they saw a man steal a horse, and yet were
unable to agree on the exact time of the stealing, the chances were ten
to one that the horse thief would be strung up without further loss of
time. And there was no appeal from the findings of a frontier jury."

"It must have been an exciting life, that of the old frontier days,"
commented Bert. "I guess nobody had to complain much of the monotony of
it."

"Not so you could notice," replied Mr. Melton with a smile, "but there
wasn't half as much shooting going on all the time as you might believe
from reading the current stories in the magazines dealing with the 'wild
and woolly West.' Most everybody carried a gun, of course, but they
weren't used so very often. Every man knew that his neighbor was
probably an expert in the use of his 'shooting irons,' too, so there
wasn't much percentage in starting an argument. Most of the scraps that
did occur would never have been started, if it hadn't been for the
influence of 'red-eye,' as the boys used to call the vile brands of
whiskey served out in the frontier saloons. That whiskey bit like
vitriol, and a few glasses of it were enough to make any man take to the
war path."

"I suppose you carried a gun in those days, too, didn't you, Mr.
Melton?" questioned Dick.

"Yes, I carried a pair of Colt's .45s with me for years," replied the
Westerner, with a reminiscent look in his eyes. "Why, a couple of guns
were as much a part of a man's dress in those days as a pair of shoes.
Every one carried them as a matter of course."

"Did you ever have to use them?" asked Bert.

"Only once," replied Mr. Melton. "I never went looking for trouble, and
it has been my experience, when you don't look for trouble, trouble
seldom looks for you. But the one time I did have use for my arsenal
made up for lost time."

"Tell us about it, please," chorused the boys, and Mr. Melton smiled at
their eagerness as he lit another perfecto.

"Well," he began, "it was back in the old days before the time of the
railroads, when stage coaches were the only carriers known. I was
traveling to Fort Worth on business, and was finding the journey
anything but a pleasant one. The coach was old and rickety, and the way
it lurched and rolled reminded me of a small boat in a rough sea. It was
a terrifically hot day, too, and the stinging alkali dust got down your
throat and in your eyes until life seemed an unbearable burden. We had
traveled steadily all