and wraithlike civilization, but yet a thing made in the
image and containing in itself the germ of that spirit which is the
antithesis of barbarism, based on force, being itself the visible
expression of the potency of ideas. The _Bad Lands Cowboy_ brought the
first tenuous foreshadowing of democratic government to the banks of
the Little Missouri, inasmuch as it was an organ which could mould
public opinion and through which public opinion might find
articulation. It was thus that a youngster, not a year out of college,
became, in a sense, the first representative of the American idea in
the Marquis de Mores's feudal appanage.

Packard was extraordinarily well fitted not only to be a frontier
editor, but to be a frontier editor in Medora. His college education
gave him a point of contact with the Marquis which most of the other
citizens of the Bad Lands lacked; his independence of spirit, on the
other hand, kept him from becoming the Frenchman's tool. He was
altogether fearless, he was a crack shot and a good rider, and he was
not without effectiveness with his fists. But he was also tactful and
tolerant; and he shared, and the cowboys knew he shared, their love of
the open country and the untrammeled ways of the frontier. Besides, he
had a sense of humor, which in Medora in the spring of 1884, was
better than great riches.

The _Cowboy_ was Packard and Packard was the _Cowboy_. He printed what
he pleased, dictating his editorials, as it were, "to the machine," he
himself being the machine translating ideas into type as they came.
His personal responsibility was absolute. There was no one behind whom
he could hide. If any one objected to any statement in Medora's weekly
newspaper, he knew whom to reproach. "Every printed word," said
Packard, a long time after, "bore my brand. There were no mavericks in
the _Bad Lands Cowboy_ articles. There was no libel law; no law of any
kind except six-shooter rights. And I was the only man who never
carried a six-shooter."

To a courageous man, editing a frontier paper was an adventure which
had thrills which editors in civilized communities never knew. Packard
spoke his mind freely. Medora gasped a little. Packard expressed his
belief that a drunken man who kills, or commits any other crime,
should be punished for the crime and also for getting drunk, and then
there was trouble; for the theory of the frontier was that a man who
was drunk was not responsible for what he did, and