could
get."

Ollinger was the sort of imitation desperado that looks the part. He
wore his hair long and affected the ultra-Western dress, which to-day is
despised in the West. He was one of the very few men at that
time--twenty-five years ago--who carried a knife at his belt. When he
was in such a town as Las Vegas or Sante Fe, he delighted to put on a
buckskin shirt, spread his hair out on his shoulders, and to walk
through the streets, picking his teeth with his knife, or once in a
while throwing it in such a way that it would stick up in a tree or a
board. He presented an eye-filling spectacle, and was indeed the ideal
imitation bad man. This being the case, there may be interest in
following out his life to its close, and in noting how the bearing of
the bad man's title sometimes exacted a very high price of the claimant.

Ollinger, who had made many threats against Billy the Kid, was very
cordially hated by the latter. Together with Deputy Bell, of White Oaks,
Ollinger had been appointed to guard the Kid for two weeks previous to
the execution of the death sentence which had been imposed upon the
latter. The Kid did not want to harm Bell, but he dearly hated Ollinger,
who never had lost an opportunity to taunt him. Watching his chance, the
Kid at length killed both Bell and Ollinger, shooting the latter with
Ollinger's own shotgun, with which Ollinger had often menaced his
prisoner.

Other than these two men, the Kid and Ollinger, I know of no better
types each of his own class. One was a genuine bad man, and the other
was the genuine imitation of a bad man. They were really as far apart as
the poles, and they are so held in the tradition of that bloody country
to-day. Throughout the West there are two sorts of wolves--the coyote
and the gray wolf. Either will kill, and both are lovers of blood. One
is yellow at heart, and the other is game all the way through. In
outward appearance both are wolves, and in appearance they sometimes
grade toward each other so closely that it is hard to determine the
species. The gray wolf is a warrior and is respected. The coyote is a
sneak and a murderer, and his name is a term of reproach throughout the
West.

Chapter III

The Land of the Desperado--_The Frontier of the Old West_--_The Great
Unsettled Regions_--_The Desperado of the Mountains_--_His Brother of
the Plains_--_The Desperado of the Early Railroad Towns_.

There was once a vast empire, almost unknown,