nt savannahs, among
these rough hills or upon these rolling grassy plains from the time
William Clark, the "Red Head Chief," began the government work of
settling the tribes in these lands, then supposed to be far beyond the
possible demands of the white population of America.

Life could be lived here with small exertion. The easy gifts of the soil
and the chase, coupled with the easy gifts of the government, unsettled
the minds of all from those habits of steady industry and thrift which
go with the observance of the law. If one coveted his neighbor's
possessions, the ready arbitrament of firearms told whose were the
spoils. Human life has been cheap here for more than half a hundred
years; and this condition has endured directly up to and into the days
of white civilization. The writer remembers very well that in his
hunting expeditions of twenty years ago it was always held dangerous to
go into the Nations; and this was true whether parties went in across
the Neutral Strip, or farther east among the Osages or the Creeks. The
country below Coffeyville was wild and remote as we saw it then,
although now it is settling up, is traversed by railroads, and is slowly
passing into the hands of white men in severalty, as fast as the
negroes release their lands, or as fast as the government allows the
Indians to give individual titles. In those days it was a matter of
small concern if a traveler never returned from a journey among the
timber clad mountains, or the black jack thickets along the rivers; and
many was the murder committed thereabouts that never came to light.

In and around the Indian Nations there have also always been refugees
from the upper frontier or from Texas or Arkansas. The country was long
the natural haven of the lawless, as it has long been the designated
home of a wild population. In this region the creed has been much the
same even after the wild ethics of the cow men yielded to the scarcely
more lawful methods of the land boomer.

Each man in the older days had his own notion of personal conduct, as
each had his own opinions about the sacredness of property. It was
natural that train robbing and bank looting should become recognized
industries when the railroads and towns came into this fertile region,
so long left sacred to the chase. The gangs of such men as the Cook
boys, the Wickcliffe boys, or the Dalton boys, were natural and logical
products of an environment. That this should be the more