he leaves for
still wilder lands, he ends by getting hung instead of founding a family
which would revere his name as that of a very capable, although not in
all respects a conventionally moral, ancestor.

Most of the men with whom I was intimately thrown during my life on the
frontier and in the wilderness were good fellows, hard-working, brave,
resolute, and truthful. At times, of course, they were forced of
necessity to do deeds which would seem startling to dwellers in cities
and in old settled places; and though they waged a very stern and
relentless warfare upon evil-doers whose misdeeds had immediate and
tangible bad results, they showed a wide toleration of all save the most
extreme classes of wrong, and were not given to inquiring too curiously
into a strong man's past, or to criticizing him over-harshly for a
failure to discriminate in finer ethical questions. Moreover, not a few
of the men with whom I came in contact--with some of whom my relations
were very close and friendly--had at different times led rather tough
careers. This fact was accepted by them and by their companions as a
fact, and nothing more. There were certain offences, such as rape, the
robbery of a friend, or murder under circumstances of cowardice and
treachery, which were never forgiven; but the fact that when the
country was wild a young fellow had gone on the road--that is, become a
highwayman, or had been chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves,
and cattle-killers, was scarcely held to weigh against him, being
treated as a regrettable, but certainly not shameful, trait of youth.
He was regarded by his neighbors with the same kindly tolerance which
respectable mediaeval Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their
wilder young men who would persist in raiding English cattle even in
time of peace.

Of course if these men were asked outright as to their stories they
would have refused to tell them or else would have lied about them; but
when they had grown to regard a man as a friend and companion they
would often recount various incidents of their past lives with perfect
frankness, and as they combined in a very curious degree both a decided
sense of humor, and a failure to appreciate that there was anything
especially remarkable in what they related, their tales were always
entertaining.

Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I was out hunting some lost
horses. They had strayed from the range three months before, and we