The great plains; the romance of western American exploration, warfare, and settlement, 1527-1870 . the day was dull, thenight made up for it in clamor; if a week passedlistlessly, the next was crowded full with riot andspending. It all hung on the coming and going ofthose reckless riders of the range. When the dustrose high above the trail, the sleeping parasitesawoke in eager anticipation, and set their traps forthe victims riding in so gaily to their fate. Mixed Society of the Cow-Towns How the vivid memory of it all comes back, in-tensified rather than faded by the years. Societywas mixed,
The great plains; the romance of western American exploration, warfare, and settlement, 1527-1870 . the day was dull, thenight made up for it in clamor; if a week passedlistlessly, the next was crowded full with riot andspending. It all hung on the coming and going ofthose reckless riders of the range. When the dustrose high above the trail, the sleeping parasitesawoke in eager anticipation, and set their traps forthe victims riding in so gaily to their fate. Mixed Society of the Cow-Towns How the vivid memory of it all comes back, in-tensified rather than faded by the years. Societywas mixed, no man cared who his neighbor was,no man ventured to question. Of women worthyof the name there were few,— the station-keeperswife, perhaps, with one or two others,— yet thenight saw flitting female forms in plenty, and thelights of the saloons displayed powdered cheeksand painted eyebrows. It was a strange, restless, [338] H ?r X n ?c O H ^ O 7, 5? g > H Z > n ^ M o H o I W w r-| i 2 O > > ?/, h- H »— n .| ?c y C) M V) ?ji E H % S t W z ^ t-. MHrnuitaiiiiiiU).);: BORDER TOWNS commingled population enough — cowboys, half-breeds, desperadoes, gamblers, saloon-keepers, mer-chants (generally Jewish), petty officials, anddrunkards by profession. The town was an eddywhich caught odd bits of driftwood, such as onlythe frontier ever knew. Queer characters wereeverywhere, wrecks of dissipation, derelicts of theEast, seeking nothing save oblivion. Life wascheap in the midst of such chaos, and all the dig-nity of the law vested itself in the town marshalor the sheriff. He ruled not through any terror ofcourts behind him, but by sheer force of personality,and an acknowledged ability to drop his position was no sinecure, and he who held itsuccessfully needed to be a man of nerve. Earlyand often was he put to the test, and any failureto make good was his official death-knell. Thosewho won out through such trials of endurancewere, with hardly an exception, of th
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