250 Hunting the Grisly 



hanged instead of founding a family which 

 would revere his name as that of a very capa- 

 ble, although not in all respects a convention- 

 ally moral, ancestor. 



Most of the men with whom I was inti- 

 mately 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 re- 

 lentless warfare upon evil-doers whose mis- 

 deeds 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 criticising 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 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 mur- 

 der under circumstances of cowardice and 



