VIII 



SHERIFF'S WORK ON A RANCH 



N our own immediate locality we have had 

 more difficulty with white desperadoes than 

 with the redskins. At times there has been a 

 good deal of cattle-killing and horse-stealing, 

 and occasionally a murder or two. But as 

 regards the last, a man has very little more to 

 fear in the West than in the East, in spite of 

 all the lawless acts one reads about. Undoubtedly a long-standing 

 quarrel sometimes ends in a shooting-match ; and of course savage 

 affrays occasionally take place in the bar-rooms ; in which, be it 

 remarked, that, inasmuch as the men are generally drunk, and, further- 

 more, as the revolver is at best a rather inaccurate weapon, outsiders 

 are nearly as apt to get hurt as are the participants. But if a man 

 minds his own business and does not go into bar-rooms, gambling 

 saloons, and the like, he need have no fear of being molested ; while a 

 revolver is a mere foolish incumbrance for any but a trained expert, and 

 need never be carried. Against horse-thieves, cattle-thieves, claim-jump- 

 ers, and the like, however, every ranchman has to be on ,his guard ; and 

 armed collisions with these gentry are sometimes inevitable. The fact 

 of such scoundrels being able to ply their trade with impunity for any 

 length of time can only be understood if the absolute wildness of our land 

 is taken into account. The country is yet unsurveyed and unmapped; 

 the course of the river itself, as put down on the various Government 

 and railroad maps, is very much a mere piece of guesswork, its bed 

 being in many parts as by my ranch ten or fifteen miles, or more, away 

 from where these maps make it. White hunters came into the land by 

 1880; but the actual settlement only began in 1882, when the first cattle- 

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