CHAPTER XV 



ON THE FRINGE 



FIVE-AND-TWENTY years ago Uncle Sam's writ did 

 not always run west of the Missouri River. There 

 was the outward and visible semblance and authority 

 of law and order no doubt embodied in the persons 

 and the jurisdiction, for example, of the Sheriff and, 

 at times, the circuit Judge and his Court of Assize, 

 with the accompanying lawyers and advocates who 

 expounded the intricacies of the criminal law. But 

 at this distance of time I fail to recollect the exist- 

 ence of any frontier police in Wyoming and Colorado 

 beyond the Sheriff and his posse, and, of course, the 

 military ' boys in blue,' stationed at various isolated 

 and scattered posts throughout the west. The 

 State of Texas, it is true, had its own special body 

 of Rangers, of whom I have something to say 

 later. 



But, generally speaking, the real law of the land, 

 and the final arbiter of justice from whose judgments 

 there was no appeal, was the tribunal of western 

 public opinion that held assize and took action 

 through the shadowy, mythical personality of Judge 

 Lynch, who executed his own decrees in summary 

 and ruthless fashion. Occasionally the rule of Judge 



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