ON THE FRINGE 309 



Lynch was supplemented, and even at times defied, 

 by the law of the revolver the law and the rule of 

 the quick eye, the ready hand, and the desperate 

 resolve. 



It has been said that the abolition of duelling in 

 England has been followed by a loss of courtesy and 

 politeness between man and man, and by a general 

 deterioration of the outward fashion of speech and 

 manners of society as compared with the more 

 ceremonious intercourse of a century ago. However 

 this may be, there is no doubt that the law of the 

 revolver, to some extent at all events, operated to 

 make western intercourse polite. 



The old story of the dance in a western saloon is 

 an illustration of the point. I am not alluding to 

 the well-known notice over the frontier orchestra, 

 ' Don't shoot the fiddler ; he is doing his best,' but 

 to the casual remark of a fair eastern visitor to her 

 cowboy partner, ' You all seem very polite to one 

 another.' The lady had no doubt been led to 

 expect manners of quite a different description. The 

 prompt reply was, 'Yes, miss, it's safer.' And no 

 doubt it was. 



This summary justice, dealt out on occasions 

 with lightning rapidity and without remedy or 

 appeal, had its distinct and beneficial uses in the 

 gradual fashioning of a civilized community out of 

 a frontier mob of all sorts and conditions of men 

 inhabiting the wild, mountainous, and, be it not 

 forgotten, very extensive regions of the western 

 States and Territories. The so-called justice so de- 

 creed and administered was often thoroughly sound 

 of its kind, in the sense that punishment or swift 

 retribution overtook the guilty. 



