past, or to criticizing 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 fact 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 murder under circumstances of cowardice and treachery, which were never forgiven; but the fact that when the country was wild a young fellow had gone on the road—­that is, become a highwayman, or had been chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves, and cattle-killers, was scarcely held to weigh against him, being treated as a regrettable, but certainly not shameful, trait of youth.  He was regarded by his neighbors with the same kindly tolerance which respectable mediaeval Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their wilder young men who would persist in raiding English cattle even in time of peace.

Of course if these men were asked outright as to their stories they would have refused to tell them or else would have lied about them; but when they had grown to regard a man as a friend and companion they would often recount various incidents of their past lives with perfect frankness, and as they combined in a very curious degree both a decided sense of humor, and a failure to appreciate that there was anything especially remarkable in what they related, their tales were always entertaining.

Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I was out hunting some lost horses.  They had strayed from the range three months before, and we had in a roundabout way heard that they were ranging near some broken country, where a man named Brophy had a ranch, nearly fifty miles from my own.  When I started thither the weather was warm, but the second day out it grew colder and a heavy snowstorm came on.  Fortunately I was able to reach the ranch all right, finding there one of the sons of a Little Beaver ranchman, and a young cowpuncher belonging to a Texas outfit, whom I knew very well.  After putting my horse into the corral and throwing him down some hay I strode into the low hut, made partly of turf and partly of cottonwood logs, and speedily warmed myself before the fire.  We had a good warm supper, of bread, potatoes, fried venison, and tea.  My two companions grew very sociable and began to talk freely over their pipes.  There were two bunks one above the other.  I climbed into the upper, leaving my friends, who occupied the lower, sitting together on a bench recounting different incidents in the careers of themselves and their cronies during the winter that had just passed.  Soon one of them asked the other what had become of a certain horse, a noted cutting pony, which I had myself noticed the preceding fall.  The question aroused the other to the memory of a wrong which still rankled, and he began (I alter one or two of the proper names):