In consequence, unless he leaves for
still wilder lands, he ends by getting hung instead of founding a family
which would revere his name as that of a very capable, although not in
all respects a conventionally moral, ancestor.
Most of the men with whom I was intimately 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
relentless warfare upon evil-doers whose misdeeds 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 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.
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