Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/238

234 "A square deal for all" was the motto that the knights of this grassy kingdom wrote across their breasts. If a horse disappeared from the corral a hurried call was sent forth and a small mounted committee was soon scouring the hills. If the wrong man was found riding away astride the missing animal, he was jerked down, tried before this quickly constructed bunch-grass court, found guilty of horse stealing and was speedily strung up to a tree with a lariat rope, long before a single juryman could be summoned in a region possessed of a "higher standard of

ethics and a solemn regard for the law." Such was justice on the range, especially in the earlier days. Even in this late day the dove of peace does not nest in all the nooks of this great sand-hill domain. There is romance and chivalry of the real western sort in abundance. Only a few weeks ago four stalwart sons of the hills were sent to the state prison for life because of a deed that they thought was merely chivalrous. They went to the ranch house of a neighbor one night, took him from his bed, threw a rope over his head and pulled him up to a telephone pole. They had not intended to take the man's life, but simply sought to intimidate him and cause him to leave the country. He had made certain threats unbecoming to an inhabitant of the hills. He was allowed to dangle at the end of the lariat from the telephone pole too long, and as a consequence the four young men are in prison for the rest of their days.

From these statements the reader must not infer that life in the Sand Hills is dangerous or even uncongenial because of man's relation to his fellows. Naturally these people have individual rights which they