of a bridge which spanned the river opposite the town.  It was the first bridge he had been able to take advantage of in over a thousand miles of travel, and to-day he spurned the cattle ford as though he had never crossed at one.  Once safely over the river, and with the understanding that the herd would camp for the night about six miles north on Duck Creek, six of our men quit us and rode for the town in a long gallop.  Before the rig left us in the morning, McNulta, who was thoroughly familiar with Dodge, and an older man than Lovell, in a friendly and fatherly spirit, seeing that many of us were youngsters, had given us an earnest talk and plenty of good advice.

“I’ve been in Dodge every summer since ’77,” said the old cowman, “and I can give you boys some points.  Dodge is one town where the average bad man of the West not only finds his equal, but finds himself badly handicapped.  The buffalo hunters and range men have protested against the iron rule of Dodge’s peace officers, and nearly every protest has cost human life.  Don’t ever get the impression that you can ride your horses into a saloon, or shoot out the lights in Dodge; it may go somewhere else, but it don’t go there.  So I want to warn you to behave yourselves.  You can wear your six-shooters into town, but you’d better leave them at the first place you stop, hotel, livery, or business house.  And when you leave town, call for your pistols, but don’t ride out shooting; omit that.  Most cowboys think it’s an infringement on their rights to give up shooting in town, and if it is, it stands, for your six-shooters are no match for Winchesters and buckshot; and Dodge’s officers are as game a set of men as ever faced danger.”

Nearly a generation has passed since McNulta, the Texan cattle drover, gave our outfit this advice one June morning on the Mulberry, and in setting down this record, I have only to scan the roster of the peace officials of Dodge City to admit its correctness.  Among the names that graced the official roster, during the brief span of the trail days, were the brothers Ed, Jim, and “Bat” Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Jack Bridges, “Doc” Holliday, Charles Bassett, William Tillman, “Shotgun” Collins, Joshua Webb, Mayor A.B.  Webster, and “Mysterious” Dave Mather.  The puppets of no romance ever written can compare with these officers in fearlessness.  And let it be understood, there were plenty to protest against their rule; almost daily during the range season some equally fearless individual defied them.

“Throw up your hands and surrender,” said an officer to a Texas cowboy, who had spurred an excitable horse until it was rearing and plunging in the street, leveling meanwhile a double-barreled shotgun at the horseman.

“Not to you, you white-livered s——­ of a b——­,” was the instant reply, accompanied by a shot.

The officer staggered back mortally wounded, but recovered himself, and the next instant the cowboy reeled from his saddle, a load of buckshot through his breast.