savage on the war-path. The law officer has no advantage whatever over
these men save what his own prowess may--or may not--give him. Such a
man was Billy the Kid, the notorious man-killer and desperado of New
Mexico, who was himself finally slain by a friend of mine, Pat Garrett,
whom, when I was President, I made collector of customs at El Paso.
But the ordinary criminal, even when murderously inclined, feels just a
moment's hesitation as to whether he cares to kill an officer of the
law engaged in his duty. I took in more than one man who was probably a
better man than I was with both rifle and revolver; but in each case I
knew just what I wanted to do, and, like David Harum, I "did it first,"
whereas the fraction of a second that the other man hesitated put him in
a position where it was useless for him to resist.

I owe more than I can ever express to the West, which of course means to
the men and women I met in the West. There were a few people of bad type
in my neighborhood--that would be true of every group of men, even in a
theological seminary--but I could not speak with too great affection and
respect of the great majority of my friends, the hard-working men and
women who dwelt for a space of perhaps a hundred and fifty miles along
the Little Missouri. I was always as welcome at their houses as they
were at mine. Everybody worked, everybody was willing to help everybody
else, and yet nobody asked any favors. The same thing was true of the
people whom I got to know fifty miles east and fifty miles west of my
own range, and of the men I met on the round-ups. They soon accepted me
as a friend and fellow-worker who stood on an equal footing with them,
and I believe the most of them have kept their feeling for me ever
since. No guests were ever more welcome at the White House than these
old friends of the cattle ranches and the cow camps--the men with whom
I had ridden the long circle and eaten at the tail-board of a
chuck-wagon--whenever they turned up at Washington during my Presidency.