almost hourly occurrence in its drinking dens. But in the West,
when things reach their worst, a sharp and sure remedy is
provided. Those settlers who find the state of matters
intolerable, organize themselves into a Vigilance Committee.
"Judge Lynch," with a few feet of rope, appears on the scene, the
majority crystallizes round the supporters of order, warnings are
issued to obnoxious people, simply bearing a scrawl of a tree
with a man dangling from it, with such words as "Clear out of
this by 6 A.M., or----." A number of the worst desperadoes are
tried by a yet more summary process than a drumhead court
martial, "strung up," and buried ignominiously. I have been told
that 120 ruffians were disposed of in this way here in a single
fortnight. Cheyenne is now as safe as Hilo, and the interval
between the most desperate lawlessness and the time when United
States law, with its corruption and feebleness, comes upon the
scene is one of comparative security and good order. Piety is
not the forte of Cheyenne. The roads resound with atrocious
profanity, and the rowdyism of the saloons and bar-rooms is
repressed, not extirpated.

The population, once 6,000, is now about 4,000. It is an
ill-arranged set of frame houses and shanties [7] and rubbish
heaps, and offal of deer and antelope, produce the foulest smells
I have smelt for a long time. Some of the houses are painted a
blinding white; others are unpainted; there is not a bush, or
garden, or green thing; it just straggles out promiscuously on
the boundless brown plains, on the extreme verge of which three
toothy peaks are seen. It is utterly slovenly-looking, and
unornamental, abounds in slouching bar-room-looking characters,
and looks a place of low, mean lives. Below the hotel window