Violence was the rule.

Force was the only recognized authority.

The commonest misunderstandings were settled on the spot with the revolver or the knife.

Murders were done in open day, and with sparkling frequency, and nobody thought of inquiring into them.
It was considered that the parties who did the killing had their private reasons for it; for other people to meddle would have been looked upon as indelicate.

After a murder, all that Rocky Mountain etiquette required of a spectator was, that he should help the gentleman bury his game -- otherwise his churlishness would surely be remembered against him the first time he killed a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in interring him.
Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the midst of this hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very first time one of them aired his insolent swaggerings in his presence he shot him dead! He began a raid on the outlaws, and in a singularly short space of time he had completely stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered a large number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst desperadoes of the district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over the rest that they respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed him! He wrought the same marvelous change in the ways of the community that had marked his administration at Overland City.