More than once he was asked to hold up a bottle of whisky so that some cow-puncher might prove his skill by shooting the neck off from the flask.

The bartender was taciturn and at times glum, but his face was the only one at the bar that showed any irritation or sadness.

This railroad town was a bright, new thing for the horsemen of the trail--a very joyous thing.

No funeral could check their hilarity; no whisky could daunt their throats, long seared with alkali.
It was notorious that after the civil war human life was held very cheap all over America, it having been seen how small a thing is a man, how little missed may be a million men taken bodily from the population.

Nowhere was life cheaper than on the frontier, and at no place on that frontier of less value than at this wicked little city.
Theft was unknown, nor was murder recognised by that name, always being referred to as a "killing." Of these "killings" there were very many.
The sheriff of Ellisville looked thoughtful as he tested the machinery of the law.