He has no court to uphold his honor and to offer him protection, so he must be quick to protect himself and to maintain his own standing.

His nature saved him, or it executed; and the range absolved him of all unpaid penalties of a careless past.
He became a man born again and he took up his burden, the exactions of a new environment, and he lived as long as those exactions gave him the right to live.

He must tolerate no restrictions of his natural rights, and he must not restrict; for the one would proclaim him a coward, the other a bully; and both received short shrifts in that land of the self-protected.

The basic law of nature is the survival of the fittest.
So, when the wanderers found their level in Buckskin they were not even asked by what name men knew them.

Not caring to hear a name which might not harmonize with their idea of the fitness of things, the cowboys of the Bar-20 had, with a freedom born of excellent livers and fearless temperaments, bestowed names befitting their sense of humor and adaptability.