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Show Tol tec feilJf ! s ; ' By ELM0 SC0TT WATS0N Air Vvf 5L f V V NCK upon a time a his- V"'fc 1 1 f iW f ft 1 torian of the American '?PEI''F rl'Ta 7 4 - fiv-V, frontier set about his task i Vi'V AO M InU V i 1 by listing and describing ,f$MXj 4li "ie "liiftruments of civili- i Y "I I. ti f , ' A i NVv zation." He named the f 1 A I M,'MJm IfflXi yvj ax. the rille. the boat and i 4' U At-lMfi'' I ' " . the horse, and then, having put these J Jt vfl! " f ixT ' "' j liinimenvs in the hands of a restless JT ,-V' VW f raw of men, he started the protag 'IVJfe W Ch "'lifts of his tale on their epic of wil- vy X'uy y'iA 1' .ieiness-breiiking. That historian' was r 'Oi"! NvX Kinerson Hough, and the book was f j t "The way to the West." published by T"' ''11 XjUl' (he r.obbsMerrill company of Indian " r A quarter of a century has passed I V 4 4 ,H ' gfTj Hi.d another historian of the frontier 3& '4bXc&LJ W ifi ST h:,s added one ...ore to the "Instru- L jAWVI?r & I rui nts of civilization," which a later 4j - 4t. NKsSs I ni.-e of resiless men used in winnin? Gdzzp cF ' QLZ 'COKSOK i He West, after their fathers had hi toiind the way to it. This was the 7 I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Sfm lll'on tlme 8 llls" I ( T torian of the American 4 " ' ."i TfJa frontit'r stt nhont his task ' JP by listing and describing JrjijrL the "Instruments of civili- zation." He named the W N HXi tle ri(ti (ie )oat aU( tlie horse, and then, having put these Instruments in the hands of a restless i nice of men, he started the protag i-nisis of his tale on their epic of wil- icrness-breiiking. That historian was Ijnerson Hough, and the book was The way to the West," published by (he r.obbs-Merrill company of Indian llpl'IlS. A quarter of a century has passed iti.il another historian of the frontier h:is added one more to the "Instru-; "Instru-; mrnts of civilization," which a later f . r;;re of resiless men used in winning I He West, after their fathers had hi lo.ind the way to it. This was the Ieivsliooter and it seems particularly appropriate that Bobbs-Merrill are ill.-o the publishers of "Hands Up! Siorles of the S!x-Gun Fighters of U. , I lie Hid Wild West," as told, by Kred I). Suttn and written down by A. 1? M a Konald. As the title Indicates, lliis hook deals with the final phase J of the frontier era. the days when : i i i ili;-.aiion, as exemplified by the . westward-pushing white man, had ilelinltely dispossessed the red man. established a home of sorts In the ; i-iieiitl.v-coiiqucred wilderness and i m-i about putting its own house in ) I order. - . t Insofar as some members' of thai I lmusehoid found It dillicult to breal. ; i.way from certain lawless habits ac H ii.-( (l; while what Theodore Koose ' wit I (lis characterized as the "rough work of conquering a continent" was j , going on, the task of taw-bringing x was done in a primitive fashion. Su pi rlluo :s forms were dispensed with li-ar.fei'linlciilitles'.ign(vred ainUl'lie- .1 ulir.g' out of justice was, in the,, ; V ( itlJt of, presenl -Inj! 'foeedur'i?, appal' fl i i.iy-siiiiple nhd di'W'.ct. ;For. In must p .!. 1 irsos Old Judge bolt was tfie tinai. I I i.rliiter, and from his dei'iiji'onSj (here' . . '. v.iis rarely nn-tippeal. ' ,, ,. ' Sutton one night at a dance to save the life of the notorious Hilly the Kid. "not polely for the reason that I knew him well but simply that 1 could not see a man murdered from behind," as he explains It. But for all that he saved Billy from being shot in the back, the author of "Hanrfs Up!" has no Illusions about that young outlaw. "If ever a man deserved de-served killing, it was Billy the Kid he says, "He was a human tiger, the most 'pitiless killer of that period In his short life of twenty-one years he killed twenty-one men, and the most of those killings were murders done in cold blood." Thus this old timer shows a refresn lug lack of maudlin sentimentality tor those kiilers which colors the writings of others who have chron Icled their dark deeds, the same type of misplaced sympathy which saves the necks of so many murderers today. to-day. He knew many of them Jesse Jaines, Cherokee Bill, Bill Doolln Crescent Sam, Belle Starr, the Pulton,, boys, the'-Jcnnhigs gang, Henry Starr Blackethfncpfl Charley and Arkansas Tom and," knowing them and the. environment en-vironment which shaped their desti nies, he can account for what they President Roosevelt on one of his vis-Its vis-Its to Oklahoma City by the veteran Billy Tilghman, as follows: "There'i one thing that always counts In a tight of that kind (between a peace officer and a bad man, equally skillful on the 'draw') the man who knows he is right always has a shade on the man who knows he Is wrong." But that was not all, according to Sutton, who explains Just how these peace officers handled their six-guns, six-guns, and In doing so he does a lot of ' much-needed debunking of the Wild West, as It Is presented by the movies. mo-vies. Sutton got ' his Information first-hand, for he once saw Wild Bill demonstrate the secret of his llght-nlng-like draw and various other matters mat-ters of Colt technique were explained to him by such masters as Bat Mas-terson, Mas-terson, Billy Tilghman. Al Jennings, and others. He learned about this When, as a boy, he first arrived In podge City, Kan., in the old days when "there was no Sunday west of Kansas City and. no God. west of Fort Smith." and was taken under the wing of such frontier notables as Mnsterson; Luke Short, Wyatt Karp. Chalk Beeson and Robert M. Wright, and he added to his knowledge in that J. ; Mention the word "gunman" mid 'J ' (HiejfititUtuHy Chinks' of tjie -gangsters " in purr big cities of Jnday. But: as.' I '.iiicrson I lough-' long" ago'-pointed out :' Cn liis "The Story of the Outlaw") V li is tjeeedlngly unfair to the gun ;i :in .of the Old West to compare the k;i!tT of today with him. "The on'e '! !.- ;:n assassin, the other was a war i r or; the one Is a dastard, the other ins something of a man," said Hough , ;,1 who declared that the nature of Jr Mme of the crimes committed by the li modern type of "gunman" "would i-Hiise a hardened desperado of the ) Win to blush for shame." And In j Unit opinion Fred Sutton, who knew j some of those old-time desperadoes 1 lir.li'.iately. seems to concur. In his I rliiipter on "The Border Code" Is an 'I ' Illuminating exposition of "the un tf written law of the Old West, which ft Cive to every man a chance." One l 'iince Is typical : fi In h freighters' camp at WaKon-Bed Furing two men quarreled, and after II uipy were separated and all of ue fl thoupht the fufs was over, one of 4 j I hem Arizona Jack, shot and killed , I' the lither without warnlna We formed f whnt wns called tack-rabbit court. . Artmna wns put on trial for his llf 1 rod found Euilty He beeeed for his t'j HO hot thp executioner lust before H he rull-d the triesrer rebuked him Pf -You re -ot as decent, even, as a m ,-attk'cnake. for it warns before It I "'7, 'Jus this same code which caused were and what they did. But he does not glorify". Mheir crimes.' He may have, admired them for what good qualities' they did possess, but he ad mires more the type of gunman who drew his six-shooter in the cause of law and order. "Nearly till those peace oflicers of the old frontier were likable men, but there was nothing maudlin or Irresolute about them They knew that death was the onlj penalty that would curb those wild men of the border, and when It was necessary to Inflict It they did no. hesitate," says Sutton. Such were Wild Bill Hickok, whom he character izes as "unquestionably the fastest and surest man with a six-shoote. that the West ever knew." Bat Mas lerson, Pat Garrett and Billy Tilgh man. It was men of this type who used the six-shooter as an "instru ment of civilization." "Fill your hand!" was the remark that Wild Bill made when he "got the drop on" a bad man from Texas who had come up the trail to Hays City Kan., where Bill was marshal, with the announced intention of spilling the Hickok blood. For the border code extended to these exponents ot law and order when they set about arresting a desperado and made them -give the other fellow a chance, even when it was exceedingly dangerous to do so." One of the reasons they were willing to do so was explained to turbulent period wnen Isaac u. i iirhtr was the "hanging Judge" at Fort Smith, Ark, and' the outlaw- gangs, such as the Dnltons, the Doolins and others, were making their last stand in what Is now the .state of Oklahoma The sum total of Sutton's observations, observa-tions, as set down In. the pages of Ids book, Is a paraphrase of the old saying that "they who take the sword shall perish by the sword." For, as he puts It, "The six-shooter ended the lives of nine-tenths of all the outlaws of the Wild West." And It was almost al-most equally true of those others who took up the six-shooter in defense de-fense of the law. Of the four moc j fumou? peace officers whom Sutton knew, three went down before a smoking six-shooter. Wild Bill' brief career as "prince of pistol-eers" pistol-eers" ended abruptly in 1S76, when he was shot down from behind In Deadwood, S. D. Nearly a quar ter of a century after Pat Garrett had killed Billy the Kid. he himself was shot and killed. After fifty-one years as a peace officer Billy Tilghman went out" as he had hoped to do "in smoke mid with hi? boots on." He was shot In an Oklahoma oil tiooni town in 1924 by a man whom he had arrested and was taking to the police station. Only Hal Majtterson, who left the Wild West years ugo to le come a New York newspaper man died peacefully "with his boots otT." |