He had started a horse ranch, and had quite honestly purchased
a number of broken-down horses of different brands, with the view of
doctoring them and selling them again. About this time there had been
much horse-stealing and cattle-killing in our Territory and in Montana,
and under the direction of some of the big cattle-growers a committee
of vigilantes had been organized to take action against the rustlers,
as the horse thieves and cattle thieves were called. The vigilantes, or
stranglers, as they were locally known, did their work thoroughly; but,
as always happens with bodies of the kind, toward the end they grew
reckless in their actions, paid off private grudges, and hung men on
slight provocation. Riding into Jap Hunt's ranch, they nearly hung him
because he had so many horses of different brands. He was finally let
off. He was much upset by the incident, and explained again and again,
"The idea of saying that I was a horse thief! Why, I never stole a horse
in my life--leastways from a white man. I don't count Indians nor the
Government, of course." Jap had been reared among men still in the stage
of tribal morality, and while they recognized their obligations to one
another, both the Government and the Indians seemed alien bodies, in
regard to which the laws of morality did not apply.
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