A Happy Hunting Ground

Judge Fenton:

[gestures to the large map hanging on the wall]

Here you are: the Oklahoma and Indian Territory, the Year of Our Lord 1889. Nineteen marshals. I was authorized sixty when I came here; told the President even that was not half enough.

Nineteen marshals—and one court—to cover nearly 70,000 square miles! A happy hunting ground filled with bushwackers, horse thieves, whiskey peddlers, counterfeiters, hide peelers, marauders that’ll kill ya for a hatband!

— “Hang ‘Em High” (1968)