There came a time when all of this changed in western Nebraska, and also a time when courts reached out. There was a judge who wrote the law on the sunset sky, who by sheer courage compelled the wild west to lift its sombrero to the majesty of legal jurisprudence. Courage alone would not have done it, but integrity and justice took the place of mouldy statute, and silly precedent or decision. Judge Gaslin was the man.

The supreme court often overruled his decisions, when ''Appeals in Error" were made. Those cases made "vigilantes," and as the judge succinctly remarked when he saw a horse thief hanging at Camp Clarke bridge: "There is one conviction that the Supreme Court will not reverse."

The main Texas Trail used to cross at Ogallala and Ash Hollow, and the Texas ranch was just below Ash Hollow. It was the annual rendezvous of the cowboys that came up from the Lone Star State. Its' nearness to Ogallala, made it handy for the boys who liked the wild life of the old cow town.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

One of the many reminiscences of Judge Gaslin has to do with that city. The judge had a name as a dispenser of justice that struck terror to evil doers, and echoed all the way from Texas to Assiniboine, for the nomads that went north in the spring and south in the fall, knew that Judge Gaslin was in western Nebraska.

One stormy night, the men of the trail were in the old hotel that used to stand just opposite the depot at Ogallala, and as the night was stormy, so were the natures of many gathered there.