By the 1890s loafers had become such a problem that some newly organized counties, as well as certain cattle outfits, paid bounties for their scalps. For a cowboy making a dollar or so a day, wolf-hunting could be lucrative.

At that time, Captain Thomas G. Peyton, U.S. Navy, who had only served a dog watch as Captain of the Port at Noumea, New Caledonia, reported for this important billet.

You must have had the patience of a saint to sit through that awful film!

Whenever the Bobbies heard my step on the long outside stair, every body electrified. Tongues drew in, ears squared, noses lifted. The peer from all the eyes under all the bangs of crimpy hair concentrated into one enormous “looking,” riveted upon the turning of the stair where I would first show.