Along the American frontier were always found the outlaws; sometimes they outnumbered the honest settler and sometimes not, depending more or less upon conditions. Outlaws preferred to hover on the frontier where courts of justice were unknown and where the sons of toil, busy with making a living, had no time to defend themselves against outlawry. Some of these outlaws had committed theft and robbery and were living upon this borderland of civilization, knowing that it would be perfectly safe under assumed names. Others came here for the special purpose, knowing it was easier to make a living by theft than by honest toil. Thus, the Linn county frontier at an early date was infested with this class of people, and for a number of years the rights of the people had to be protected by associations organized for this purpose, and made up of the best class in the community, until such a time as law and order could be enforced by decrees of court and by penitentiary sentences. When the first white settler came into the Red Cedar valley there were only two counties fully organized west of the Mississippi, with the exception of the state of Missouri. These counties were Dubuque and Des Moines. They extended from a flag station at Fort Armstrong back into the country forty miles, and from the Missouri line to a line running westward from Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin. It was a large tract of country, and offered secure hiding places for law violators. In this wild country, along rivers where the timber was thick, hiding places for the outlaw were offered, and when settlers did come in the outlaw did not like to remove, and, consequently tormented the actual settler and frequently took by stealth or force such personal property as he wanted. In the early day the country bordering on the Cedar river was flooded with counterfeiters, and it is stated that this counterfeit money was so well made that it was difficult to tell which was the good money and which the bad and, in fact, at times it seems that the good money was a scarce article. No one was able to tell where this counterfeit money came from, but it is supposed very little, if any, was made here but that it was imported from other places and distributed by "healers" on a percentage basis. While a cry was raised against counterfeit money, only the government could handle such cases and very little was done to start proceedings. Now and then the government attorney would bring a case or two, but as a rule the defendants were generally released by a jury, many of whom were friends of the parties accused.