Santa Fé's Partner / Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town

“‘LOOK! LOOK! THERE BY THOSE LITTLE BUSHES!’”
Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.
Published September, 1907.
C. A. J.
1
Santa Fé’s Partner

I’ve been around considerable in the Western Country––mostly some years back––and I’ve seen quite a little, one way and another, of the folks living there: but I can’t really and truly say I’ve often come up with them nature’s noblemen––all the time at it doing stunts in natural nobility––the story-books make out is the chief population of them parts. Like enough the young fellers from the East who write such sorts of books––having plenty of spare time for writing, while they’re giving their feet a rest to get 2 the ache out––do come across ’em, same as they say they do; but I reckon the herd’s a small one––and, for a fact, if you could cross the book brand with the kind you mostly meet on the ranges the breed would be improved.
Cow-punchers and prospectors and such don’t look like and don’t act like what tenderfoots is accustomed to, and so they size ’em up to be different all the way through. They ain’t. They’re just plain human nature, same as the rest of us––only more so, through not being herded close in. About the size of it is, most folks needs barbed wire to keep ’em from straying. In a rough country––where laws and constables ain’t met with frequent––a good-sized slice of the population ’s apt to run wild. With them that’s white, it don’t much matter. The worst you can say against ’em is, they sometimes do a little more shooting than seems really needed; but such doings is apt to have a show of reason at the bottom of ’em, and don’t happen often anyhow––most being satisfied to work off their high spirits some 3 other way. With them that’s not white, things is different. When the Apache streak gets on top it sends ’em along quick into clear deviltry––the kind that makes you cussed just for the sake of cussedness and not caring a damn; and it’s them that has give some parts of the Western Country––like it did New Mexico in the time I’m talking about, when they was bunched thick there––its bad name.