Governor Hogg approved of the idea and issued an order accordingly. There was no delay in carrying it out. Captain Bill got some men together, worked all night, and by sunrise the wide gateway of the car-shed had been narrowed down to the little wicket-gate of official admission. It was a complete surprise to the opposition. The gang that had arranged to rush and pack the convention, regarded the barrier and the men delegated to defend it, with amazement and profanity. They began with epithets, and these they followed with more tangible missiles, such as umbrellas, old shoes, and handbags. In another part of the State they might have attempted the use of more effective ammunition. As it was, they were obliged to confine themselves to protests more spectacular than effectual. The regular delegates filed in and were seated. Then the crowds were permitted to enter in the usual way, whereupon another convention was immediately organized in the same hall, with another chairman on the same platform, and for a time two conventions were running side by side.
Captain McDonald was finally called to the platform to preserve order. There was a lively scene. The Ranger was kept busy keeping the two factions separate, taking away their knives, a few pistols, canes, umbrellas and such other weapons and missiles as they attempted to bring into action. The final result was that both Clark and Hogg were nominated, at the same time, in the same convention, and by the same political party, though the Clark followers were styled "Anti-Democrats" and bolters.
Hogg was re-elected in due time, by a good majority. The episode passed into history as the "Car-shed" Convention.
Taming the Pan-handle
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COWBOYS AND "BAD MEN." HOW CAPTAIN BILL MADE COW-STEALING UNPOPULAR
The Texas Pan-handle is that portion of the State which lies directly south of what was No-man's Land, extending from parallels 100 to 103, east and west. Its shape suggests its name, and its name suggests limitless areas of waving grass; vast roving herds; cowboys and ponies—both of the unbridled variety; bad men whose chief business was to start graveyards, and the glad primeval lawlessness that prevails when worlds are new.
Not so many years ago the Pan-handle was distinctly a world apart, and a new one. With No-man's Land on the north, Indian Territory on the east and New Mexico on the west, civilization could come only from the south, and it did not come very fast. Indeed there was still plenty of territory to the southward to be subdued—two or three tiers of counties in fact—before the Pan-handle would be reached. So, it was a place apart—an isolated fertile land, justifying the assertion of a tramp that he had lost a hundred thousand dollars there in one year by not having cattle to eat up the grass.