The next morning we arose and went to look after our ponies. What a pitiful sight we beheld when we came upon them in the secluded place where we had tethered them! They were gaunt, covered and caked with perspiration and dust of the preceding day’s chase.
We gave them a good rub-down and plenty of food and water, which refreshed them very much. After a good breakfast, we took a farewell look at the camp and returned to the ranch. The black stallion with his flowing mane and tail became a matter of past history of the plains. In conclusion I shall say that my two companions of the chase of thirty-two years ago are still both hale and hearty business men in the Queen City of the Canadian, El Reno, Okla.
CHAPTER VIII.
Further Reflections on Western Life; Also on the East; Why I Came West; Some Men I Have Met; Cowboy Acquaintances, etc.
When commencing to write this semi-historical work, it was my intention to confine myself to the early settlement of “No-Man’s-Land,” but find that I must include the Panhandle to Texas and the South-western part of Kansas, as the soil, climate, and social conditions were almost identical. The industries of all three localities were very much the same, excepting that the Panhandle was much better adapted to cattle raising than to agriculture. In fact, farming was looked upon by cattlemen as too menial an occupation for them to engage in, and, consequently, they knew little about it and cared less. Their indifference to agriculture was such that they would prefer literally to starve to death than endeavor to gain subsistence from the soil. The difference between the old-time cow-puncher and the Chyenne Indian as agriculturists was very little. The former might do a little at farming if he knew how, and the latter might know how if he would only do a little at it. It seemed to be the height of the average cow-puncher’s ambition to ride on a fifty-dollar saddle, wear a ten-dollar Stetson hat, a pair of silver mounted spurs, a pair of ten-dollar high-heeled boots, leather leggings, a slicker and a forty-five calibre white handled six-shooter. This made a complete outfit to suit his vanity. Riding broncos, roping wild cattle, running races, and branding mavericks were his principal business and amusement. Attending the spring and fall round-ups, and driving beef stock to market rounded out his season’s work.
It is true that there are some exceptions to the general rule. As an example, about twenty-eight years ago I became acquainted with a green cow-puncher, fresh from some Texas town, a tall, fair-haired lad, who was rather reticent, but very punctual in his work. He was the first out in the morning, last in at night and was ready for anything that was to be done in the meantime. His manner lacked the boisterousness of the swaggering swearing, blow-hard that was very frequently encountered in the days work. It was apparent to all that he was a man of reliability and integrity. He was employed by R. M. Wright and Martin Culver to superintend the “W-L” ranch. He was successful in his management and at the same time displayed an honesty that was something new to some of the settlers in his neighborhood. He never permitted a man to rope an animal until he was certain of the brand, and knew to whom the property belonged. Such a man was certain to rise in the world and today one would find it difficult to recognize in Mr. R. A. Harper, president of the First National Bank, Meade, Kansas, the stripling greenhorn of thirty years ago. Another of the old-time successful cow-punchers, who fought the battle of life alone and single-handed as cowmen, farmer, merchant, sometimes overtaken by adversity but never discouraged, who plodded on until he reached the top of the financial ladder beyond the reach of want, is Mr. C. M. Rice, of El Reno, Okla.
The majority of the early settlers who stayed throughout the first hard times, managed to do fairly well, accepting the changed conditions as law and order moved in, while a few developed foolish notions about the curtailment of their freedom, as they called it, and resented the encroachment and manifested their disposition by holding up trains, or other depredations. Such a course of conduct invariably proved a failure and brought disaster upon the defenders of such a cause. The state prisons are still harboring some of those misguided men, protecting them from themselves as well as defending society at large from their peculiar notions. It may seem strange to the reader, but the greater part of the so-called bad men of this country came from the East where they first conceived a false impression of the wildness of the West. The origin of their idea arose from the reading of a poor class of literature. Such reading created in their young minds the idea of being “bad men of the West” and they were not long in putting the idea into practice. Just to mention a few of the most notorious, I shall set down the names of Billy the Kid, from New York, Dutch Henry from Michigan, Sam Bass from Indiana. I might mention dozens of others whose careers of iniquity did not last as long as those mentioned above. As for the real Western-bred bad men, they were very few in number and were usually driven to it by being credited with the crimes of others.
One of the principal causes of the development of the outlaw was, as I said above, the publication of fiction and falsehood in such papers as the New York Weeklys and dime novels. These were scattered broadcast over the country in cheap editions and the result was the creation of false impressions of the West, and at the same time inflamed the imagination and corrupted the minds of many of the then rising generation.