Apparently Jack in his earlier days had known Roosevelt, played polo with him, or it may be, sold him polo ponies. The great Theodore, New Yorker as he was, made a great impression on the minds of the cowboys. And again I suppose his make-up of cowboy and rough rider fired the imagination of the East. You still have to be something of a cowboy to be a real leader in America. Curious that the Republican President should masquerade as one of the Wild West?
A great nation entirely composed of clerks is unthinkable. It must have peasants, or highlanders, or cowboys, behind it; something of the wild and primitive, something of romance. Therefore it is that America clings to her conception of a glorious Wild West behind her drab clerical East. The multitudes of New York men and women gloating over Emerson Hough's The Covered Wagon at the cinema is forever characteristic of the East. It must have its real or imaginary covered wagons in the background as a part of its romance.
Nevertheless the number of cowboys and cattle ranchers has greatly decreased, driven back by farmers' wire. And the type is tamer than it was. There are still great herds. You may see the chuck-wagon going round, and meet many a wild-looking boy riding in full rig-out, but it is not denied that the old-time color has faded.
Perhaps the last ground of the real cowboy is the Mexican border, hence Las Vegas Reunion, which eclipses the show at 101 Ranch, Oklahoma, and is only to be compared with the round-up at Pendleton, Oregon, or Cheyenne in Wyoming. The spirit of the West still triumphs over the spirit of the East at Las Vegas, where in one week the "flivver" is routed by the horse, and no man who is worth his salt is seen wearing a crease in his trousers.
War whoops and colored silks and silver-studded saddles and goat-wool chaparreras and daring faces and happy horses make up Las Vegas during the days of the cowboys' gathering. Here comes Leonard Stroud on Diamond, and little Buster, aged ten, on Shetland Joe. Here comes the victor of the bronk riders, Buck Thompson, who will put the fear of God into Peggy Hopkins and Orphan Boy and Anarchist.
Here comes a cowboy with no legs, yet mounted on a mettlesome black steed and wearing a scarlet and gold shirt, full as a blouse. He is a veteran of cowboys. The parade of the cowboys forms up, led by a man in a dark chestnut shirt, with a belt full of cartridges and an ivory-mounted revolver sticking out above his hip; with him the chief judge of the riding and the races, carrying a purple and gold bannerette. Here comes the brothers Neafus on race horses. Here come a wonderful miscellany of riders, in turkey-red, in luminous purple, in unfaded pink and exuberant green; rough-necks with rough hats, hairy wrists, mighty shoulders and backs, rugged faces, and the sentimental, guileless eyes of good sportsmen and daring fellows.
There are cowgirls as well as cowboys—trim, modest, light—the wives and daughters of cowboys. Chief among them is Mayme Stroud, thin, almost hipless, with a waist like a wedding ring, high brown sombrero on her head, and hair hidden by voluminous red ribbons falling in big bows under the broad shadowy brim of her hat.
Idaho Bill brings up the tail of the procession in a ramshackle Ford car drawn by a horse. He is greatly encumbered by his camping outfit, and he has in the car with him a black bear which he caught in Mexico after it had killed his horse and badly bitten him. At least, so he says, and he will raise his trouser to show you the scars. He has buffalo horns tied to the radiator of the car; he wears his hair long, has a green coat and boots of alligator hide. Every year he goes into Mexico buying outlaw horses. Whenever he hears of a horse no Mexican can ride, he buys it to bring North for the cowboys. And he drove up this year a hundred or so of bucking horses. He is a sort of successor of Cody—a picturesque figure and a fitting living symbol of the flamboyant spirit of the West.
Some thousands of dollars have been subscribed as prizes for the cowboys in their noble sports of bronk riding, bull dogging, steer roping, relay racing, and the rest, and there are also scores of bets by cowboys on themselves. Curious, is it not, that there are few Mexican contestants and no Indians? The American cowboys can outride and outdare all Mexicans, all Indians, and are not afraid of any man or beast that breathes. As the legend of High Chin Bob narrates, if they met a lion in the hills, they'd rope him; they'd hold him fast and not let go of him till they'd dragged the spirit out of him.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" "Hold 'em, cowboy!" cries one to another as the wild horses scream with rage and rear and kick and buck and bolt with the laughing boys on their backs.