William Francis Hooker

“ Won't there be a roaring fire? And beans? And bacon? And pones of bread for everyone? Wet stockings piled on inverted yokes or held on pieces of brush, are drying, we are nursing our chilblains and discussing the incidents of the day's drive, and not a weakling in the outfit. Every man has been frozen or soaked all day, but he's as happy as a lark. ”

“ So men who engaged in this early day transportation of food and fodder for soldiers and their mounts and for the followers of Sitting Bull, Old Red Cloud and other chiefs, were careful in their social intercourse, and when the harsh word was passed, as frequently was the case, it was no uncommon thing for men to settle their score with pistols; and the winner in these duels seldom, if ever, was punished. But a cold-blooded murder—a wanton killing—was never tolerated. In a fight with pistols it was always considered that the man who did the killing was justified. ”

“ When he discovered that the chambers of Preston's revolver were temporarily empty, Snow quietly took a rifle from its leather fastenings on the side of a prairie schooner. His move looked ominous to his tormentor.
Preston was a coward, as were all of that class of killers in those days. He was an engineer of a bull team of seven yokes and a good man at his business, but a bully, a braggart and a coward, whose victims usually were known to be peaceful and who were unarmed or unprepared to defend themselves. ”

“ After the high plateau was reached—the land that represented the watershed of the Platte Valley—it was clear sailing, and while food—wild game—was plentiful, and we ate lots of it, the memory of our Christmas dinner remained to remind us after all that in the midst of greatest hardships and suffering we often find something to be thankful for, something to bring us to our senses when we grumble or complain of our ill-luck or misfortunes. ”

“ How a cow-pony can carry a man safely over such treacherous ground as the dog-towns is almost a miracle.
O! to have my fill of antelope steak or buffalo "hump" broiled on a cone of buffalo chips! Nothing better ever entered my mouth on the plains. The soothing song of the lone night-herder of the bull-train as he circles and beds his stock is not more conducive to sweeter slumbers than we enjoyed by the rippling streams in the hills of Wyoming.
The difficulty we had in boiling beans until done in so high an altitude; our hunt for a gun at old Dale Creek where "Shorty" Higgins died suddenly ”

“ And the day the Lost Indian was found was Christmas, a time when every man—plainsman and mountaineer, far from civilization and living in the open, as well as those toasting their shins at comfortable firesides in snug homes in "God's country"—has a sense of something mysteriously elevating in his soul.
Everyone in the frost-bitten bunch of overland freighters knew his program for the day was to have no change so far as the bill of fare of bacon, beans and venison was concerned, and everyone thought it was pretty good ”

“ After fighting through a ten-hour blizzard that swept across the plains from the Elk Mountain country our wagon-train reached the foothills of the Medicine Bow range, where there was shelter for the work cattle along a swift running stream. The snow was piled in great drifts everywhere except upon exposed high spots, and it seemed impossible for us to proceed farther, for we knew that along the government trail just beyond, and 1,000 feet higher, that the drifts would be so deep that a long camp where we had stopped would be necessary. ”

“ Nevertheless, the raiding bands of Ogalala Sioux that slipped over the Platte in the season of good grass were a problem for these pioneer ranchmen and transportation outfits, and it was not an uncommon thing for a bullet or an arrow to reach a vital spot in a bullwhacker from some hiding place just in range of the road. When this happened it was the common practice for members of the outfit to mount their saddle horses, with which every bull-train was well supplied, and give chase unless the lead of the Indians was too great, and usually it was. ”

“ What clouds of dust they would kick up when they got down to business! And such dust as the Chalk Bluff would make never entered the eyes or lungs of man elsewhere. Weren't we whales when we could divide or turn a herd? And how we would turn tail-to, "spur and quirt" for our lives if the bunch did not show signs of swerving from their course. ”

“ The beans had been boiled and eaten, the tin dishes and cups, pots and kettles and iron ovens dumped into the mess wagon, and two crews of men were at work jacking up wagons and greasing axle skeins, when the space at the north mouth of the corral was suddenly filled by as fine a horseman as ever galloped over the plains. ”

“ Even the jack-rabbit that stops for a look seems bedraggled and forlorn, but I whistle, pick up a moss agate, throw it in my jockey box, and jog along, for the surface is now hard as a stone, though off ahead there I will unwind my lash and send its stinging thongs to the backs of my noble beasts, touching only selected spots where the hair has been worn away until the surface looks like the head of the drum in a village band. ”

“ Stealing was a worse crime than life-taking. There never was an excuse for the first, but nearly always one could be trumped up for the latter. To take a man's horse was worse than cold-blooded murder; to rob him of his gun or his blankets was equally as bad a crime. ”

“ But we were all day reaching that green belt strung like a ribbon across the face of central Wyoming, and from the time we first hove in sight of it, until we pulled the pins from the steamy yokes, and dropped the hickory bows at our feet, it appeared and disappeared so often that I wonder that both man and beast did not go mad. However, inasmuch as this was a daily programme for me for several years, I know that man can stand a whole lot of hardship, if he only thinks so. ”

“ He was highly honored by Watson and he appreciated it, for the reason that only two years before he had come to Wyoming a green city boy and was then known in the parlance of the plains as a "tenderfoot," which was a truthful description of any man or boy when he first entered upon the life of the bullwhacker, the then popular master of transportation between civilization and its outposts. He never dreamed of death when he got his orders, because he was young and foolish. Sometimes it is called bravery, but that isn't the right word. ”

“ And then, and it is always so, some of the lively stock, as it approaches the corral, takes the notion that there is some nice sweet buffalo bunch grass to the rear that looks better than a day's work, and there is a bolt often approaching a stampede. Curses? You never heard the like, for the wagon boss and an assistant are already in their saddles helping the herder. If you tried to sleep just a minute longer it would be impossible, therefore you roll out from your bed on the ground, fold up your blankets, tie them with a strap and throw them on your trail wagon. ”

“ Redskins seldom fought a real battle in the open. To the bullwhacker he was nearly always an invisible foe, shooting his arrows or his gun from behind a rock, or from the top of a bluff, well out of range himself. When the Indians were known to be following an outfit it was common practice to keep a couple of horsemen outriders on each side of the train where possible. Frequently bull trains were obliged to corral and put up a fight, and usually the Indian lost. ”

“ I sincerely hope the last twenty-five and more years has softened his heart—if he lives—as it has softened mine, for I have only kindly thoughts of him, and even hold no grudge against the bull that reduced my efficiency by the playful caress he gave me with his hoof. ”

“ It may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, that Indians frequently attacked the very wagon trains that were hauling food to them, in Wyoming and Western Nebraska. Perhaps they were the original anarchists; anyway, they often tried—seldom successfully—to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg, but the course of civilization's stream never was seriously turned, for it flowed rapidly onward, and between 1870 and 1885, the country was quite thoroughly transformed from a wild and uninhabited territory to one of civilization and great commercial productivity. ”

“ Among the bull-train magnates of the early 70's were Charley Clay, said to be a relative of the famous statesman, and Jack Hunton. They were pioneers of Wyoming who have no doubt been quite forgotten, though in their day none in the then sparsely settled frontier territory was better known. They were not only pioneer freighters, but among the very first of the daring frontiersmen to go beyond the limits of civilization, and into the stamping grounds of the warlike tribes of Indians to establish homes. ”

“ It makes me climb the mountain sides and urge the bulls to fill their piñon yokes, tighten the chains, and hurry along the four or five tons of bacon or flour or shelled corn in gunny-sacks that Uncle Sam wants delivered somewhere over the range, across the desert sweeps, through cactus-grown, prickly pear sprinkled wastes, on through the dog-towns, in the heavy sand sifting through the spokes, and falling off in a spiral fount from the slow-turning hub. ”

“ Towns were built in a day along the South Platte River and the populations were first made up largely by the scum of the earth, consisting of criminals of all kinds from all quarters of the globe, either engaged in gambling, highway robbery or running saloons that were the toughest ever known in America.
Dance halls and dives followed the work of railroad building from Omaha to Ogden, and if the earth could speak it would tell a story of murder that would make one shudder. Hundreds of men were shot either in brawls or by robbers and their bodies buried in unmarked graves. ”

“ Julian K. Smyth, head of the Swedenborgian church in the United States, "is an affection of the will, and the will is ever in the desire to act; thus hope is not only a lively virtue, but a heroic and even a practical one." ”

“ There isn't a city 200 years old on the Atlantic coast that has more civilization, a finer lot of railroad men, more culture and good order to the square yard.
Cheyenne had a bad reputation, but it soon reformed when the natural resources of Wyoming began to be developed, and today, while we who pioneered it there so many years ago spoke of it as a "desert metropolis," are witnessing every little while either in agricultural or horticultural shows its progress in wheatfield and orchard. ”

“ Then, if the camp was to be a "wet" one—at a creek, river or spring—there would be a "layover" until four o'clock in the afternoon, during which time the boys could sleep under a wagon, wash their clothes, or if in a creek or river bottom, shoulder a gun and look for moccasin, lodge pole or bear tracks.
All day long, however, the men who were on the cook trick would make bread in Dutch ovens. And let me tell you, no bull outfit ever stopped for a long mid-day rest without putting on a huge kettle of beans, for the army or white bean was the staple food in those days ”

“ Preston's horse stood like a piece of statuary, and to give the man on his back his proper meed of credit let it be recorded that he had the appearance of a man bravely facing death, for he sat erect and made no effort to dismount, which he might have done, for he had not been fastened to the saddle, as that would have made impossible the program mapped out to the minutest detail. ”

“ But let me tell you how Preston spent the rest of his day. It was early in the afternoon when he perforated Snow's sombrero, but it was sun-down when he shot and killed Tom Sash, the boss herder, a splendid Texan, who had charge of an Indian contract beef herd which had come up the trail from the Lone Star state to the Platte Valley guided by a half dozen range men in charge of Sash, and were being grazed along the Platte bottoms previous to being doled out as per agreement with Uncle Sam to the clouted redskins at the White River Agency at Red Cloud. ”

“ In those days some things were as necessary, as indispensable as life—a horse, a saddle, a pair of blankets, a gun and ammunition and a butcher knife—perhaps a small bag of salt. The last, however, would be termed a luxury, although nearly every man in those days had a little salt stored away in a weather-proof pocket or saddle bag for the sage hen, antelope, deer, or buffalo beef he might have for dinner or breakfast. ”

“ It was while a bull outfit was loading for one of the fall trips to Fetterman that the first billiard table came to Medicine Bow. I think it was the only one in the territory outside of Cheyenne and Laramie City, both division points on the Union Pacific. There were no women in Medicine Bow, good or bad, at the time and not more than 100 regular residents, yet the town had a saloon because the bull outfits, Hunton's and others, in their occasional trips, and a few adventurers who were prospecting south and west of the "Bow," furnished ample patronage to make the enterprise profitable. ”

“ Let us suppose this is the year 1872, and that we are taking a trip across the continent on the first railroad from the Missouri River to the Golden Gate. We have passed through western Nebraska and its uninhabited hills and plains and we are entering Cheyenne, on a vast plain, yet situated at the foot of a range of the Rocky Mountains known as the lower Black Hills. We are in sight of Long's and other Colorado peaks of the Rockies and while apparently on a wide prairie for several hours we have nevertheless been climbing a steep grade all the way from Sidney, the last division point. ”

“ But when, in addition to keeping his wild "leaders" in the road and his "wheelers" filling their yokes, he has to keep an eye on a distant bad land bluff or a roll in the surface, he has his hands more than full.
This was the situation when the bull outfit, from Cheyenne to Spotted Tail, was slowly moving along north of the Platte river in August, 1875—a time when Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies were nearly deserted, and all the young bucks were chasing antelope and incidentally collecting scalps of white men when they could find a white man alone and unprepared to defend himself ”

“ Both Hunton and Clay used their ranches to range their work cattle in off seasons, although both had beef herds and lots of horses. These ranch houses were protected from Indians by less than a dozen men at any time; but these men were fighters and were known to be such by the chiefs of the tribes that frequently roamed the territory south of the Platte, although in a treaty with the Federal government they had promised to stay north of the famous stream, the consideration being, on the part of Uncle Sam, a contribution of hundreds of tons of flour, bacon, tobacco and other things. ”