Cowboy

“ It is this herd-spirit that the cowboy, on his long, cross-desert drives to the railroad, most fears. The herd is like a crowd, easily led, easily excited, easily stampeded,—when it becomes a mob of frenzied beasts, past all control,—the spirit of the city 'gang' at riot in the plains. ”

“ I think the very cowboy in the farmyard—a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes—even the cowboy knows that I am to be Madame Lenoble of Côtenoir. ”

“ Here also is the home of the cowboy, the man who lives on the horse and rides as if horse and man were one animal. His duty it is to ride among the great herds, keep them in order, stop them when they run away in mad fright, and live among them as the sheep-dog lives among the sheep. Brave fellows and splendid riders are these cowboys, among the best in the world. ”

“ In cutting out a steer from a herd, in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting a bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede of many hundred maddened animals, or in the performance of a hundred other feats of reckless and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled ”

“ It would take two hundred thousand words to tell in half fashion the story of the cowboy. His religion of fatalism, his courage, his rides at full swing in midnight darkness to head and turn and hold a herd stampeded, when a slip on the storm-soaked grass by his unshod pony, or a misplaced prairie-dog hole, means a tumble, and a tumble means that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of cattle, with hoofs like chopping knives, will run over him and make him look and feel and become as dead as a cancelled postage stamp ”

“ A Much Maligned Class--The Cowboy as he Is, and as he is Supposed to be--Prairie Fever and how it is Cured--Life on the Ranch Thirty Years Ago and Now--Singular Fashions and Changes of Costume--Troubles Encountered by would-be Bad Men.
Among the thoroughly American types of humanity, none is more striking or unique than the cowboy. This master of horsemanship and subduer of wild and even dangerous cattle, has been described in so many ways that a great difference of opinion exists as to what he was, and what he is. ”

“ With his big bell spurs and his Spanish hoss,
He'll swear to you he was once a boss.
The cowboy's life is a dreary, dreary life,
He's driven through the heat and cold;
While the rich man's a-sleeping on his velvet couch,
Dreaming of his silver and gold.
Spring-time sets in, double trouble will begin,
The weather is so fierce and cold;
Clothes are wet and frozen to our necks,
The cattle we can scarcely hold.
The cowboy's life is a dreary one,
He works all day to the setting of the sun;
And (p. 234) then his day's work is not done,
For there's his night herd to go on. ”

“ There is one street in the town, where the cowboy's pony and the little foal of the brood-mare in the buggy rest contentedly in the blinding sunshine while the cowboy gets himself shaved at the only other barber's shop, and swaps lies at the bar. ”

“ Do the ranch-houses ring with the prattle
Of sweet little children at play?
At night in the bright stars up yonder
Do the cowboys lie down to their rest?
Do they gaze at this old world and wonder
If rough riders dash over its breast?
Do they list to the wolves in the canyons?
Do they watch the night owl in its flight,
With their horse their only companion
While guarding the herd through the night?
Sometimes (p. 298) when a bright star is twinkling
Like a diamond set in the sky,
I find myself lying and thinking,
It may be God's heaven is nigh. ”

“ But first I think we had better start walking toward the Bar T ranch house. We ought to meet some of the cowboys. Br-r—it’s cold!” and Bud shivered in the piercing chill of the spring night.
To the plainsman walking is the most refined form of punishment. Your real cowboy slouches miserably along in his tight-fitting, uncomfortable high-heeled boots, looking about as much in his element as a stranded whale. In cowboy parlance his “feet don’t track,” his backbone wilts, and his knees bow naturally as a result of early horseback riding. ”

“ It is a romance interwoven with deeds of daring, nerve, and big-heartedness that will survive long after civilization has stamped out every need for the brave men who have been known by the name of cowboy. ”

“ Any dreams he might have cherished of becoming the little tin hero of the cow country were shattered beyond repair, and he saw the American cowboy as he really is—a very frail and human creature, who scorns all things new and foreign, and particularly objects to Eastern tenderfeet who try to beat him at his own game. ”

“ Cattle had first been brought into the country only a few years before—old-fashioned long-horns driven up over the trail from Texas.
In those days the people in the West were not many. Towns were small, farms almost unknown, wagon roads few. Except about the pastures of the larger ranches, there were no fences. Over most of the land the cowboy roamed alone.
His seemed a life of romance. Free as the birds, he wandered over the wide range, going when and where he pleased. But this romance was only apparent. No man worked harder than he, or for less reward. ”

“ The cowboy and the Gruagach stood by the fire. A stork was boiling in the pot, as when the Gruagach came the first time. The master of the house went into the next room and brought out an iron and a wooden pike, and asked the cowboy which would he choose.
"I'll take the wooden one," said the cowboy; "and you may keep the iron one for yourself." ”

“ That might show some of the difference in the work the cowboy and the cowhorse does with a real cow outfit.—The men go to pieces young and early and the ponies stay fat,—but there was no grudge for there's nobody in the world likes to see and ride a fat strong horse more than does the cowboy. ”

“ I was not laughing at you, but at the very great aversion in which you hold anyone who has at one time followed the profession of a cowboy. As one who was born practically with a lariat in his hand I claim the liberty of being amused at that aversion. I've known many of the cow punching trade, and a good few others, and while the boys are frequently rough they are generally white—a great deal whiter than their critics—and with sounder respect for a good woman than I have found in circles that consider themselves superior. ”

“ A cowboy swings from his horned saddle, and dexterously, without a waste movement, skins the bristly beast, whose lips in death snarl away from yellowed tusks. The butchering is unpleasant and malodorous, but interesting. The knife releases the entrails, and a small rough boot is planted conveniently midmost of the smoking ruins that seem to shrink from contact with an inimical outer world. ”

“ Let sixteen cowboys come sing me a song,
Take me to the graveyard and lay the sod o'er me,
For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong.
"My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone.
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman,
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong. ”

“ For though the life of a cowboy may seem very picturesque when you view it from a seat in a tent or say from Madison Square Garden, in New York, the real facts of the case are vastly different.
No one can ride horses in the slap-dash style the cowboys ride them, and they can not handle cattle—often vicious ones—the way the beasts are handled, without accidents happening. ”

“ Before all things the cowboy is a horseman. His pride in this almost amounts to a craze. His fastidiousness in horse-flesh, in his accoutrements, his boots, [Pg 158] his chapps, his jaunty silk handkerchief about his neck, even to the gauntlets he so often wears upon his hands, is an education in dandyism. He is a thorough dandy in his outfit. And the greater the dandy, the more surely is he a capable horseman. He is not a horse-breaker by trade, but he loves “broncho-busting” as a boy loves his recreation. ”

“ One cannot in such cramped space so much as hit the high places in a cowboy career.
At work on the range and about his camp—for, bar accidents, wherever you find a cowboy you will find a camp—the cowboy is a youth of sober quiet dignity. There is a deal of deep politeness and nothing of epithet, insult or horseplay where everybody wears a gun. ”

“ So we will put ideas into words, our words into a song.
First comes the cowboy, he is pointed for the west;
Of all the pioneers I claim the cowboys are the best;
You will miss him on the round-up, it's gone, his merry shout,—
The cowboy has left the country and the campfire has gone out.
There is the freighters, our companions, you've got to leave this land,
Can't drag your loads for nothing through the gumbo and the sand.
The railroads are bound to beat you when you do your level best ”

“ There was a lot of memories stirred up whenever them songs was heard and many a cowboy got sentimental at the sound of 'em, for most all cowboys can remember some quiet night when the time of such a song was spread around the herd;—then of a sudden and for no reason a stampede is in full swing, a dead cowboy is found under his horse at the bottom of a fifty foot jump off, and leaves only the memory of the song he'd been singing that night. ”

“ Leaving for a moment the personal characteristics of the much-maligned cowboy, who has been described as everything from a stage-robber to a cutthroat, we may with profit devote a little space to a consideration of his attire as it was, and as it is. In the picture of a cowboy in this work the modern dress is shown very accurately. ”

“ Surely a more irrational foot-covering never was invented; yet these tight, peaked cowboy boots had a great significance and may indeed be called the insignia of a calling. There was no prouder soul on earth than the cowboy. He was proud of being a horseman and had a contempt for all human beings who walked. ”

“ Those who talk so much about the bad habits of these people, will hardly credit the fact that many a cowboy abstains from liquor and tobacco for an entire year at a stretch, simply because he wants to purchase some article of attire, which he thinks will make him the envy of the entire ranch.
The cow pony is worthy of as much attention and thought as the cowboy. ”

“ But individually the cowboy was likely to be the soul of honor and good-nature, troublesome only on holidays when he was moved to ride into the nearest settlement, drink up all the whisky he could buy, and then, with six-shooter drawn, go careering up and down the streets, shooting in random directions, explaining meantime with noisy and repetitious adjectives, that he was a bad man—a very bad man from very far up the Creek. ”

“ The cowboy's long, low whistle and singing by their side.
"When in Kansas City, our boss he pays us up,
We loaf around the city and take a parting cup;
We bid farewell to city life, from noisy crowds we come,
And back to dear old Texas, the cowboy's native home."
Oh, he is coming back to marry the only girl he loves,
He says I am his darling, I am his own true love;
Some day we two will marry and then no more he'll roam,
But settle down with Mary in a cozy little home.
"Ho, I'm a jolly cowboy, from Texas now I hail,
Give me my bond to Mary, I'll quit the Lone Star trail. ”

“ They never desert each other, but stay and fight and die and storm a jail and shoot a sheriff if needs press, to rescue a comrade made captive in their company. Also they care for each other when sick or injured, and set one another's bones when broken in the falls and tumbles of their craft. On the range the cowboy is quiet, just and peaceable. There are neither women nor cards nor rum about the cow camps. ”

“ Perhaps these songs, coming direct from the cowboy's experience, giving vent to his careless and his tender emotions, will afford future generations a truer conception of what he really was than is now possessed by those who know him only through highly colored romances.
The big ranches of the West are now being cut up into small farms. The nester has come, and come to stay. Gone is the buffalo, the Indian warwhoop, the free grass of the open plain;—even the stinging lizard, the horned frog, the centipede, the prairie dog, the rattlesnake, are fast disappearing. ”

“ Once the herd is off his hands and his mind at the end of the drive, the cowboy unbuckles and reposes himself from his labours. He becomes deeply and famously drunk. Hungering for the excitement of play he collides amiably with faro and monte and what other deadfalls are rife of the place. ”

“ Strictly speaking, we should, perhaps, have only used one, for many of the best judges say that there is no such thing as a cowboy in this day and generation. He flourished in all his glory in the days of immense ranges, when there was an abundance of elbow room for both man and beast, and when such modern interferences with the cattle business as the barb-wire fence did not exist. The work of cattle herding and feeding to-day certainly differs in a most remarkable manner from that of thirty and even twenty years ago, and the man has naturally changed with his work. ”

“ Now, the cowboy is, to all intents and purposes, a farm hand. He feeds the stock, drives it to water when necessary, and goes to the nearest market town to dispose of surplus products, with all the system and method of a thoroughly domesticated man. Formerly he had charge of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of branded cattle, which ranged at will over boundless prairies, and the day's work was frequently varied by a set-to with some unfriendly Indians or some exceptionally daring cattle thieves. ”