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diff --git a/old/69118-0.txt b/old/69118-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e023ddb..0000000 --- a/old/69118-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4631 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The West from a car window, by Richard -Harding Davis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The West from a car window - -Author: Richard Harding Davis - -Illustrator: Frederick Remington - -Release Date: October 8, 2022 [eBook #69118] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - created from images of public domain material made - available by the University of Toronto Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEST FROM A CAR -WINDOW *** - - -[Illustration: A BUCKING BRONCHO] - - - - - THE WEST - FROM A CAR-WINDOW - - BY - - RICHARD HARDING DAVIS - AUTHOR OF “VAN BIBBER AND OTHERS” ETC. - - ILLUSTRATED - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK AND LONDON - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1903 - - - - - Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - - TO - M. K. J. - OF - THE SEVENTH INFANTRY - - [Illustration] - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - FROM SAN ANTONIO TO CORPUS CHRISTI 3 - - OUR TROOPS ON THE BORDER 27 - - AT A NEW MINING CAMP 59 - - A THREE-YEAR-OLD CITY 93 - - RANCH LIFE IN TEXAS 121 - - ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION 151 - - A CIVILIAN AT AN ARMY POST 185 - - THE HEART OF THE GREAT DIVIDE 215 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - - _A Bucking Broncho_ Frontispiece - - _Head-piece_ 3 - - _Rangers in Camp_ 9 - - “_Remember the Alamo!_” 19 - - _Trumpeter Tyler_ 29 - - _Captain Francis H. Hardie, G Troop, Third United States Cavalry_ 37 - - _Water_ 43 - - _The Mexican Guide_ 49 - - _Third Cavalry Troopers--Searching a Suspected Revolutionist_ 53 - - _Mining Camp on the Range Above Creede_ 60 - - _Creede_ 63 - - _How Land is Claimed for Building--Planks Nailed Together and - Resting on Four Stumps_ 66 - - _The “Holy Moses” Mine_ 69 - - _Debatable Ground--A Warning to Trespassers_ 73 - - _A Mining Camp Court-house_ 75 - - _Shaft of a Mine_ 79 - - _Valuable Real Estate_ 83 - - _Upper Creede_ 87 - - _Oklahoma City on the Day of the Opening_ 94 - - _Five Days After the Opening_ 97 - - _Four Weeks After the Opening_ 101 - - _Captain D. F. Stiles_ 105 - - _Post-office, April 22, 1889_ 108 - - _Post-office, July 4, 1890_ 111 - - _Oklahoma City To-day--Main Broadway_ 115 - - _The Ranch-house on the King Ranch, the Largest Range Owned by - One Individual in the United States_ 123 - - _A Shattered Idol_ 127 - - _Snapping a Rope on a Horse’s Foot_ 130 - - _Hillingdon Ranch_ 133 - - _Fixing a Break in the Wire Fence_ 137 - - _Gathering the Rope_ 141 - - _Reaction Equals Action_ 145 - - _Tail-piece_ 148 - - _The Cheyenne Type_ 152 - - _Big Bull_ 155 - - _One of Williamson’s Stages_ 159 - - _The Beef Issue at Anadarko_ 163 - - _Indian Boy and Pinto Pony_ 169 - - _A Kiowa Maiden_ 175 - - _A One-company Post at Oklahoma City_ 187 - - _The Omnipotent Bugler_ 191 - - _United States Military Post at San Antonio_ 195 - - _United States Cavalryman in Full Dress_ 199 - - _United States Military Post--Infantry Parade_ 203 - - _Fort Houston, at San Antonio--Officers’ Quarters_ 207 - - _The Barracks, Fort Houston_ 210 - - _Gateway of the Garden of the Gods, and Pike’s Peak_ 217 - - _Within the Gates, Garden of the Gods_ 223 - - _Polo Above the Snow-line at Colorado Springs_ 227 - - _Mount of the Holy Cross_ 233 - - _Pike’s Peak from Colorado Springs_ 239 - - - - -I - -FROM SAN ANTONIO TO CORPUS CHRISTI - - - - -[Illustration: THE WEST FROM A CAR-WINDOW - - By - Richard Harding Davis.] - - - - -I - -FROM SAN ANTONIO TO CORPUS CHRISTI - - -IT is somewhat disturbing to one who visits the West for the first time -with the purpose of writing of it, to read on the back of a railroad -map, before he reaches Harrisburg, that Texas “is one hundred thousand -square miles larger than all the Eastern and Middle States, including -Maryland and Delaware.” It gives him a sharp sensation of loneliness, -a wish to apologize to some one, and he is moved with a sudden desire -to get out at the first station and take the next train back, before -his presumption is discovered. He might possibly feel equal to the fact -that Texas is “larger than all of the Eastern and Middle States,” but -this easy addition of one hundred thousand square miles, and the casual -throwing in of Maryland and Delaware like potatoes on a basket for good -measure, and just as though one or two States more or less did not -matter, make him wish he had sensibly confined his observations to that -part of the world bounded by Harlem and the Battery. - -If I could travel over the West for three years, I might write of it -with authority; but when my time is limited to three months, I can -only give impressions from a car-window point of view, and cannot -dare to draw conclusions. I know that this is an evident and cowardly -attempt to “hedge” at the very setting forth. But it is well to -understand what is to follow. All that I may hope to do is to tell what -impressed an Eastern man in a hurried trip through the Western States. -I will try to describe what I saw in such a way that those who read may -see as much as I saw with the eyes of one who had lived in the cities -of the Eastern States, but the moral they draw must be their own, and -can differ from mine as widely as they please. - -An Eastern man is apt to cross the continent for the first time with -mixed sensations of pride at the size of his country, and shame at his -ignorance concerning it. He remembers guiltily how he has told that -story of the Englishman who asks the American in London, on hearing he -is from New York, if he knows his brother in Omaha, Nebraska. And as -the Eastern man finds from the map of his own country that the letters -of introduction he has accepted from intelligent friends are addressed -to places one and two thousand miles apart, he determines to drop that -story about the Englishman, and tell it hereafter at the expense of -himself and others nearer home. - -His first practical surprise perhaps will be when he discovers the -speed and ease with which numerous States are passing under him, and -that smooth road-beds and parlor-cars remain with him to the very -borders of the West. The change of time will trouble him at first, -until he gets nearer to Mexico, when he will have his choice of -three separate standards, at which point he will cease winding his -watch altogether, and devote his “twenty minutes for refreshments” -to watching the conductor. But this minor and merely nominal change -will not distress him half so seriously as will the sudden and actual -disarrangement of his dinner hour from seven at night to two in the -afternoon, though even this will become possible after he finds people -in south-western Texas eating duck for breakfast. - -He will take his first lesson in the politics of Texas and of the rest -of the West when he first offers a ten-dollar bill for a dollar’s worth -of something, and is given nine large round silver dollars in change. -When he has twenty or more of these on his person, and finds that his -protests are met with polite surprise, he understands that silver is a -large and vital issue, and that the West is ready to suffer its minor -disadvantages for the possible good to come. - -He will get his first wrong impression of the West through reading the -head-lines of some of the papers, and from the class of books offered -for sale on the cars and in the hotels and book-stores from St. Louis -to Corpus Christi. These head-lines shock even a hardened newspaper -man. But they do not represent the feeling of their readers, and in -that they give a wrong and unfortunate impression to the visiting -stranger. They told while I was in St. Louis of a sleighing party of -twenty, of whom nine were instantly killed by a locomotive, and told it -as flippantly as though it were a picnic; but the accident itself was -the one and serious comment of the day, and the horror of it seemed to -have reached every class of citizen. - -It is rather more difficult to explain away the books. They are too -obvious and too much in evidence to be accidental. To judge from them, -one would imagine that Boccaccio, Rabelais, Zola, and such things as -_Velvet Vice_ and _Old Sleuth_, are all that is known to the South-west -of literature. It may be that the booksellers only keep them for their -own perusal, but they might have something better for their customers. - -The ideas which the stay-at-home Eastern man obtains of the extreme -borderland of Texas are gathered from various sources, principally -from those who, as will all travellers, make as much of what they have -seen as is possible, this much being generally to show the differences -which exist between the places they have visited and their own home. Of -the similarities they say nothing. Or he has read of the bandits and -outlaws of the Garza revolution, and he has seen the Wild West show of -the Hon. William F. Cody. The latter, no doubt, surprised and delighted -him very much. A mild West show, which would be equally accurate, would -surprise him even more; at least, if it was organized in the wildest -part of Texas between San Antonio and Corpus Christi. - -When he leaves this first city and touches at the border of Mexico, -at Laredo, and starts forth again across the prairie of cactus and -chaparral towards “Corpus,” he feels assured that at last he is -done with parlor-cars and civilization; that he is about to see the -picturesque and lawless side of the Texan existence, and that he has -taken his life in his hands. He will be the more readily convinced -of this when the young man with the broad shoulders and sun-browned -face and wide sombrero in the seat in front raises the car-window, -and begins to shoot splinters out of the passing telegraph poles with -the melancholy and listless air of one who is performing a casual -divertisement. But he will be better informed when the Chicago drummer -has risen hurriedly, with a pale face, and has reported what is going -on to the conductor, and he hears that dignitary say, complacently: -“Sho! that’s only ‘Will’ Scheeley practisin’! He’s a dep’ty sheriff.” - -He will learn in time that the only men on the borders of Texas who -are allowed to wear revolvers are sheriffs, State agents in charge of -prisoners, and the Texas Rangers, and that whenever he sees a man so -armed he may as surely assume that he is one of these as he may know -that in New York men in gray uniforms, with leather bags over their -shoulders, are letter-carriers. The revolver is the Texan officer’s -badge of office; it corresponds to the New York policeman’s shield; and -he toys with it just as the Broadway policeman juggles his club. It is -quite as harmless as a toy, and almost as terrible as a weapon. - -This will grieve the “tenderfoot” who goes through the West “heeled,” -and ready to show that though he is from the effete East, he is able to -take care of himself. - -It was first brought home to me as I was returning from the border, -where I had been with the troops who were hunting for Garza, and was -waiting at a little station on the prairie to take the train for -Corpus Christi. I was then told politely by a gentleman who seemed of -authority, that if I did not take off that pistol I would be fined -twenty-five dollars, or put in jail for twenty days. I explained to -him where I had been, and that my baggage was at “Corpus,” and that I -had no other place to carry it. At which he apologized, and directed a -deputy sheriff, who was also going to Corpus Christi, to see that I was -not arrested for carrying a deadly weapon. - -This, I think, illustrates a condition of things in darkest Texas -which may give a new point of view to the Eastern mind. It is possibly -something of a revelation to find that instead of every man protecting -himself, and the selection of the fittest depending on who is “quickest -on the trigger,” he has to have an officer of the law to protect him -if he tries to be a law unto himself. - -While I was on the border a deputy sheriff named Rufus Glover, who was -acting as a guide for Captain Chase, of the Third Cavalry, was fired -upon from an ambush by persons unknown, and killed. A Mexican brought -the news of this to our camp the night after the murder, and described -the manner of the killing, as it had occurred, at great length and with -much detail. - -Except that he was terribly excited, and made a very dramatic picture -as he stood in the fire-light and moon-light and acted the murder, it -did not interest me, as I considered it to be an unfortunate event of -very common occurrence in that part of the world. But the next morning -every ranchman and cowboy and Texas Ranger and soldier we chanced to -meet on the trail to Captain Hunter’s camp took up the story of the -murder of Rufus Glover, and told and retold what some one else had told -him, with desperate earnestness and the most wearying reiteration. -And on the day following, when the papers reached us, we found that -reporters had been sent to the scene of the murder from almost every -part of south-west Texas, many of whom had had to travel a hundred -miles, and then ride thirty more through the brush before they reached -it. How many city editors in New York City would send as far as that -for anything less important than a railroad disaster or a Johnstown -flood? - -[Illustration: RANGERS IN CAMP] - -On the fourth day after the murder of this in no way celebrated or -unusually popular individual, the people of Duval County, in which he -had been killed, called an indignation meeting, and passed resolutions -condemning the county officials for not suppressing crime, and -petitioning the Governor of the State to send the Rangers to put -an end to such lawlessness--that is, the killing of one man in an -almost uninhabited country. The committee who were to present this -petition passed through Laredo on the way to see the Governor. Laredo -is one hundred miles from the scene of the murder, and in an entirely -different county; but there the popular indignation and excitement were -so great that another mass-meeting was called, and another petition was -made to the Governor, in which the resolutions of Duval County were -endorsed. I do not know what his Excellency did about it. There were in -the Tombs in New York when I left that city twenty-five men awaiting -trial for murder, and that crime was so old a story in the Bend and -along the East Side that the most morbid newspaper reader skipped the -scant notice the papers gave of them. It would seem from this that the -East should reconstruct a new Wild West for itself, in which a single -murder sends two committees of indignant citizens to the State capital -to ask the Governor what he intends to do about it. - -But the West is not wholly reconstructed. There are still the Texas -Rangers, and in them the man from the cities of the East will find the -picturesqueness of the Wild West show and its happiest expression. If -they and the sight of cowboys roping cattle do not satisfy him, nothing -else will. The Rangers are a semi-militia, semi-military organization -of long descent, and with the most brilliant record of border warfare. -At the present time their work is less adventurous than it was in the -day of Captain McNelly, but the spirit of the first days has only -increased with time. - -The Rangers enlist for a year under one of eight captains, and the -State pays them a dollar a day and supplies them with rations and -ammunition. They bring with them their own horse, blanket, and rifle, -and revolver; they wear no regular uniform or badge of any sort, except -the belt of cartridges around the waist. The mounted police of the -gold days in the Australian bush, and the mounted constabulary of the -Canadian border are perhaps the only other organizations of a like -nature and with similar duties. Their headquarters are wherever their -captain finds water, and, if he is fortunate, fuel and shade; but as -the latter two are difficult to find in common in the five hundred -square miles of brush along the Rio Grande, they are content with a -tank of alkali water alone. - -There are about twenty men in each of the eight troops, and one or two -of them are constantly riding away on detached service--to follow the -trail of a Mexican bandit or a horse-thief, or to suppress a family -feud. The Rangers’ camps look much like those of gypsies, with their -one wagon to carry the horses’ feed, the ponies grazing at the ends of -the lariats, the big Mexican saddles hung over the nearest barb fence, -and the blankets covering the ground and marking the hard beds of the -night before. These men are the especial pride of General Mabry, the -Adjutant-general of Texas, who was with them the first time I met them, -sharing their breakfast of bacon and coffee under the shade of the only -tree within ten miles. He told me some very thrilling stories of their -deeds and personal meetings with the desperadoes and “bad” men of the -border; but when he tried to lead Captain Brooks into relating a few of -his own adventures, the result was a significant and complete failure. -Significant, because big men cannot tell of the big things they do as -well as other people can--they are handicapped by having to leave out -the best part; and because Captain Brooks’s version of the same story -the general had told me, with all the necessary detail, would be: -“Well, we got word they were hiding in a ranch down in Zepata County, -and we went down there and took ’em--which they were afterwards hung.” - -The fact that he had had three fingers shot off as he “took ’em” was -a detail he scorned to remember, especially as he could shoot better -without these members than the rest of his men, who had only lost one -or two. - -Boots above the knee and leather leggings, a belt three inches wide -with two rows of brass-bound cartridges, and a slanting sombrero -make a man appear larger than he really is; but the Rangers were the -largest men I saw in Texas, the State of big men. And some of them were -remarkably handsome in a sun-burned, broad-shouldered, easy, manly -way. They were also somewhat shy with the strangers, listening very -intently, but speaking little, and then in a slow, gentle voice; and as -they spoke so seldom, they seemed to think what they had to say was too -valuable to spoil by profanity. - -When General Mabry found they would not tell of their adventures, he -asked them to show how they could shoot; and as this was something -they could do, and not something already done, they went about it -as gleefully as school-boys at recess doing “stunts.” They placed -a board, a foot wide and two feet high, some sixty feet off in the -prairie, and Sheriff Scheeley opened hostilities by whipping out his -revolver, turning it in the air, and shooting, with the sights upside -down, into the bull’s-eye of the impromptu target. He did this without -discontinuing what he was saying to me, but rather as though he were -punctuating his remarks with audible commas. - -Then he said, “I didn’t think you Rangers would let a little -one-penny sheriff get in the first shot on you.” He could afford to -say this, because he had been a Ranger himself, and his brother Joe -was one of the best captains the Rangers have had; and he and all of -his six brothers are over six feet high. But the taunt produced an -instantaneous volley from every man in the company; they did not take -the trouble to rise, but shot from where they happened to be sitting -or lying and talking together, and the air rang with the reports and a -hundred quick vibrating little gasps, like the singing of a wire string -when it is tightened on a banjo. - -They exhibited some most wonderful shooting. They shot with both hands -at the same time, with the hammer underneath, holding the rifle in one -hand, and never, when it was a revolver they were using, with a glance -at the sights. They would sometimes fire four shots from a Winchester -between the time they had picked it up from the ground and before it -had nestled comfortably against their shoulder. They also sent one man -on a pony racing around a tree about as thick as a man’s leg, and were -dissatisfied because he only put four out of six shots into it. Then -General Mabry, who seemed to think I did not fully appreciate what they -were doing, gave a Winchester rifle to Captain Brooks and myself, and -told us to show which of us could first put eight shots into the target. - -It seems that to shoot a Winchester you have to pull a trigger one way -and work a lever backward and forward; this would naturally suggest -that there are three movements--one to throw out the empty shell, one -to replace it with another cartridge, and the third to explode this -cartridge. Captain Brooks, as far as I could make out from the sound, -used only one movement for his entire eight shots. As I guessed, the -trial was more to show Captain Brooks’s quickness rather than his -marksmanship, and I paid no attention to the target, but devoted myself -assiduously to manipulating the lever and trigger, aiming blankly at -the prairie. When I had fired two shots into space, the captain had -put his eight into the board. They sounded, as they went off, like -fire-crackers well started in a barrel, and mine, in comparison, like -minute-guns at sea. The Rangers, I found, after I saw more of them, -could shoot as rapidly with a revolver as with a rifle, and had become -so expert with the smaller weapon that instead of pressing the trigger -for each shot, they would pull steadily on it, and snap the hammer -until the six shots were exhausted. - -San Antonio is the oldest of Texan cities, and possesses historical and -picturesque show-places which in any other country but our own would -be visited by innumerable American tourists prepared to fall down and -worship. The citizens of San Antonio do not, as a rule, appreciate the -historical values of their city; they are rather tired of them. They -would prefer you should look at the new Post-office and the City Hall, -and ride on the cable road. But the missions which lie just outside of -the city are what will bring the Eastern man or woman to San Antonio, -and not the new water-works. There are four of these missions, the two -largest and most interesting being the Mission de la Conception, of -which the corner-stone was laid in 1730, and the Mission San José, the -carving, or what remains of it, in the latter being wonderfully rich -and effective. The Spaniards were forced to abandon the missions on -account of the hostility of the Indians, and they have been occupied -at different times since by troops and bats, and left to the mercies -of the young men from “Rochester, N. Y.,” and the young women from -“Dallas, Texas,” who have carved their immortal names over their walls -just as freely as though they were the pyramids of Egypt or Blarney -Castle. San Antonio is a great place for invalids, on account of its -moderate climate, and a most satisfactory place in which to spend a -week or two in the winter whether one is an invalid or not. There is -the third largest army post in the country at the edge of the city, -where there is much to see and many interesting people to know, and -there is a good club, and cock-fighting on Sunday, and a first-rate -theatre all the week. At night the men sit outside of the hotels, and -the plazas are filled with Mexicans and their open-air restaurants, and -the lights of these and the brigandish appearance of those who keep -them are very unlike anything one may see at home. - -All that the city really needs now is a good hotel and a more proper -pride in its history and the monuments to it. The man who seems to -appreciate this best is William Corner, whose book on San Antonio is a -most valuable historical authority. - -A few years ago one would have said that San Antonio was enjoying a -boom. But you cannot use that expression now, for the Western men have -heard that a boom, no matter how quickly it rises, often comes down -just as quickly, and so forcibly that it makes a hole in the ground -where castles in the air had formerly stood. So if you wish to please -a Western man by speaking well of his city (and you cannot please him -more in any other way), you must say that it is enjoying a “steady, -healthy growth.” San Antonio is enjoying a steady, healthy growth. - -It is quite as impossible to write comprehensively of south-western -Texas in one article as it is to write such an article and say nothing -of the Alamo. And the Alamo, in the event of any hasty reader’s -possible objection, is not ancient history. It is no more ancient -history than love is an old story, for nothing is ancient and nothing -is old which every new day teaches something that is fine and beautiful -and brave. The Alamo is to the South-west what Independence Hall is to -the United States, and Bunker Hill to the East; but the pride of it -belongs to every American, whether he lives in Texas or in Maine. The -battle of the Alamo was the event of greatest moment in the war between -Mexico and the Texans, when Santa Anna was President, and the Texans -were fighting for their independence. And the stone building to which -the Mexicans laid siege, and in which the battle was fought, stands -to-day facing a plaza in the centre of San Antonio. - -There are hideous wooden structures around it, and others not so -hideous--modern hotels and the new Post-office, on which the mortar -is hardly yet dry. But in spite of these the grace and dignity which -the monks gave it in 1774, raise it above these modern efforts that -tower above it, and dwarf them. They are collecting somewhat slowly a -fund to pay for the erection of a monument to the heroes of the Alamo. -As though they needed a monument, with these battered walls still -standing and the marks of the bullets on the casements! No architect -can build better than that. No architect can introduce that feature. -The architects of the Alamo were building the independence of a State -as wide in its boundaries as the German Empire. - -The story of the Alamo is a more than thrice-told one, and Sidney -Lanier has told it so well that whoever would write of it must draw on -him for much of their material, and must accept his point of view. But -it cannot be told too often, even though it is spoiled in the telling. - -On the 23d of February, 1836, General Santa Anna himself, with four -thousand Mexican soldiers, marched into the town of San Antonio. In the -old mission of the Alamo were the town’s only defenders, one hundred -and forty-five men, under Captain Travis, a young man twenty-eight -years old. With him were Davy Crockett, who had crossed over from his -own State to help those who were freeing theirs, and Colonel Bowie (who -gave his name to a knife, which name our government gave later to a -fort), who was wounded and lying on a cot. - -[Illustration: “REMEMBER THE ALAMO!”] - -Their fortress and quarters and magazine was the mission, their -artillery fourteen mounted pieces, but there was little ammunition. -Santa Anna demanded unconditional surrender, and the answer was ten -days of dogged defence, and skirmishes by day and sorties for food and -water by night. The Mexicans lost heavily during the first days of -the siege, but not one inside of the Alamo was killed. Early in the -week Travis had despatched couriers for help, and the defenders of -the mission were living in the hope of re-enforcements; but four days -passed, and neither couriers returned nor re-enforcements came. On the -fourth day Colonel Fannin with three hundred men and four pieces of -artillery started forth from Goliad, but put back again for want of -food and lack of teams. The garrison of the Alamo never knew of this. -On the 1st of March Captain John W. Smith, who _has_ found teams, and -who _has_ found rations, brings an offering of thirty-two men from -Gonzales, and leads them safely into the fort. They have come with -forced marches to their own graves; but they do not know that, and -the garrison, now one hundred and seventy-two strong, against four -thousand Mexicans, continues its desperate sorties and its desperate -defence. - -On the 3d of March, 1836, there is a cessation in the bombardment, and -Captain Travis draws his men up into single rank and takes his place in -front of them. - -He tells them that he has deceived them with hopes of -re-enforcements--false hopes based on false promises of help from the -outside--but he does not blame those who failed him; he makes excuses -for them; they have tried to reach him, no doubt, but have been -killed on the way. Sidney Lanier quotes this excusing of those who -had deserted him at the very threshold of death as best showing the -fineness of Travis, and the poet who has judged the soldier so truly -has touched here one of the strongest points of this story of great -heroism. - -Captain Travis tells them that all that remains to them is the choice -of their death, and that they have but to decide in which manner of -dying they will best serve their country. They can surrender and be -shot down mercilessly, they can make a sortie and be butchered before -they have gained twenty yards, or they can die fighting to the last, -and killing their enemies until that last comes. - -He gives them their choice, and then stooping, draws a line with the -point of his sword in the ground from the left to the right of the rank. - -“And now,” he says, “every man who is determined to remain here and to -die with me will come to me across that line.” - -Tapley Holland was the first to cross. He jumped it with a bound, as -though it were a Rubicon. “I am ready to die for my country,” he said. - -And then all but one man, named Rose, marched over to the other side. -Colonel Bowie, lying wounded in his cot, raised himself on his elbow. -“Boys,” he said, “don’t leave me. Won’t some of you carry me across?” - -And those of the sick who could walk rose from the bunks and tottered -across the line; and those who could not walk were carried. Rose, who -could speak Spanish, trusted to this chance to escape, and scaling the -wall of the Alamo, dropped into a ditch on the other side, and crawled, -hidden by the cactus, into a place of safety. Through him we know what -happened before that final day came. He had his reward. - -Three days after this, on the morning of the 6th of March, Santa Anna -brought forward all of his infantry, supported by his cavalry, and -stormed the fortress. The infantry came up on every side at once in -long, black solid rows, bearing the scaling-ladders before them, and -encouraged by the press of great numbers about them. - -But the band inside the mission drove them back, and those who held -the ladders dropped them on the ground and ran against the bayonets of -their comrades. A second time they charged into the line of bullets, -and the second time they fell back, leaving as many dead at the foot of -the ladders as there were standing at bay within the walls. But at the -third trial the ladders are planted, and Mexicans after Mexicans scale -them, and jump down into the pit inside, hundreds and hundreds of them, -to be met with bullets and then by bayonet-thrusts, and at last with -desperate swinging of the butt, until the little band grows smaller and -weaker, and is driven up and about and beaten down and stamped beneath -the weight of overwhelming and unending numbers. They die fighting on -their knees, hacking up desperately as they are beaten and pinned down -by a dozen bayonets, Bowie leaning on his elbow and shooting from -his cot, Crockett fighting like a panther in the angle of the church -wall, and Travis with his back against the wall to the west. The one -hundred and seventy-two men who had held four thousand men at bay for -two sleepless weeks are swept away as a dam goes that has held back a -flood, and the Mexicans open the church doors from the inside and let -in their comrades and the sunshine that shows them horrid heaps of five -hundred and twenty-two dead Mexicans, and five hundred more wounded. - -There are no wounded among the Texans; of the one hundred and -seventy-two who were in the Alamo there are one hundred and seventy-two -dead. - -With an example like this to follow, it was not difficult to gain the -independence of Texas; and whenever Sam Houston rode before his men, -crying, “Remember the Alamo!” the battle was already half won. - -It was not a cry wholly of revenge, I like to think. It was rather the -holding up of the cross to the crusaders, and crying, “By this sign we -conquer.” It was a watchword to remind men of those who had suffered -and died that their cause might live. - -And so, when we leave Texas, we forget the little things that may have -tried our patience and understanding there, we forgive the desolation -of the South-west, its cactus and dying cattle, we forget the dinners -in the middle of the day and the people’s passing taste in literature, -and we remember the Alamo. - - - - -II - -OUR TROOPS ON THE BORDER - - - - -II - -OUR TROOPS ON THE BORDER - - -A ROLLING, jerky train made up of several freight and one passenger -car, the latter equally divided, “For Whites” and “For Negroes”--which -in the south-west of Texas reads “Mexicans”--dropped my baggage at Pena -station, and rolled off across the prairie, rocking from side to side -like a line of canal-boats in a rough sea. It seemed like the last -departing link of civilization. There was the freight station itself; -beyond the track a leaky water-tank, a wooden store surrounded with -piles of raw, foul-smelling hides left in exchange for tobacco and -meal, a few thatched Mexican huts, and the prairie. That stretched on -every side to the horizon, level and desolate, and rising and falling -in the heat. Beneath was a red sandy soil covered with cactus and -bunches of gray, leafless brush, marked with the white skeletons of -cattle, and overhead a sun at white heat, and heavily moving buzzards -wheeling in circles or balancing themselves with outstretched wings -between the hot sky above and the hot, red soil below. - -Across this desert came slowly Trumpeter Tyler, of Troop G, Third -Cavalry, mounted on the white horse which only trumpeters affect, and -as white as the horse itself from the dust of the trail. He did not -look like the soldiers I had seen at San Antonio. His blue shirt was -wide open at the breast, his riding-breeches were bare at the knee, and -the cactus and chaparral had torn his blouse into rags and ribbons. He -pushed his wide-brimmed hat back from his forehead and breathed heavily -with the heat. Captain Hardie’s camp, he panted, lay twenty-five miles -to the west. He had come from there to see if the field tents and extra -rations were ever going to arrive from the post, and as he had left, -the captain had departed also with a detachment in search of Garza on -a fresh trail. “And he means to follow it,” said Trumpeter Tyler, “if -it takes him into Mexico.” So it was doubtful whether the visitor from -the East would see the troop commander for several days; but if he -nevertheless wished to push on to the camp, Trumpeter Tyler would be -glad to show him the way. Not only would he show him the way, but he -would look over his kit for him, and select such things as the visitor -would need in the brush. Not such things as the visitor might want, but -such things as the visitor would need. For in the brush necessities -become luxuries, and luxuries are relics of an effete past and of -places where tradition tells of pure water and changes of raiment, and, -some say, even beds. Neither Trumpeter Tyler, nor Captain Francis H. -Hardie, nor any of the officers or men of the eight troops of cavalry -on field service in south-west Texas had seen such things for three -long months of heat by day and cold by night, besides a blizzard of -sleet and rain, that kept them trembling with cold for a fortnight. -And it was for this reason that the visitor from the East chose to see -the United States troops as they were in the field, and to tell about -the way they performed their duty there, rather than as he found them -at the posts, where there is at least a canteen and papers not more -than a week old. - -[Illustration: TRUMPETER TYLER] - -Trumpeter Tyler ran his hand haughtily through what I considered a very -sensibly-chosen assortment of indispensable things, and selected a -handful which he placed on one side. - -“You think I had better not take those?” I suggested. - -“That’s all you can take,” said the trooper, mercilessly. “You must -think of the horse.” - -Then he led the way to the store, and pointed out the value of a tin -plate, a tin cup, and an iron knife and fork, saddle-bags, leather -leggings to keep off the needles of the cactus, a revolver, and a -blanket. It is of interest to give Trumpeter Tyler’s own outfit, as it -was that of every other man in the troop, and was all that any one of -them had had for two months. He carried it all on his horse, and it -consisted of a blanket, an overcoat, a carbine, a feed-bag, lariat and -iron stake, a canteen, saddle-bags filled with rations on one side and -a change of under-clothing on the other, a shelter-tent done up in a -roll, a sword, and a revolver, with rounds of ammunition for it and the -carbine worn in a belt around the waist. All of this, with the saddle, -weighed about eighty pounds, and when the weight of a man is added -to it, one can see that it is well, as Trumpeter Tyler suggested, to -think of the horse. Troop G had been ordered out for seven days’ field -service on the 15th of December, and it was then the 24th of January, -and the clothes and equipments they had had with them when they started -at midnight from Fort MacIntosh for that week of hard riding were all -they had had with them since. But the hard riding had continued. - -Trumpeter Tyler proved that day not only my guide, but a philosopher, -and when night came on, a friend. He was very young, and came from -Virginia, as his slow, lazy voice showed; and he had played, in his -twenty-three years, the many parts of photographer, compositor, barber, -cook, musician, and soldier. He talked of these different callings -as we walked our horses over the prairie, and, out of deference to -myself and my errand, of writing. He was a somewhat general reader, and -volunteered his opinion of the works of Rudyard Kipling, Laura Jean -Libbey, Captain Charles King, and others with confident familiarity. He -recognized no distinctions in literature; they had all written a book, -therefore they were, in consequence, in exactly the same class. - -Of Mr. Kipling he said, with an appreciative shake of the head, that -“he knew the private soldier from way back;” of Captain Charles King, -that he wrote for the officers; and of Laura Jean Libbey, that she was -an authoress whose books he read “when there really wasn’t nothing else -to do.” I doubt if one of Mr. Kipling’s own heroes could have made as -able criticisms. - -When night came on and the stars came out, he dropped the soldier -shop and talked of religion and astronomy. The former, he assured me -earnestly, was much discussed by the privates around the fire at night, -which I could better believe after I saw how near the stars get and how -wide the world seems when there is only a blanket between you and the -heavens, and when there is a general impression prevailing that you are -to be shot at from an ambush in the morning. Of astronomy he showed a -very wonderful knowledge, and awakened my admiration by calling many -stars by strange and ancient names--an admiration which was lessened -abruptly when he confessed that he had been following some other than -the North Star for the last three miles, and that we were lost. It -was a warm night, and I was so tired with the twenty-five-miles ride -on a Mexican saddle--which is as comfortable as a soap-box turned -edges up--that the idea of lying out on the ground did not alarm me. -But Trumpeter Tyler’s honor was at stake. He had his reputation as -a trailer to maintain, and he did so ably by lighting matches and -gazing knowingly at the hoof-marks of numerous cattle, whose bones, I -was sure, were already whitening on the plain or journeying East in a -refrigerator-car, but which he assured me were still fresh, and must -lead to the ranch near which the camp was pitched. And so, after four -hours’ aimless trailing through the chaparral, when only the thorns of -the cactus kept us from falling asleep off our horses, we stumbled into -two smouldering fires, a ghostly row of little shelter-tents, and a -tall figure in a long overcoat, who clicked a carbine and cried, “Halt, -and dismount!” - -I was somewhat doubtful of my reception in the absence of the captain, -and waited, very wide awake now, while they consulted together in -whispers, and then the sentry led me to one of the little tents and -kicked a sleeping form violently, and told me to crawl in and not to -mind reveille in the morning, but to sleep on as long as I wished. -I did not know then that I had Trumpeter Tyler’s bed, and that he -was sleeping under a wagon, but I was gratefully conscious of his -“bunkie’s” tucking me in as tenderly as though I were his son, and of -his not sharing, but giving me more than my share of the blankets. And -I went to sleep so quickly that it was not until the morning that I -found what I had drowsily concluded must be the roots of trees under -me, to be “bunkie’s” sabre and carbine. - -The American private, as he showed himself during the three days in -which I was his guest, and afterwards, when Captain Hardie had returned -and we went scouting together, proved to be a most intelligent and -unpicturesque individual. He was intelligent, because he had, as a -rule, followed some other calling before he entered the service, and -he was not picturesque, because he looked on “soldiering” merely as -a means of livelihood, and had little or no patriotic or sentimental -feeling concerning it. This latter was not true of the older men. -They had seen real war either during the rebellion or in the Indian -campaigns, which are much more desperate affairs than the Eastern mind -appreciates, and they were fond of the service and proud of it. One of -the corporals in G Troop, for instance, had been honorably discharged -a year before with the rank of first sergeant, and had re-enlisted as -a private rather than give up the service, of which he found he was -more fond than he had imagined when he had left it. And in K Troop -was an even more notable instance in a man who had been retired on -three-fourths pay, having served his thirty years, and who had returned -to the troop to act as Captain Hunter’s “striker,” or man of all work, -and who bore the monotony of the barracks and the hardships of field -service rather than lose the uniform and the feeling of _esprit de -corps_ which thirty years’ service had made a necessity to him. - -But the raw recruit, or the man in his third or fourth year, as he -expressed himself in the different army posts and among the companies -I met on the field, looked upon his work from a purely business point -of view. He had been before enlistment a clerk, or a compositor, a -cowboy, a day-laborer, painter, blacksmith, book-canvasser, almost -everything. In Captain Hardie’s troop all of these were represented, -and the average of intelligence was very high. Whether the most -intelligent private is the best soldier is a much-discussed question -which is not to be discussed here, but these men were intelligent and -were good soldiers, although I am sure they were too independent in -their thoughts, though not in their actions, to have suited an officer -of the English or German army. That they are more carefully picked men -than those found in the rank and file of the British army can be proved -from the fact that of those who apply for enlistment in the United -States but twenty per cent. are chosen, while in Great Britain they -accept eighty and in some years ninety per cent. of the applicants. The -small size of our army in comparison, however, makes this showing less -favorable than it at first appears. - -In camp, while the captain was away, the privates suggested a lot of -college boys more than any other body of individuals. A few had the -college boy’s delight in shirking their work, and would rejoice over -having had a dirty carbine pass inspection on account of a shining -barrel, as the Sophomore boasts of having gained a high marking for -a translation he had read from a crib. They had also the college -boy’s songs, and his trick of giving nicknames, and his original and -sometimes clever slang, and his satisfaction in expressing violent -liking or dislike for those in authority over him--in the one case -tutors and professors, and in the other sergeants and captains. Their -one stupid hitch, in which the officers shared to some extent, was in -re-enforcing all they said with profanity; but as soldiers have done -this, apparently, since the time of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages, it must -be considered an inherited characteristic. Their fun around the camp -fire at night was rough, but it was sometimes clever, though it was -open to the objection that a clever story never failed of three or four -repetitions. The greatest successes were those in which the officers, -always of some other troop, were the butts. One impudent “cruitie” made -himself famous in a night by improvising an interview between himself -and a troop commander who had met him that day as he was steering a -mule train across the prairie. - -“‘How are you?’ said he to me. ‘You’re one of Captain Hardie’s men, -ain’t you? I’m Captain----.’ - -“‘Glad to know you, captain,’ said I. ‘I’ve read about you in the -papers.’” - -This was considered a magnificent stroke by the men, who thought the -captain in question rather too fond of sending in reports concerning -himself to headquarters. - -“‘Well,’ says he, ‘when do you think we’re going to catch this ---- ----- ---- ---- Garza? As for me,’ says he, ‘I’m that ---- ---- ---- ----- tired of the whole ---- ---- ---- business that I’m willing to -give up my job to any ---- ---- ---- fool that will take it----’ - -“‘Well, old man,’ says I, ‘I’d be glad to relieve you,’ says I, ‘but -I’d a ---- sight rather serve under Captain Hardie than captain such a -lot of regular ---- ---- ---- coffee-coolers as you’ve got under you.’” - -The audacity of this entirely fictitious conversation was what -recommended it to the men. I only reproduce it here as showing their -idea of humor. An even greater success was that of a stolid German, -who related a true incident of life at Fort Clarke, where the men were -singing one night around the fire, when the colonel passed by, and -ordered them into the tents, and to stop that ---- noise. - -[Illustration: CAPTAIN FRANCIS H. HARDIE, G TROOP, THIRD UNITED STATES -CAVALRY] - -“And den,” continued the soldier, “he come acrost Cabding----, -sitting in front of his tent, and he says to him quick like that, ‘You -ged into your tent, _too_.’ That’s what he said to him, ‘You ged into -your tent, _too_.’” - -It is impossible to imagine the exquisite delight that this simple -narrative gave. The idea of a real troop commander having been told -to get into his tent just like a common soldier brought the tears to -the men’s eyes, and the success of his story so turned the German’s -head that he continued repeating to himself and to any one he met for -several days: “That’s what he said, ‘You ged into your tent, TOO.’ -That’s what he said.” - -Captain Hardie rode his detachment into camp on the third day, with -horses so tired that they tried to lie down whenever there was a halt; -and a horse must be very tired before he will do that. Captain Hardie’s -riding-breeches were held together by the yellow stripes at their -sides, and his hands were raw and swollen with the marks of the cactus -needles, and his face burned and seared to a dull red. I had heard of -him through the papers and from the officers at headquarters as the -“Riding Captain,” and as the one who had during the Garza campaign been -most frequently in the saddle, and least given to sending in detailed -reports of his own actions. He had been absolutely alone for the two -months he had been in the field. He was the father of his men, as all -troop commanders must be; he had to doctor them when they were ill, to -lend them money when the paymaster lost his way in the brush, to write -their letters, and to listen to their grievances, and explain that it -was not because they were not good soldiers that they could not go out -and risk being shot on this or that particular scouting party--he could -do all this for them, but he could not talk to them. He had to sit in -front of his own camp fire and hear them laughing around theirs, and -consider the loneliness of south-western Texas, which is the loneliness -of the ocean at night. He could talk to his Mexican guides, because -they, while they were under him, were not of his troop, and I believe -it was this need to speak to some living soul that taught Captain -Hardie to know Spanish as well as he did, and much more quickly than -the best of tutors could have done in a year at the post. - -The Eastern mind does not occupy itself much with these guardians of -its borders; its idea of the soldier is the comfortable, clubable -fellow they meet in Washington and New York, whose red, white, and -blue button is all that marks him from the other clubable, likable men -about him. But they ought to know more and feel more for these equally -likable men of the border posts, whose only knowledge of club life is -the annual bill for dues, one of which, with supreme irony, arrived in -Captain Hardie’s mail at a time when we had only bacon three times a -day, and nothing but alkali water to silence the thirst that followed. -To a young man it is rather pathetic to see another young man, with a -taste and fondness for the pleasant things of this world, pull out his -watch and hold it to the camp fire and say, “Just seven o’clock; people -in God’s country are sitting down to dinner.” And then a little later: -“And now it’s eight o’clock, and they are going to the theatres. What -is there at the theatres now?” And when I recalled the plays running -in New York when I left it, the officers would select which one they -would go to, with much grave deliberation, and then crawl in between -two blankets and find the most comfortable angle at which a McClellan -saddle will make a pillow. - -The Garza campaign is only of interest here as it shows the work -of the United States troops who were engaged in it. As for Caterino -E. Garza himself, he may, by the time this appears in print, have -been made President of Mexico, which is most improbable; or have -been captured in the brush, which is more improbable; or he may have -disappeared from public notice altogether. It is only of interest -to the Eastern man to know that a Mexican ranch-owner and sometime -desperado and politician living in south-west Texas proclaimed a -revolution against the Government of Mexico, and that that Government -requested ours to see that the neutrality laws existing between the -two countries were not broken by the raising of troops on our side of -the Rio Grande River, and that followers of this Garcia should not -be allowed to cross through Texas on their way to Mexico. This our -Government, as represented by the Department of Texas, which has its -headquarters at San Antonio, showed its willingness to do by sending at -first two troops of cavalry, and later six more, into darkest Texas, -with orders to take prisoners any bands of revolutionists they might -find there; and to arrest all individual revolutionists with a warrant -sworn to by two witnesses. The country into which these eight troops -were sent stretches for three hundred and sixty miles along the Rio -Grande River, where it separates Mexico from Texas, and runs back a -hundred and more miles east, making of this so-called Garza territory -an area of five hundred square miles. - -This particular country is the back-yard of the world. It is to the -rest of the West what the ash-covered lots near High Bridge are to -New York. It is the country which led General Sheridan to say that if -he owned both places, he would rent Texas and live in hell. It is the -strip of country over which we actually went to war with Mexico, and -which gave General Sherman the opportunity of making the epigramme, -which no one who has not seen the utter desolateness of the land can -justly value, that we should go to war with Mexico again, and force her -to take it back. - -It is a country where there are no roses, but where everything that -grows has a thorn. Where the cattle die of starvation, and where the -troops had to hold up the solitary train that passes over it once a -day, in true road-agent fashion, to take the water from its boilers -that their horses might not drop for lack of it. It is a country -where the sun blinds and scorches at noon, and where the dew falls -like a cold rain at night, and where one shivers in an overcoat at -breakfast, and rides without coat or waistcoat and panting with the -heat the same afternoon. Where there are no trees, nor running streams, -nor rocks nor hills, but just an ocean of gray chaparral and white, -chalky cañons or red, dusty trails. If you leave this trail for fifty -yards, you may wander for twenty miles before you come to water or a -ranch or another trail, and by that time the chaparral and cactus will -have robbed you of your clothing, and left in its place a covering of -needles, which break when one attempts to draw them out, and remain in -the flesh to fester and swell the skin, and leave it raw and tender -for a week. This country, it is almost a pleasure to say, is America’s -only in its possession. No white men, or so few that they are not as -common as century-plants, live in it. It is Mexican in its people, its -language, and its mode of life. The few who inhabit its wilderness are -ranch-owners, and their shepherds and cowboys; and a ranch, which means -a store and six or seven thatched adobe houses around it, is at the -nearest three miles from the next ranch, and on an average twenty -miles. As a rule, they move farther away the longer you ride towards -them. - -[Illustration: WATER] - -Into this foreign country of five hundred square miles the eight United -States cavalry troops of forty men each and two companies of infantry -were sent to find Garza and his followers. The only means by which a -man or horses or cows can be tracked in this desert is by the foot or -hoof prints which they may leave in the sandy soil as they follow the -trails already made or make fresh ones. To follow these trails it is -necessary to have as a guide a man born in the brush, who has trailed -cattle for a livelihood. The Mexican Government supplied the troops -with some of their own people, who did not know the particular country -into which they were sent, but who could follow a trail in any country. -One or two of these, sometimes none, went with each troop. What our -Government should have done was to supply each troop commander with -five or six of these men, who could have gone out in search of trails, -and reported at the camp whenever they had found a fresh one. By this -means the troops could have been saved hundreds of miles of unnecessary -marching and countermarching on “false alarms,” and the Government much -money, as the campaign in that event would have been brought much more -rapidly to a conclusion. - -But the troop commanders in the field had no such aids. They had -to ride forth whenever so ordered to do by the authorities at -headquarters, some two hundred miles from the scene of the action, who -had in turn received their information from the Mexican general on the -other side of the Rio Grande. This is what made doing their duty, as -represented by obeying orders, such a difficult thing to the troops in -the Garza territory. They knew before they saddled their horses that -they were going out on a wild-goose chase to wear out their horses -and their own patience, and to accomplish nothing beyond furnishing -Garza’s followers with certain satisfaction in seeing a large body of -men riding solemnly through a dense underbrush in a blinding sun to -find a trait which a Mexican general had told an American general would -be sure to lead them to Garza, and news of which had reached them a -week after whoever had made the trail had passed over it. They could -imagine, as they trotted in a long, dusty line through the chaparral, -as conspicuous marks on the plain as a prairie-wagon, that Garza or his -men were watching them from under a clump of cactus on some elevation -in the desert, and that he would say: - -“Ah! the troops are out again, I see. Who is it to-day--Hardie, Chase, -or Hunter? Lend me your field-glass. Ah! it is Hardie. He is a good -rider. I hope he will not get a sunstroke.” - -And then they would picture how the revolutionists would continue the -smoking of their cornstalk cigarettes and the drinking of the smuggled -muscal. - -This is not an exaggerated picture. A man could lie hidden in this -brush and watch the country on every side of him, and see each of the -few living objects which might pass over it in a day, as easily as he -could note the approach of a three-masted schooner at sea. And even -though troops came directly towards him, he had but to lie flat in the -brush within twenty feet of them, and they would not know it. It would -be as easy to catch Jack the Ripper with a Lord-Mayor’s procession as -Garza with a detachment of cavalry, unless they stumbled upon him by -luck, or unless he had with him so many men that their trail could -be followed at a gallop. As a matter of fact and history, the Garza -movement was broken up in the first three weeks of its inception by the -cavalry and the Texas Rangers and the deputy sheriffs, who rode after -the large bodies of men and scattered them. After that it was merely a -chase after little bands of from three to a dozen men, who travelled by -night and slept by day in their race towards the river, or, when met -there by the Mexican soldiers, in their race back again. The fact that -every inhabitant of the ranches and every Mexican the troops met was a -secret sympathizer with Garza was another and most important difficulty -in the way of his pursuers. And it was trying to know that the barking -of the dogs of a ranch was not yet out of ear-shot before a vaquero was -scuttling off through the chaparral to tell the hiding revolutionists -that the troops were on their way, and which way they were coming. - -And so, while it is no credit to soldiers to do their duty, it is -creditable to them when they do their duty knowing that it is futile, -and that some one has blundered. If a fire company in New York City -were ordered out on a false alarm every day for three months, knowing -that it was not a fire to which they were going, but that some one had -wanted a messenger-boy, and rung up an engine by mistake, the alertness -and fidelity of those firemen would be most severely tested. That is -why I admired, and why the readers in the East should admire, the -discipline and the faithfulness with which the cavalry on the border -of Texas did their duty the last time Trumpeter Tyler sounded “Boots -and Saddles,” and went forth as carefully equipped, and as eager and -hopeful that _this_ time meant fighting, as they did the first. - -Their life in the field was as near to nature, and, as far as comforts -were concerned, to the beasts of the field, as men often come. A -tramp in the Eastern States lives like a respectable householder in -comparison. Suppose, to better understand it, that you were ordered -to leave your house or flat or hall bedroom and live in the open air -for two months, and that you were limited in your selection of what -you wished to carry with you to the weight of eighty pounds. You would -find it difficult to adjust this eighty pounds in such a way that it -would include any comforts; certainly, there would be no luxuries. The -soldiers of Troop G, besides the things before enumerated, were given -for a day’s rations a piece of bacon as large as your hand, as much -coffee as would fill three large cups, and enough flour to make five or -six heavy biscuits, which they justly called “’dobes,” after the clay -bricks of which Mexican adobe houses are made. In camp they received -potatoes and beans. All of these things were of excellent quality -and were quite satisfying, as the work supplies an appetite to meet -them. This is not furnished by the Government, and costs it nothing, -but it is about the best article in the line of sustenance that the -soldier receives. He sleeps on a blanket with his “bunkie,” and with -his “bunkie’s” blanket over him. If he is cold, he can build the fire -higher, and doze in front of that. He rides, as a rule, from seven in -the morning to five in the afternoon, without a halt for a noonday -meal, and he generally gets to sleep by eight or nine. The rest of the -time he is in the saddle. Each man carries a frying-pan about as large -as a plate, with an iron handle, which folds over and is locked in -between the pan and another iron plate that closes upon it. He does his -own cooking in this, unless he happens to be the captain’s “striker,” -when he has double duty. He is so equipped and so taught that he is an -entirely independent organization in himself, and he and his horse eat -and sleep and work as a unit, and are as much and as little to the rest -of the troop as one musket and bayonet are to the line of them when a -company salutes. - -[Illustration: THE MEXICAN GUIDE] - -We had for a guide one of the most picturesque ruffians I ever met. He -was a Mexican murderer to the third or fourth degree, as Captain Hardie -explained when I first met him, and had been liberated from a jail in -Mexico in order that he might serve his country on this side of the -river as a guide, and that his wonderful powers as a trailer might not -be wasted. - -He rejoiced in his liberty from iron bars and a bare mud floor, -and showed his gratitude in the most untiring vigilance and in the -endurance of what seemed to the Eastern mind the greatest discomforts. -He always rode in advance of the column, and with his eyes wandering -from the trail to the horizon and towards the backs of distant moving -cattle, and again to the trail at his feet. Whenever he saw any -one--and he could discover a suspected revolutionist long before any -one else--the first intimation the rest of the scouting party would get -of it was his pulling out his Winchester and disappearing on a gallop -into the chaparral. He scorned the assistance of the troop, and when we -came up to him again, after a wild dash through the brush, which left -our hats and portions of our clothing to mark our way, we would find -him with his prisoner’s carbine tucked under his arm, and beaming upon -him with a smile of wicked satisfaction. - -As a trailer he showed, as do many of these guides, what seemed to be a -gift of second-sight cultivated to a supernatural degree. He would say: -“Five horses have passed ahead of us about an hour since. Two are led -and one has two men on his back, and there is one on each of the other -two;” which, when we caught up to them at the first watering-place, -would prove to be true. Or he would tell us that troops or Rangers to -such a number had crossed the trail at some time three or four days -before, that a certain mark was made by a horse wandering without a -rider, or that another had been made by a pony so many years old--all -of which statements would be verified later. But it was as a would-be -belligerent that he shone most picturesquely. When he saw a thin column -of smoke rising from a cañon where revolutionists were supposed to be -in camp, or came upon several armed men riding towards us and too close -to escape, his face would light up with a smile of the most wicked -content and delight, and he would beam like a cannibal before a feast -as he pumped out the empty cartridges and murmured, “Buena! buena! -buena!” with rolling eyes and an anticipatory smack of the lips. - -But he was generally disappointed; the smoke would come from -a shepherd’s fire, and the revolutionists would point to the -antelope-skins under their saddles, which had been several months in -drying, and swear they were hunters, and call upon the saints to prove -that they had never heard of such a man as Garza, and that carbines, -revolvers, and knives were what every antelope-hunter needed for -self-protection. At which the Mexican would show his teeth and roll his -eyes with such a cruel show of disbelief that they would beg the “good -captain” to protect them and let them go, which, owing to the fact -that one cannot get a warrant and a notary public in the brush, as the -regulations require, he would, after searching them, be compelled to -do. - -[Illustration: THIRD CAVALRY TROOPERS--SEARCHING A SUSPECTED -REVOLUTIONIST] - -And then the Mexican, who had expected to see them hung to a tree -until they talked or died, as would have been done in his own free -republic, would sigh bitterly, and trot off patiently and hopefully -after more. Hope was especially invented for soldiers and fishermen. -One thought of this when one saw the spirit of the men as they stole -out at night, holding up their horses’ heads to make them step lightly, -and dodging the lights of the occasional ranches, and startling some -shepherd sleeping by the trail into the belief that a file of ghosts -had passed by him in the mist. They were always sure that this time -it meant something, and if the captain made a dash from the trail, -and pounded with his fist on the door of a ranch where lights shone -when lights should have been put out, the file of ghosts that had -stretched back two hundred yards into the night in an instant became -a close-encircling line of eager, open-eyed boys, with carbines free -from the sling-belts, covering the windows and the grudgingly opened -door. They never grew weary; they rode on many days from nine at -night to five the next afternoon, with but three hours’ sleep. On one -scouting expedition Tyler and myself rode one hundred and ten miles -in thirty-three hours; the average, however, was from thirty to fifty -miles a day; but the hot, tired eyes of the enlisted men kept wandering -over the burning prairie as though looking for gold; and if on the -ocean of cactus they saw a white object move, or a sombrero drop from -sight, or a horse with a saddle on its back, they would pass the word -forward on the instant, and wait breathlessly until the captain saw it -too. - -I asked some of them what they thought of when they were riding up to -these wandering bands of revolutionists, and they told me that from -the moment the captain had shouted “Howmp!” which is the only order he -gives for any and every movement, they had made themselves corporals, -had been awarded the medal of honor, and had spent the thirty thousand -dollar reward for Garza’s capture. And so if any one is to take Garza, -and the hunting of the Snark is to be long continued in Texas, I hope -it will be G Troop, Third Cavalry, that brings the troublesome little -wretch into camp; not because they have worked so much harder than -the others, but because they had no tents, as did the others, and no -tinned goods, and no pay for two months, and because they had such an -abundance of enthusiasm and hope, and the good cheer that does not come -from the commissariat department or the canteen. - - - - -III - -AT A NEW MINING CAMP - - - - -III - -AT A NEW MINING CAMP - - -MY only ideas of a new mining camp before I visited Creede were derived -from an early and eager study of Bret Harte. Not that I expected to -see one of his mining camps or his own people when I visited Creede, -but the few ideas of miners and their ways and manners that I had were -those which he had given me. I should have liked, although I did not -expect it, to see the outcasts of Poker Flat before John Oakhurst, -in his well-fitting frock-coat, had left the outfit, and Yuba Bill -pulling up his horses in front of the Lone Star saloon, where Colonel -Starbuckle, with one elbow resting on the bar, and with his high white -hat tipped to one side, waited to do him honor. I do not know that Bret -Harte ever said that Colonel Starbuckle had a white hat, but I always -pictured him in it, and with a black stock. I wanted to hear people -say, “Waal, stranger,” and to see auburn-haired giants in red shirts, -with bags of gold-dust and nuggets of silver, and much should I have -liked to meet Rose of Touloumme. But all that I found at Creede which -reminded me of these miners and gamblers and the chivalric extravagant -days of ’49 were a steel pan, like a frying-pan without a handle, which -I recognized with a thrill as the pan for washing gold, and a pick -in the corner of a cabin; and once when a man hailed me as “Pardner” -on the mountain-side, and asked “What luck?” The men and the scenes -in this new silver camp showed what might have existed in the more -glorious sunshine of California, but they were dim and commonplace, -and lacked the sharp, clear-cut personality of Bret Harte’s men and -scenes. They were like the negative of a photograph which has been -under-exposed, and which no amount of touching up will make clear. So I -will not attempt to touch them up. - -[Illustration: MINING CAMP ON THE RANGE ABOVE CREEDE] - -When I first read of Creede, when I was so ignorant concerning it that -I pronounced the final _e_, it was on the date line of a newspaper, and -made no more impression upon me then than though it were printed simply -_Creede_. But after I had reached Denver, and even before, when I had -begun to find my way about the Western newspapers, it seemed to be -spelled CREEDE. In Denver it faced you everywhere from bill-boards, -flaunted at you from canvas awnings stretched across the streets, and -stared at you from daily papers in type an inch long; the shop-windows, -according to their several uses, advertised “Photographs of Creede,” -“The only correct map of Creede,” “Specimen ore from the Holy Moses -Mine, Creede,” “Only direct route to Creede,” “Scalp tickets to -Creede,” “Wanted, $500 to start drug-store in Creede,” “You will need -boots at Creede, and you can get them at ----’s.” The gentlemen in the -Denver Club talk Creede; the people in the hotels dropped the word so -frequently that you wondered if they were not all just going there, -or were not about to write Creede on the register. It was a common -language, starting-point, and interest. It was as momentous as the word -Johnstown during the week after the flood. - -The train which carried me there held stern, important-looking old -gentlemen, who, the porter told me in an awed whisper, were one-third -or one-fifteenth owners of the Potluck Mine; young men in Astrakhan fur -coats and new top-boots laced at the ankles, trying to look desperate -and rough; grub-stake prospectors, with bedding, pick, and rations in -a roll on the seat beside them; more young men, who naïvely assured me -when they found that I, too, was going to Creede, and not in top-boots -and revolvers and a flannel shirt, that they had never worn such things -before, and really had decent clothes at home; also women who smoked -with the men and passed their flasks down the length of the car, and -two friendless little girls, of whom every one except the women, who -seemed to recognize a certain fitness of things, took unremitting care. -Every one on the crowded train showed the effect of the magnet that was -drawing him--he was restless, impatient, and excited. Half of them -did not know what they were going to find; and the other half, who had -already taken such another journey to Leadville, Aspen, or Cripple -Creek, knew only too well, and yet hoped that _this_ time-- - -Creede lies in a gully between two great mountains. In the summer the -mountain streams wash down into this gully and turn it into a little -river; but with the recklessness of true gamblers, the people who came -to Creede built their stores, houses, and saloons as near the base of -the great sides of the valley as they could, and if the stream comes -next summer, as it has done for hundreds of years before, it will carry -with it fresh pine houses and log huts instead of twigs and branches. - -[Illustration: CREEDE] - -The train stopped at the opening of this gully, and its passengers -jumped out into two feet of mud and snow. The ticket and telegraph -office on one side of the track were situated in a freight car with -windows and doors cut out of it, and with the familiar blue and white -sign of the Western Union nailed to one end; that station was typical -of the whole town in its rawness, and in the temporary and impromptu -air of its inhabitants. If you looked back at the road over which you -had just come, you saw the beautiful circle of the Wagon Wheel Gap, a -chain of magnificent mountains white with snow, picked with hundreds -of thousands of pine-trees so high above one that they looked like -little black pins. The clouds, less white than the snow, lay packed -in between the peaks of the range, or drifted from one to another to -find a resting-place, and the sun, beating down on both a blinding -glare, showed other mountains and other snow-capped ranges for fifty -miles beyond. This is at the opening of Willow Gulch into which Creede -has hurried and the sides of which it has tramped into mud and -covered with hundreds of little pine boxes of houses and log-cabins, -and the simple quadrangles of four planks which mark a building site. -In front of you is a village of fresh pine. There is not a brick, a -painted front, nor an awning in the whole town. It is like a city of -fresh card-board, and the pine shanties seem to trust for support to -the rocky sides of the gulch into which they have squeezed themselves. -In the street are ox-teams, mules, men, and donkeys loaded with ore, -crowding each other familiarly, and sinking knee-deep in the mud. -Furniture and kegs of beer, bedding and canned provisions, clothing and -half-open packing-cases, and piles of raw lumber are heaped up in front -of the new stores--or those still to be built--stores of canvas only, -stores with canvas tops and foundations of logs, and houses with the -Leadville front, where the upper boards have been left square instead -of following the sloping angle of the roof. - -It is more like a circus-tent, which has sprung up overnight and which -may be removed on the morrow, than a town, and you cannot but feel that -the people about you are a part of the show. A great shaft of rock that -rises hundreds of feet above the lower town gives the little village -at its base an absurdly pushing, impudent air, and the silence of the -mountains around from ten to fourteen thousand feet high, makes the -confusion of hammers and the cries of the drivers swearing at their -mules in the mud and even the random blasts from the mines futile and -ridiculous. It is more strange and fantastic at night, when it appears -to one looking down from half-way up the mountain like a camp of -gypsies at the foot of a cañon. On the raw pine fronts shine electric -lights in red and blue globes, mixing with the hot, smoky glare rising -from the saloons and gambling-houses, and striking upward far enough -to show the signs of The Holy Moses Saloon, The Theatre Comique, The -Keno, and The Little Delmonico against the face of the great rock at -their back doors, but only suggesting the greater mass of it which -towers majestically above, hidden somewhere in the night. It is as -incongruous as an excursion boat covered with colored lights, and -banging out popular airs at the base of the Palisades. - -[Illustration: HOW LAND IS CLAIMED FOR BUILDING--PLANKS NAILED TOGETHER -AND RESTING ON FOUR STUMPS] - -The town of Creede is in what is known as the King Solomon district; -it is three hundred and twenty miles from Denver, and lies directly -in the pathway of the Great Divide. Why it was not discovered sooner, -why, indeed, there is one square foot of land in Colorado containing -silver not yet discovered, is something which the Eastern mind cannot -grasp. Colorado is a State, not a country, and in that State the mines -of Leadville, Aspen, Ouray, Clear Creek County, Telluride, Boulder, -Silverton, and Cripple Creek, have yielded up in the last year forty -million dollars. If the State has done that much, it can do more; and I -could not understand why any one in Colorado should remain contentedly -at home selling ribbons when there must be other mines to be had for -the finding. A prospector is, after all, very much like a tramp, but -with a knowledge of minerals, a pick, rations, a purpose, and--hope. -We know how many tramps we have in the East; imagine, then, all of -these, instead of wandering lazily and purposelessly from farm-house to -farm-house, stopping instead to hammer at a bit of rock, or stooping -to pick up every loose piece they find. One would think that with a -regular army like this searching everywhere in Colorado no one acre of -it would by this time have remained unclaimed. But this new town of -Creede, once known only as Willow Gap, was discovered but twenty months -ago, and it was not until December last that the railway reached it, -and, as I have said, there is not a station there yet. - -N. C. Creede was a prospector who had made some money in the Monarch -district before he came to Willow Gap; he began prospecting there on -Campbell, now Moses Mount, with G. L. Smith, of Salida. One of the two -picked up a piece of rock so full of quartz that they sunk a shaft -immediately below the spot where they had found the stone. According -to all known laws, they should have sunk the shaft at the spot from -which the piece of rock had become detached, or from whence it had -presumably rolled. It was as absurd to dig for silver where they did -dig as it would be to sink a shaft in Larimer Street, in Denver, -because one had found a silver quarter lying in the roadway. But they -dug the shaft; and when they looked upon the result of the first day’s -work, Smith cried, “Great God!” and Creede said, “Holy Moses!” and the -Holy Moses Mine was named. While I was in Creede that gentleman was -offered one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his -share of this mine, and declined it. After that my interest in him fell -away. Any man who will live in a log house at the foot of a mountain, -and drink melted snow any longer than he has to do so, or refuse that -much money for _anything_, when he could live in the Knickerbocker -Flats, and drive forth in a private hansom with rubber tires, is no -longer an object of public interest. - -But his past history is the history of the town. Creede and his partner -knew they had a mine, but had no money to work it. So they applied -to David S. Moffatt, the president of the Rio Grande Railroad, which -has a track to Wagon Wheel Gap only ten miles away, and Moffatt and -others formed the Holy Moses Mining Company, and secured a bond on the -property at seventy thousand dollars. As soon as this was known, the -invasion of Willow Gap began. It was the story of Columbus and the egg. -Prospectors, and provisions with which to feed them, came in on foot -and on stages, and Creede began to grow. But no more mines were found -at once, and the railroad into the town was slow in coming, and many -departed, leaving their posts and piles of rock to mark their claims. -But last June Creede received a second boom, and in a manner which -heaps ridicule and scorn upon the scientific knowledge of engineers -and mining experts, and which shows that luck, chance, and the absurd -vagaries of fate are factors of success upon which a prospector should -depend. - -[Illustration: THE “HOLY MOSES” MINE] - -Ralph Granger and Eri Buddenbock ran a butcher shop at Wagon Wheel Gap. -“The” Renninger, of Patiro, a prospector with no tools or provisions, -asked them to grub-stake him, as it is called when a man of capital -furnishes a man of adventure with bacon, flour, a pick, and three or -four donkeys, and starts him off prospecting, with the understanding -that he is to have one-tenth of what he finds. Renninger asked Jule -Haas to join him, and they departed together. One day the three burros -disappeared, and wandered off many miles, with Renninger in hot and -profane pursuit until they reached Bachelor Mountain, where he overtook -them. But they liked Bachelor Mountain, and Renninger, failing to -dislodge them with either rocks or kicks, seated himself to await their -pleasure, and began to chip casually at the nearest rock. He struck a -vein showing mineral in such rich quantities that he asked Creede to -come up and look at it. Creede looked at it, and begged Renninger to -define his claim at once. Renninger, offering up thanks to the three -donkeys, did so, and named it the “Last Chance.” Then Creede located -next to this property, shoulder to shoulder, and named his claim the -“Amethyst.” These names are merely names to you; they mean nothing; in -Colorado you speak them in a whisper, and they sound like the Standard -Oil Company or the Koh-i-noor diamond. Haas was bought off for ten -thousand dollars. He went to Germany to patronize the people in the -little German village from which he came with his great wealth; four -months later Renninger, and Buddenbock, who had staked him, sold their -thirds for seventy thousand dollars each; a few days later Granger was -offered one hundred thousand dollars for his third, and said he thought -he would hold on to it. When I was there, the Chance was putting out -one hundred and eighty thousand dollars per month. This shows that -Granger was wiser in his generation than Haas. - -At the time I visited Creede it was quite impossible to secure a bed -in any of the hotels or lodging-houses. The Pullman cars were the only -available sleeping-places, and rented out their berths for the night -they laid over at the mining camp. But even in these, sleeping was -precarious, as one gentleman found the night after my arrival. He was -mistaken for another man who had picked up a bag of gold-dust from a -faro table at Little Delmonico’s, and who had fled into the night. -After shooting away the pine-board façade in the Mint gambling-house in -which he was supposed to have sought shelter, several citizens followed -him on to the sleeping-car, and, of course, pulled the wrong man out of -his berth, and stood him up in the aisle in front of four revolvers, -while the porter and the other wrong men shivered under their blankets, -and begged them from behind the closed curtains to take him outside -before they began shooting. The camp was divided in its opinion on the -following morning as to whether the joke was on the passenger or on the -hasty citizens. - -[Illustration: DEBATABLE GROUND--A WARNING TO TRESPASSERS] - -A colony of younger sons from the East took pity upon me, and gave -me a bunk in their Grub Stake cabin, where I had the satisfaction of -watching the son of a president of the Somerset Club light the fire -with kerosene while the rest of us remained under the blankets and -asked him to be careful. They were a most hospitable, cheerful lot. -When it was so cold that the ice was frozen in the tin basin, they -would elect to remain in bed all day, and would mark up the prices they -intended to ask for their lots and claims one hundred dollars each; -and then, considering this a fair day’s wages for a hard day’s work, -would go warmly to sleep again. It is interesting, chiefly to mothers -and sisters--for the fathers and brothers have an unsympathetic way of -saying, “It is the best thing for him”--to discover how quickly such -carefully bred youths as one constantly meets in the mining camps and -ranches of the West can give up the comforts and habits of years and -fit into their surroundings. It is instructive and hopeful to watch -a young man who can and has ordered numerous dinners at Bignon’s, -composing a dessert of bread and molasses, or to see how neatly a Yale -graduate of one year’s standing can sweep the mud from the cabin floor -without spreading it. If people at home could watch these young exiles -gorge themselves with their letters, a page at a time, and then go -over them again word by word, they would write early and often; and if -the numerous young women of New York and Boston could know that their -photographs were the only bright spots in a log-cabin filled with -cartridge-belts, picks, saddles, foot-ball sweaters, patent-medicine -bottles, and three-months-old magazines, they would be moved with great -content. - -One cannot always discern the true character of one’s neighbors in -the West. “Dress,” as Bob Acres says, “does make a difference.” There -were four very rough-looking men of different ages sitting at a table -near me in one of the restaurants or “eating-houses” of Creede. They -had marked out a map on the soiled table-cloth with the point of an -iron fork, and one of them was laying down the law concerning it. -There seemed to be a dispute concerning the lines of the claim or the -direction in which the vein ran. It was no business of mine, and there -was so much of that talk that I should not have been attracted to them, -except that I expected from their manner they might at any moment come -to blows or begin shooting. I finished before they did, and as I passed -the table over which they leaned scowling excitedly, the older man -cried, with his finger on the map: - -“Then Thompson passed the ball back to me--no, not your Thompson; -Thompson of ’79 I mean--and I carried it down the field all the way to -the twenty-five-yard line. Canfield, who was playing full, tackled -me; but I shook him off, and--” - -[Illustration: A MINING CAMP COURT-HOUSE] - -I should have liked to wait and hear whether or not he made his -touch-down. - -The shaft of the Last Chance Mine is at the top of the Bachelor -Mountain, and one has to climb and slip for an hour and a half to -reach it. A very nice Yale boy guided me there, and seemed as willing -as myself to sit down in the snow every ten minutes and look at the -scenery. But we saw much more of the scenery than of the mine, because -there was more of it to see, and there was no general manager to -prevent us from looking as long as we liked. The trail led over fallen -logs and up slippery rocks caked with ice and through drifts of snow -higher than one’s head, and the pines accompanied us all the way with -branches bent to the mountain-side with the weight of the snow, and a -cold, cheery mountain stream appeared and disappeared from under long -bridges of ice and mocked at us for our slow progress. But we gave it -a very close race coming down. Sometimes we walked in the cold, dark -shadows of the pines, where hardly a ray of sunlight came, and again -the trail would cross a landslide, and the wind brought strong odors -of the pine and keen, icy blasts from the snow-capped ranges which -stretched before us for fifty miles, and we could see Creede lying at -our feet like a box of spilled jackstraws. Every now and then we met -long lines of burros carrying five bags of ore each, with but twenty -dollars’ worth of silver scattered through each load, and we could hear -the voice of the driver from far up above and the tinkle of the bell -as they descended upon us. Sometimes they made way for us or halted -timidly with curious, patient eyes, and sometimes they shouldered us -promptly backward into three feet of snow. It was a lonely, impressive -journey, and the wonderful beauty and silence of the mountain made -words impertinent. And, again, we would come upon a solitary prospector -tapping at the great rock in front of him, and only stopping to dip -his hot face and blistered hands into the snow about him, before he -began to drive the steel bar again with the help which hope gave him. -His work but for this ingredient would seem futile, foolish, and -impossible. Why, he would ask himself, should I work against this -stone safe day after day only to bore a hole in its side as minute as -a nail’s point in the front of a house, and a thousand rods, probably, -from where the hole should be? And then hope tells him that perhaps the -very next stroke will make him a millionaire like Creede, and so he -makes the next stroke, and the next, and the next. - -[Illustration: SHAFT OF A MINE] - -If ever I own a silver mine, I am going to have it situated at the -base of a mountain, and not at the top. I would not care to take that -journey we made to the Chance every day. I would rather sit in the -office below and read reports. After one gets there, the best has been -seen; for the general manager of the Last Chance Mine, to whom I had -a letter of introduction, and indeed all the employés, guarded their -treasure with the most praiseworthy and faithful vigilance. It was -evident that they were quietly determined among themselves to resist -any attempt on the part of the Yale man and myself to carry away the -shaft with us. We could have done so only over their dead bodies. -The general manager confounded me with the editor of the _Saturday -Night_, which he said he reads, and which certainly ought to account -for several things. I expected to be led into a tunnel, and to be -shown delicate veins of white silver running around the sides, -which one could cut out with a penknife and make into scarf-pins -and watch guards. If not, from whence, then, do the nuggets come -that the young and disappointed lover sends as a wedding present to -the woman who should have married him, when she marries some other -man who has sensibly remained in the East--a present, indeed, which -has always struck me as extremely economical, and much cheaper than -standing-lamps. But I saw no silver nuggets. One of the workmen showed -us a hole in the side of the mountain which he assured us was the Last -Chance Mine, and that out of this hole one hundred and eighty thousand -dollars came every month. He then handed us a piece of red stone and a -piece of black stone, and said that when these two stones were found -together silver was not far off. To one thirsting for a sight of the -precious metal this was about as satisfying as being told that after -the invitations had been sent out and the awning stretched over the -sidewalk there was a chance of a dance in the neighborhood. I was also -told that the veins lie between walls of porphyry and trachyte, but -that there is not a distinctly marked difference, as the walls resemble -each other closely. This may or may not be true; it is certainly not -interesting, and I regret that I cannot satisfy the mining expert as -to the formation of the mine, or tell him whether or not the vein is a -heavy galena running so much per cent. of lead, or a dry silicious ore, -or whether the ore bodies were north and south, and are or are not true -fissures, and at what angle the contact or body veins cut these same -fissures. All of this I should have ascertained had the general manager -been more genial; but we cannot expect one man to combine the riches of -Montezuma and the graces of Chesterfield. One is sure to destroy the -other. - -The social life of Creede is much more interesting than outputs and ore -values. There were several social functions while I was there which -tend to show the happy spirit of the place. There was a prize-fight -at Billy Woods’, a pie-eating match at Kernan’s, a Mexican circus in -the bottom near Wagon Wheel Gap, a religious service at Watrous and -Bannigan’s gambling-house, and the first wedding in the history of the -town. I was sorry to miss this last, especially as three prominent -citizens, misunderstanding the purpose of my visit to Creede, took -the trouble to scour the mountain-side for me in order that I might -photograph the wedding party in a group, which I should have been -delighted to do. The bride was the sister of Billy Woods’s barkeeper, -and “Stony” Sargeant, a faro-dealer at “Soapy” Smith’s, was the groom. -The Justice of the Peace, whose name I forget, performed the ceremony, -and Edward De Vinne, the Tramp Poet, offered a few appropriate and -well-chosen remarks, after which Woods and Smith, who run rival -gambling-houses, outdid each other in the extravagant practice of -“opening wine.” All of these are prominent citizens, and the event was -memorable. - -[Illustration: VALUABLE REAL ESTATE] - -I met several of these prominent citizens while in Creede, and found -them affable. Billy Woods fights, or used to fight, at two hundred -and ten pounds, and rejoices in the fact that a New York paper once -devoted five columns to his personality. His reputation saves him the -expense of paying men to keep order. Bob Ford, who shot Jesse James, -was another prominent citizen of my acquaintance. He does not look like -a desperado, but has a loutish apologetic air, which is explained -by the fact that he shot Jesse James in the back, when the latter was -engaged in the innocent work of hanging a picture on the wall. Ford -never quite recovered from the fright he received when he found out who -it was that he had killed. “Bat” Masterden was of an entirely different -class. He dealt for Watrous, and has killed twenty-eight men, once -three together. One night when he was off duty I saw a drunken man slap -his face, and the silence was so great that we could hear the electric -light sputter in the next room; but Masterden only laughed, and told -the man to come back and do it again when he was sober. “Troublesome -Tom” Cady acted as a capper for “Soapy” Smith, and played the shell -game during the day. He was very grateful to me for teaching him a -much superior method in which the game is played in the effete East. -His master, “Soapy” Smith, was a very bad man indeed, and hired at -least twelve men to lead the prospector with a little money, or the -tenderfoot who had just arrived, up to the numerous tables in his -gambling-saloon, where they were robbed in various ways so openly that -they deserved to lose all that was taken from them. - -There were also some very good shots at Creede, and some very bad -ones. Of these latter was Mr. James Powers, who emptied his revolver -and Rab Brothers’ store at the same time without doing any damage. He -explained that he was crowded and wanted more room. The most delicate -shooting was done by the Louisiana Kid--I don’t know what his other -name was--who was robbed in Soapy Smith’s saloon, and was put out when -he expostulated. He waited patiently until one of Smith’s men named -Farnham, appeared, and then, being more intent in showing his skill -than on killing Farnham, shot the thumb off his right hand as it rested -on the trigger. Farnham shifted his pistol to his left hand, with which -he shot equally well, but before he could fire the Kid shot the thumb -off that hand too. - -This is, of course, Creede at night. It is not at all a dangerous -place, and the lawlessness is scattered and mild. There was only one -street, and as no one cared to sit on the edge of a bunk in a cold -room at night, the gambling-houses were crowded in consequence every -evening. It was simply because there was nowhere else to go. The -majority of the citizens used them as clubs, and walked from one to the -other talking claims and corner lots, and dived down into their pockets -for specimens of ore which they passed around for examination. Others -went there to keep warm, and still others to sleep in the corner until -they were put out. The play was never high. There was so much of it, -though, that it looked very bad and wicked and rough, but it was quite -harmless. There were no sudden oaths, nor parting of the crowd, and -pistol-shots or gleaming knives--or, at least, but seldom. The women -who frequented these places at night, in spite of their sombreros and -flannel shirts and belts, were a most unpicturesque and unattractive -element. They were neither dashing and bold, nor remorseful and -repentant. - -[Illustration: UPPER CREEDE] - -They gambled foolishly, and laughed when they won, and told the dealer -he cheated when they lost. The men occasionally gave glimpses of -the life which Bret Harte made dramatic and picturesque--the women, -never. The most uncharacteristic thing of the place, and one which was -Bret Hartish in every detail, was the service held in Watrous and -Bannigan’s gambling-saloon. The hall is a very long one with a saloon -facing the street, and keno tables, and a dozen other games in the -gambling-room beyond. When the doors between the two rooms are held -back they make a very large hall. A clergyman asked Watrous if he could -have the use of the gambling-hall on Sunday night. The house was making -about three hundred dollars an hour, and Watrous calculated that half -an hour would be as much as he could afford towards the collection. He -mounted a chair and said, “Boys, this gentleman wants to make a few -remarks to you of a religious nature. All the games at that end of the -hall will stop, and you want to keep still.” - -The clergyman stood on the platform of the keno outfit, and the greater -part of the men took the seats around it, toying with the marking cards -scattered over the table in front of them, while the men in the saloon -crowded the doorway from the swinging doors to the bar, and looked on -with curious and amused faces. At the back of the room the roulette -wheel clicked and the ball rolled. The men in this part of the room who -were playing lowered their voices, but above the voice of the preacher -one could hear the clinking of the silver and the chips, and the voice -of the boy at the wheel calling, “seventeen and black, and twenty-eight -and black again and--keep the ball rolling, gentlemen--and four and -red.” There are two electric lights in the middle of the hall and a -stove; the men were crowded closely around this stove, and the lamps -shone through the smoke on their tanned upturned faces and on the white -excited face of the preacher above them. There was the most excellent -order, and the collection was very large. I asked Watrous how much he -lost by the interruption. - -“Nothing,” he said, quickly, anxious to avoid the appearance of good; -“I got it all back at the bar.” - -Of the inner life of Creede I saw nothing; I mean the real business of -the place--the speculation in real estate and in mines. Capitalists -came every day, and were carried off up the mountains to look at a hole -in the ground, and down again to see the assay tests of the ore taken -from it. Prospectors scoured the sides of the mountains from sundawn -to sunset, and at night their fires lit up the range, and their little -heaps of stone and their single stick, with their name scrawled on it -in pencil, made the mountains look like great burying-grounds. All -of the land within two miles of Creede was claimed by these simple -proofs of ownership--simple, yet as effectual as a parchment sealed and -signed. When the snow has left the mountains, and these claims can be -worked, it will be time enough to write the real history of the rise or -fall of Creede. - - - - -IV - -A THREE-YEAR-OLD CITY - - - - -IV - -A THREE-YEAR-OLD CITY - - -THE only interest which the East can take in Oklahoma City for some -time to come must be the same as that with which one regards a portrait -finished by a lightning crayon artist, “with frame complete,” in ten -minutes. We may have seen better portraits and more perfect coloring, -but we have never watched one completed, as it were, “while you wait.” -People long ago crowded to see Master Betty act, not because there were -no better actors in those days, but because he was so very young to do -it so very well. It was as a freak of nature, a Josef Hoffman of the -drama, that they considered him, and Oklahoma City must content itself -with being only of interest as yet as a freak of our civilization. - -After it has decided which of the half-dozen claimants to each of its -town sites is the only one, and the others have stopped appealing to -higher and higher courts, and have left the law alone and have reduced -their attention strictly to business, and the city has been burned down -once or twice, and had its Treasurer default and its Mayor impeached, -and has been admitted to the National Baseball League, it may hope to -be regarded as a full-grown rival city; but at present, as far as it -concerns the far East, it is interesting chiefly as a city that grew -up overnight, and did in three years or less what other towns have -accomplished only after half a century. - -[Illustration: OKLAHOMA CITY ON THE DAY OF THE OPENING] - -The history of its pioneers and their invasion of their undiscovered -country not only shows how far the West is from the East, but how much -we have changed our ways of doing things from the days of the Pilgrim -Fathers to those of the modern pilgrims, the “boomers” and “sooners” -of the end of the century. We have seen pictures in our school-books, -and pictures which Mr. Boughton has made for us, of the _Mayflower’s_ -people kneeling on the shore, the long, anxious voyage behind them, and -the “rock-bound coast” of their new home before them, with the Indians -looking on doubtfully from behind the pine-trees. It makes a very -interesting picture--those stern-faced pilgrims in their knickerbockers -and broad white collars; each man strong in the consciousness that -he has resisted persecution and overcome the perils of the sea, and -is ready to meet the perils of an unknown land. I should like you to -place in contrast with this the opening of Oklahoma Territory to the -new white settlers three years ago. These modern pilgrims stand in rows -twenty deep, separated from the promised land not by an ocean, but by a -line scratched in the earth with the point of a soldier’s bayonet. The -long row toeing this line are bending forward, panting with excitement, -and looking with greedy eyes towards the new Canaan, the women with -their dresses tucked up to their knees, the men stripped of coats and -waistcoats for the coming race. And then, a trumpet call, answered by -a thousand hungry yells from all along the line, and hundreds of men -and women on foot and on horseback break away across the prairie, the -stronger pushing down the weak, and those on horseback riding over -and in some cases killing those on foot, in a mad, unseemly race for -something which they are getting for nothing. These pilgrims do not -drop on one knee to give thanks decorously, as did Columbus according -to the twenty-dollar bills, but fall on both knees, and hammer stakes -into the ground and pull them up again, and drive them down somewhere -else, at a place which they hope will eventually become a corner lot -facing the post-office, and drag up the next man’s stake, and threaten -him with a Winchester because he is on _their_ land, which they have -owned for the last three minutes. And there are no Indians in this -scene. They have been paid one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre -for the land, which is worth five dollars an acre as it lies, before -a spade has been driven into it or a bit of timber cut, and they are -safely out of the way. - -Oklahoma Territory, which lies in the most fertile part of the Indian -Territory, equally distant from Kansas and Texas, was thrown open to -white settlers at noon on the 22d of April, 1889. To appreciate the -Oklahoma City of this day, it is necessary to go back to the Oklahoma -of three years ago. The city at that time consisted of a railroad -station, a section-house and water-tank, the home of the railroad -agent, and four other small buildings. The rest was prairie-land, with -low curving hills covered with high grass and bunches of thick timber; -this as far as the eye could see, and nothing else. This land, which is -rich and black and soft, and looks like chocolate where the plough has -turned the sod, was thrown open by the proclamation of the President -to white settlers, who could on such a day, at such an hour, “enter -and occupy it” for homestead holdings. A homestead holding is one -hundred and sixty acres of land. The proclamation said nothing about -town sites, or of the division of town sites into “lots” for stores, or -of streets and cross-streets. But several bodies of men in different -parts of Kansas prepared plans long before the opening, for a town to -be laid out around the station, the water-tank, and the other buildings -where Oklahoma City now stands, and had their surveyors and their blue -prints hidden away in readiness for the 22d of April. All of those who -intended to enter this open-to-all-comers race for land knew that the -prairie around the station would be laid out into lots. Hence that -station and other stations which in time would become cities were the -goals for which over forty thousand people raced from the borders of -the new Territory. So many of these “beat the pistol” on the start and -reached the goal first that, in consequence, the efforts ever since to -run this race over again through the law courts has kept Oklahoma City -from growing with even more marvellous rapidity than it already has -done. - -[Illustration: FIVE DAYS AFTER THE OPENING] - -The Sunday before the 22d was a warm bright day, and promised well for -the morrow. Soldiers and deputy marshals were the only living beings in -sight around the station, and those who tried to descend from passing -trains were pushed back again at the point of the bayonet. The course -was being kept clear for the coming race. But freight cars loaded with -raw lumber and furniture and all manner of household goods, as well as -houses themselves, ready to be put together like the joints of a trout -rod, were allowed free entry, and stood for a mile along the side-track -awaiting their owners, who were hugging the border lines from fifteen -to thirty miles away. Captain D. F. Stiles, of the Tenth Infantry, who -had been made provost marshal of the new Territory, and whose soldiers -guarded the land before and maintained peace after the invasion, raised -his telescope at two minutes to twelve on the eventful 22d of April, -and saw nothing from the station to the horizon but an empty green -prairie of high waving grass. It would take the first horse (so he and -General Merritt and his staff in their private car on the side-track -decided) at least one hour and a quarter to cover the fifteen miles -from the nearest border. They accordingly expected to catch the -first glimpse of the leaders in the race with their glasses in about -half an hour. The signal on the border was a trumpet call given by a -cavalryman on a white horse, which he rode in a circle in order that -those who were too far away to hear the trumpet might see that it had -been sounded. A like signal was given at the station; but before it -had died away, and _not_ half an hour later, five hundred men sprang -from the long grass, dropped from the branches of trees, crawled from -under freight cars and out of cañons and ditches, and the blank prairie -became alive with men running and racing about like a pack of beagles -that have suddenly lost a hot trail. - -Fifteen minutes after twelve the men of the Seminole Land and Town -Company were dragging steel chains up the street on a run, the red and -white barber poles and the transits were in place all over the prairie, -and neat little rows of stakes stretched out in regular lines to mark -where they hoped the town might be. At twenty minutes after twelve -over forty tents were in position, and the land around them marked -out by wooden pegs. This was the work of the “sooners,” as those men -were called who came into the Territory too soon, not for their own -interests, but for the interests of other people. At a quarter past one -the Rev. James Murray and a Mr. Kincaid, who represented the Oklahoma -Colony, stopped a sweating horse and creaking buggy and hammered in -their first stakes. They had left the border line exactly at noon, and -had made the fifteen miles at the rate of five minutes per mile. Four -minutes later J. H. McCortney and Colonel Harrison, of Kansas, arrived -from the Canadian River, having whipped their horses for fifteen miles, -and the mud from the river was over the hubs of the wheels. The first -train from the south reached the station at five minutes past two, and -unloaded twenty-five hundred people. They scattered like a stampeded -herd over the prairie, driving in their little stakes, and changing -their minds about it and driving them in again at some other point. -There were already, even at this early period of the city’s history, -over three different men on each lot of ground, each sitting by the -stake bearing his name, and each calling the other a “sooner,” and -therefore one ineligible to hold land, and many other names of more -ancient usage. - -[Illustration: FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE OPENING] - -But there was no blood shed even during the greatest excitement of that -feverish afternoon. This was in great part due to the fact that the -provost marshal confiscated all the arms he saw. At three o’clock the -train from the north arrived with hundreds more hanging from the steps -and crowding the aisles. The sight of so many others who had beaten -them in the race seemed to drive these late-comers almost frantic, -and they fell over one another in their haste, and their race for the -choicest lots was like a run on a bank when no one knows exactly where -the bank is. One young woman was in such haste to alight that she -crawled out of the car window, and as soon as she reached the solid -earth beneath, drove in her stake and claimed all the land around it. -This was part of the military reservation, and the soldiers explained -this to her, or tried to, but she was suspicious of every one, and -remained seated by her wooden peg until nightfall. She could just as -profitably have driven it into the centre of Union Square. Another -woman stuck up a sign bearing the words, “A Soldier’s Widow’s Land,” -and was quite confident that the chivalry of the crowd would respect -that title. Captain Stiles told her that he thought it would not, and -showed her a lot of ground still unclaimed that she could have, but -she refused to move. The lot he showed her is now on the main street, -in the centre of the town, and the lot she was finally forced to take -is three miles out of the city in the prairie. Another woman drove her -stake between the railroad ties, and said it would take a locomotive -and a train of cars to move _her_. One man put his stake in the very -centre of the lot sites laid out by the surveyors, and claimed the -one hundred and sixty acres around for his homestead holding. They -explained to him that he could only have as much land as would make -a lot in the town site, and that if he wanted one hundred and sixty -acres, must locate it outside of the city limits. He replied that the -proclamation said nothing about town sites. - -“But, of course,” he went on, “if you people want to build a city -around my farm, I have no objections. I don’t care for city life -myself, and I am going to turn this into a vegetable garden. Maybe, -though, if you want it very bad, I _might_ sell it.” - -He and the city fought it out for months, and, for all I know, are -at it still. At three o’clock, just three hours after the Territory -was invaded, the Oklahoma Colony declared the polls open, and voting -began for Mayor and City Clerk. About four hundred people voted. Other -land companies at once held public meetings and protested against this -election. Each land company was mapping out and surveying the city to -suit its own interests, and every man and woman was more or less of -a land company to himself or herself, and the lines and boundaries -and streets were intersecting and crossing like the lines of a dress -pattern. Night came on and put a temporary hush to this bedlam, and -six thousand people went to sleep in the open air, the greater part of -them without shelter. There was but one well in the city, and word was -brought to Captain Stiles about noon of the next day that the water -from this was being sold by a speculative gentleman at five cents per -pint, and that those who had no money were suffering. Captain Stiles -found the well guarded by a faro-dealer with a revolver. He had a tin -basin between his knees filled with nickels. He argued that he owned -the lot on which the water stood, and had as much private right to the -well as to a shaft that led down to a silver or an iron mine. Captain -Stiles threw him and his basin out at some distance on to the prairie, -and detailed a corporal’s guard to see that every one should get as -much water as he wanted. - -[Illustration: CAPTAIN D. F. STILES] - -During the morning there was an attempt made to induce the surveyors of -the different land companies to combine and readjust their different -plans, but without success. Finally, at three o clock, the people came -together in desperation to decide what was to be done, and, after an -amusing and exciting mass-meeting, fourteen unhappy and prominent -citizens were selected to agree upon an entirely new site. The choosing -of this luckless fourteen was accomplished by general nomination, -each nominee having first to stand upon a box that he might be seen -and considered by the crowd. They had to submit to such embarrassing -queries as, “Where are you from, and why did you have to leave?” “Where -did you get that hat?” “What is your excuse for living?” “Do you live -with your folks, or does your wife support you?” “What was your other -name before you came here?” The work of this committee began on the -morrow, and as they slowly proceeded along the new boundary lines -which they had mapped out, they were followed by all of those of the -population, which now amounted to ten thousand souls, who thought it -safe to leave their claims. As a rule, they found three men on each -lot, and it was their pleasant duty to decide to which of these the -lot belonged. They did this on the evidence of those who had lots near -by. In many cases, each member of each family had selected a lot for -himself, and this complicated matters still farther. The crowd at last -became so importunate and noisy that the committee asked for a military -guard, which was given them, and the crowd after that was at least -kept off the lot they were considering. The committee met with no real -opposition until it reached Main Street on Saturday, the fifth day of -the city’s life, where those who had settled along the lines laid down -by the Seminole Land Company pulled up the stakes of the citizens’ -committee as soon as they were driven down. For a time it looked very -much as though the record of peace was about to be broken along with -other things, but a committee of five men from each side of the street -decided the matter at a meeting held that afternoon. At this same -public meeting articles of confederation were adopted, and a temporary -Mayor, Recorder, Police Judge, and other city officials were appointed, -who were to receive one dollar for their services. This meeting closed -with cheers and with the singing of the doxology. - -The next day was Sunday, and was more or less observed. Captain Stiles -visited the gamblers, who swarmed about the place in great numbers, and -asked them to close their tables, which they did, although he had no -power to stop them if they had not wished to do so. In the afternoon -two separate religious services were held, to which the people were -called by a trumpeter from the infantry camp. - -This is, in brief, the history of the first week of this new city. -There were, considering the circumstances, but few disturbances, and -there was no drunkenness. This is disappointing, but true. Both came -later. But at the first no one cared to shoot the gentleman on the -other end of his lot, lest the man on the next lot might prove to be -a relative of his, and begin to shoot too. Later on, when everybody -became better acquainted, the shooting was more general. They could -not easily get anything to drink, as Captain Stiles seized all the -liquor, and when it came in vessels of unmanageable size that could -not be stored away, spilled it over the prairie. In two weeks over one -thousand buildings were enclosed, and there would have been more if -there had been more lumber. - -It would be interesting to follow the course of this sky-rocket among -cities up to the present day, and tell how laws were evolved and courts -established, and the complexities of the situation disentangled; but -that is work for one of the many bright young men who write monographs -on economic subjects at the Johns Hopkins University. It is just the -sort of work in which they delight, and which they do well, and they -will find many “oldest inhabitants” of this three-year-old city to take -equal delight in telling them of these early days, and in explaining -the rights and wrongs of their individual lawsuits against their city -and their neighbors. - -[Illustration: POST-OFFICE, APRIL 22, 1889] - -It is impossible, in considering the founding of Oklahoma, to overrate -the services of Captain Stiles. Seldom has the case of the right man -in the right place been so happily demonstrated. He was particularly -fitted to the work, although I doubt if the Government knew of it -before he was sent there, so apt is it to get the square peg in the -round hole, unless the square peg’s uncle is a Senator. But Captain -Stiles, when he was a lieutenant, had ruled at Waco, Texas, during the -reconstruction period, and the questions and difficulties that arose -after the war in that raw community fitted him to deal with similar -ones in the construction of Oklahoma. He was and is intensely unpopular -with the worst element in Oklahoma, and the better element call him -blessed, and have presented him with a three hundred dollar gold cane, -which is much too fine for him to carry except in clear weather. This -is the way public sentiment should be adjusted. Personal bravery had, -I think, as much to do with his success as the readiness with which -he met the difficulties he had to solve at a moment’s consideration. -Several times he walked up to the muzzles of revolvers with which -desperadoes covered him and wrenched them out of their owners’ hands. -He never interfered between the people and the civil law, and resisted -the temptation of misusing his authority in a situation where a weaker -man would have lost his head and abused his power. He was constantly -appealed to to settle disputes, and his invariable answer was, “I -am not here to decide which of you owns that lot, but to keep peace -between you until it is decided.” In September of 1889 a number of -disaffected citizens announced an election which was to overthrow -those then in power, and Captain Stiles was instructed by his superior -officers to prevent its taking place. This he did with a small force -of men in the face of threats from the most dangerous element in the -community of dynamite bombs and of a body of men armed with Winchesters -who were to shoot him first and his men later. But in spite of this -he visited and broke all the voting booths, wrested a Winchester from -the hands of the man who pointed it at his heart through one of the -windows of the polling-place, and finally charged the mob of five -hundred men with twenty-five soldiers and his fighting surgeon, young -Dr. Ives, and dispersed them utterly. I heard these stories of him on -every side, and I was rejoiced to think how well off our army must be -in majors, that the people at Washington can allow one who has served -through the war and on the border and in this unsettled Territory, and -whose hair has grown white in the service, to still wear two bars on -his shoulder-strap. - -It is much more pleasant to write of these early days of Oklahoma -City than of the Oklahoma City of the present, although one of its -citizens would not find it so, for he regards his adopted home with -a fierce local pride and jealousy almost equal to a Chicagoan’s love -for Chicago, which is saying a very great deal. But to the transient -visitor Oklahoma City of to-day, after he has recovered from the shock -its extent and solidity give him, is dispiriting and unprofitable to -a degree. This may partly be accounted for by the circumstance that -his only means of entering it from the south by train is, or was at -the time I visited it, at four o’clock in the morning. No one, after -having been dragged out of his berth and dropped into a cold misty well -of darkness, punctured only by the light from the brakeman’s lantern -and a smoking omnibus lamp, is in a mood to grow enthusiastic over the -city about him. And the fact that the hotel is crowded, and that he -must sleep with the barkeeper, does not tend to raise his spirits. I -can heartily recommend this method of discouraging immigration to the -authorities of any already overcrowded city. - -[Illustration: POST-OFFICE, JULY 4, 1890] - -But as the sun comes up, one sees the remarkable growth of this -city--remarkable not only for its extent in so short a period, but -for the come-to-stay air about many of its buildings. There are stone -banks and stores, and an opera-house, and rows of brick buildings with -dwelling-rooms above, and in the part of the city where the people go -to sleep hundreds of wooden houses, fashioned after the architecture -of the sea-shore cottages of the Jersey coast; for the climate is mild -the best part of the year. There are also churches of stone and brick -and stained glass, and a flour-mill, and three or four newspapers, -and courts of law, and boards of trade. But with all of these things, -which show a steadily improving growth after the mushroom nature -of its birth, Oklahoma City cannot or has not yet shaken off the -attributes with which it was born, and which in a community founded by -law and purchase would not exist. For speculation in land, whether in -lots on the main street or in homestead holdings on the prairie, and -the excitement of real-estate transfers, and the battle for rights in -the courts, seem to be the prevailing and ruling passion of the place. -Gambling in real estate is as much in the air as is the spirit of the -Louisiana State Lottery in New Orleans. Every one in Oklahoma City -seems to live, in part at least, by transferring real estate to some -one else, and the lawyers and real-estate agents live by helping them -to do it. It reminded me of that happy island in the Pacific seas where -every one took in every one else’s washing. This may sound unfair, -but it is not in the least exaggerated. The town swarms with lawyers, -and is overrun with real-estate offices. The men you meet and the men -you pass in the street are not discussing the weather or the crops or -the news of the outside world, but you hear them say: “I’ll appeal -it, by God!” “I’ll spend every cent I’ve got, sir!” “They’re a lot -of ‘sooners,’ and I can prove it!” or, “Ted Hillman’s lot on Prairie -Avenue, that he sold for two hundred dollars, rose to three hundred in -one week, and Abner Brown says he won’t take six hundred for it now.” - -This is only the natural and fitting outcome of the bungling, -incomplete bill which, rushed through at the hot, hurried end of a -session, authorized the opening of this territory. The President -might with equal judgment have proclaimed that “The silver vaults of -the United States Treasury will be opened on the 22d of April, when -citizens can enter in and take away one hundred and sixty silver -dollars each,” without providing laws to prevent or punish those who -entered before that date, or those who snatched more than their share. -One would think that some distinction might have been made, in opening -this new land, between those who came with family and money and stock, -meaning to settle permanently, and those who took the morning train -from Kansas in order to rush in and snatch a holding, only to sell it -again in three hours and to return to their homes that night; between -those who brought capital, and desperadoes and “boot-leggers” who came -to make capital out of others. If the land was worth giving away, it -was worth giving to those who would make the best use of it, and worth -surrounding with at least as much order as that which distinguishes the -fight of the Harvard Seniors for the flowers on Class day. They are -going to open still more territory this spring, and in all probability -the same confusion will arise and continue, and it is also probable -that many persons in the East may be attracted by the announcements and -advertisements of the “boomers” to this new land. - -The West is always full of hope to the old man as well as to the young -one, and the temptation to “own your own home” and to gain land for the -asking is very great. But the Eastern man should consider the question -very carefully. There is facing the passenger who arrives on the New -York train at Sedalia a large black and white sign on which some -philanthropist has painted “Go East, Young Man, Go East.” One might -write pages and not tell more than that sign does, when one considers -where it is placed and for what purpose it is placed there. - -A man in Oklahoma City when the day’s work is done has before him a -prospect of broad red clayey streets, muddy after rain, bristling with -dust after a drought, with the sun setting at one end of them into -the prairie. He can go to his cottage, or to “The Turf,” where he can -lose some money at faro, or he can sit in one of the hotels, which are -the clubs of the city, and talk cattle to strangers and real estate -to citizens, or he can join a lodge and talk real estate there. Once -or twice a week a “show” makes a one-night stand at the opera-house. -The schools are not good for his children as yet, and the society that -he is willing his wife should enjoy is limited. On Sunday he goes to -church, and eats a large dinner in the middle of the day, and walks -up to the top of the hill to look over the prairie where he and many -others would like to build, but which must remain empty until the -twelve different disputants for each holding have stopped appealing to -higher courts. This is actually the case, and the reason the city has -not spread as others around it have done. As the Romans shortened their -swords to extend their boundaries, so the people of Oklahoma City might -cut down some of their higher courts and increase theirs. - -I have given this sketch of Oklahoma City as it impressed itself on me, -because I think any man who can afford a hall bedroom and a gas-stove -in New York City is better off than he would be as the owner of one -hundred and sixty acres on the prairie, or in one of these small -so-called cities. - -[Illustration: OKLAHOMA CITY TO-DAY--MAIN BROADWAY] - -And the men who are at the head of affairs, who rose out of the six -thousand in a week, and who have kept at the head ever since, if they -had exerted the same energy, and showed the same executive ability -and the same cleverness in a real city, would be real mayors, real -merchants, and real “prominent citizens.” They are now as men playing -with children’s toys or building houses of cards. Every now and then -a Roger Q. Mills or a Henry W. Grady comes out of the South and West, -and among these politicians and first citizens of Oklahoma City are men -who only need a broader canvas and a greater opportunity to show what -they can do. There are as many of these as there are uncouth “Sockless” -Simpsons, or noisy Ingallses, and it is pathetic and exasperating to -see men who would excel in a great metropolis, and who could live where -they could educate their children and themselves, and be in touch with -the world moving about them, even though they were not of it, wasting -their energies in a desert of wooden houses in the middle of an ocean -of prairie, where their point of view is bounded by the railroad tank -and a barb-wire fence. It depends altogether on the man. There are -men who are just big enough to be leading citizens of a town of six -thousand inhabitants, who are meant for nothing else, and it is just as -well they should be satisfied with the unsettled existence around them; -but it would be better for these others to be small men in a big city -than big men on a prairie, where the organ in the front room is their -art gallery, book-store, theatre, church, and school, and where the -rustling grass of the prairie greets them in the morning and goes to -bed with them at night. - - - - -V - -RANCH LIFE IN TEXAS - - - - -V - -RANCH LIFE IN TEXAS - - -THE inhabited part of a ranch, the part of it on which the people who -own it live, bears about the same proportion to the rest of the ranch -as a light-house does to the ocean around it. - -And to an Eastern man it appears almost as lonely. Some light-houses -are isolated in the ocean, some stand in bays, and some in harbors; -and in the same proportion the ranches in Texas differ in size, from -principalities to farms no larger than those around Jersey City. The -simile is not altogether exact, as there are small bodies of men -constantly leaving the “ranch-house” and wandering about over the -range, sleeping wherever night catches them, and in this way different -parts of the ranch are inhabited as well as the house itself. It is -as if the light-housekeeper sent out a great number of row-boats to -look after the floating buoys or to catch fish, and the men in those -boats anchored whenever it grew dark, and returned to the light-house -variously as best suited their convenience or their previous orders. - -But it is the loneliness of the life that will most certainly first -impress the visitor from closely built blocks of houses. Those who live -on the ranches will tell you that they do not find it lonely, and that -they grow so fond of the great breezy pastures about them that they -become independent of the rest of mankind, and that a trip to the city -once a year to go to the play and to “shop” is all they ask from the -big world lying outside of the barb-wire fences. I am speaking now of -those ranch-owners only who live on the range, and not of those who -hire a foreman, and spend their time and money in the San Antonio Club. -They are no more ranchmen than the absentee landlord who lives in his -London house is a gentleman farmer. - -The largest ranch in the United States, and probably in the world, -owned by one person, is in Texas, and belongs to Mrs. Richard King, the -widow of Captain Richard King. It lies forty-five miles south of Corpus -Christi. - -The ladies who come to call on Mrs. King drive from her front gate, -over as good a road as any in Central Park, for ten miles before they -arrive at her front door, and the butcher and baker and iceman, if such -existed, would have to drive thirty miles from the back gate before -they reached her kitchen. This ranch is bounded by the Corpus Christi -Bay for forty miles, and by barb-wire for three hundred miles more. It -covers seven hundred thousand acres in extent, and one hundred thousand -head of cattle and three thousand broodmares wander over its different -pastures. - -[Illustration: THE RANCH-HOUSE OF THE KING RANCH, THE LARGEST RANGE -OWNED BY ONE INDIVIDUAL IN THE UNITED STATES] - -This property is under the ruling of Robert J. Kleberg, Mrs. King’s -son-in-law, and he has under him a superintendent, or, as the Mexicans -call one who holds that office, a major-domo, which is an unusual -position for a major-domo, as this major-domo has the charge of three -hundred cowboys and twelve hundred ponies reserved for their use. The -“Widow’s” ranch, as the Texans call it, is as carefully organized and -moves on as conservative business principles as a bank. The cowboys -do not ride over its range with both legs at right angles to the -saddle and shooting joyfully into the air with both guns at once. -Neither do they offer the casual visitor a bucking pony to ride, and -then roll around on the prairie with glee when he is shot up into the -air and comes down on his collar-bone, they are more likely to bring -him as fine a Kentucky thoroughbred as ever wore a blue ribbon around -the Madison Square Garden. Neither do they shoot at his feet to see -if he can dance. In this way the Eastern man is constantly finding -his dearest illusions abruptly dispelled. It is also trying when the -cowboys stand up and take off their sombreros when one is leaving their -camp. There are cowboys and cowboys, and I am speaking now of those -that I saw on the King ranch. - -The thing that the wise man from the East cannot at first understand is -how the one hundred thousand head of cattle wandering at large over the -range are ever collected together. He sees a dozen or more steers here, -a bunch of horses there, and a single steer or two a mile off, and even -as he looks at them they disappear in the brush, and as far as his -chance of finding them again would be, they might as well stand forty -miles away at the other end of the ranch. But this is a very simple -problem to the ranchman. - -Mr. Kleberg, for instance, receives an order from a firm in Chicago -calling for one thousand head of cattle. The breed of cattle which the -firm wants is grazing in a corner of the range fenced in by barb-wire, -and marked pale blue for convenience on a beautiful map blocked out in -colors, like a patch-work quilt, which hangs in Mr. Kleberg’s office. -When the order is received, he sends a Mexican on a pony to tell the -men near that particular pale blue pasture to round up one thousand -head of cattle, and at the same time directs his superintendent to send -in a few days as many cowboys to that pasture as are needed to “hold” -one thousand head of cattle on the way to the railroad station. The -boys on the pasture, which we will suppose is ten miles square, will -take ten of their number and five extra ponies apiece, which one man -leads, and from one to another of which they shift their saddles as men -do in polo, and go directly to the water-tanks in the ten square miles -of land. A cow will not often wander more than two and a half miles -from water, and so, with the water-tank (which on the King ranch may be -either a well with a wind-mill or a dammed cañon full of rain-water) as -a rendezvous, the finding of the cattle is comparatively easy, and ten -men can round up one thousand head in a day or two. When they have them -all together, the cowboys who are to drive them to the station arrive, -and take them off. - -At the station the agent of the Chicago firm and the agent of the King -ranch ride through the herd together, and if they disagree as to the -fitness of any one or more of the cattle, an outsider is called in, and -his decision is final. The cattle are then driven on to the cars, and -Mr. Kleberg’s responsibility is at an end. - -In the spring there is a general rounding up, and thousands and -thousands of steers are brought in from the different pastures, and -those for which contracts have been made during the winter are shipped -off to the markets, and the calves are branded. - -[Illustration: A SHATTERED IDOL] - -Texas is the great breeding State from which the cattle are sent north -to the better pasture land of Kansas, Montana, and Wyoming Territory, -to be fattened up for the markets. The breeding goes on throughout the -year, five bulls being pastured with every three hundred cows, in -pastures of from one thousand to ten thousand acres in extent. About -ninety per cent. of the cows calve, and the branding of these calves is -one of the most important duties of the spring work. They are driven -into a pen through a wooden chute, and as they leave the chute are -caught by the legs and thrown over on the side, and one of a dozen hot -irons burning in an open fire is pressed against the flank, and, on the -King ranch, on the nose. - -An animal bearing one of the rough hall-marks of the ranchman is more -respected than a dog with a silver collar around his neck, and the -number of brands now registered in the State capital runs up to the -thousands. On some ranches each of the family has his or her especial -brand; and one young girl who came out in New York last winter is known -throughout lower Texas only as “the owner of the Triangle brand,” -and is much respected in consequence, as it is borne by thousands of -wandering cattle. The separating of the cattle at the spring round-up -is accomplished on the King ranch by means of a cutting pen, a somewhat -ingenious trap at the end of a chute. One end of this chute opens on -the prairie, and the other runs into four different pens guarded by -a swinging gate, so hung that by a movement of the foot by the man -sitting over the gate the chute can be extended into any one of the -four pens. With this mules, steers, horses, and ponies can be fed into -the chute together, and each arrive in his proper pen until the number -for which the different orders call is filled. - -It is rather difficult to imagine one solitary family occupying a -territory larger than some of the Eastern States--an area of territory -that would in the East support a State capital, with a Governor and -Legislature, and numerous small towns, with competing railroad systems -and rival base-ball nines. And all that may be said of this side of the -question of ranch life is that when we are within Mrs. King’s house we -would imagine it was one of twenty others touching shoulder to shoulder -on Madison Avenue, and that the distant cry of the coyotes at night is -all that tells us that the hansoms are not rushing up and down before -the door. - -[Illustration: SNAPPING A ROPE ON A HORSE’S FOOT] - -In the summer this ranch is covered with green, and little yellow and -pink flowers carpet the range for miles. It is at its best then, and is -as varied and beautiful in its changes as the ocean. - -The ranches that stretch along and away from the Rio Grande River are -very different from this; they are owned by Mexicans, and every one -on the ranch is a Mexican; the country is desolate here, and dead and -dying cattle are everywhere. - -No ranch-owner, whether he has fifty thousand or five hundred head of -cattle, will ever attempt to help one that may be ailing or dying. This -seems to one who has been taught the value of “three acres and a cow” -the height of extravagance, and to show lack of feeling. But they will -all tell you it is useless to try to save a starving or a sick animal, -and also that it is not worth the trouble, there are so many more. In -one place I saw where a horse had fallen on the trail, and the first -man who passed had driven around it, and the next, and the next, until -a new trail was made, and at the time I passed over this new trail, I -could see the old one showing through the ribs of the horse’s skeleton. -In the East, I think, they would have at least pulled the horse out of -the road. - -But a live horse or steer is just as valuable in Texas as in the -East--even more so. - -The conductor on the road from Corpus Christi sprang from his chair in -the baggage car one day, and shouted to the engineer that he must be -careful, for we were on Major Fenton’s range, and must look out for the -major’s prize bull; and the train continued at half speed accordingly -until the conductor espied the distinguished animal well to the left, -and shouted: “All right, Bill! We’ve passed him, let her out.” - -The Randado ranch is typical of the largest of the Mexican ranches -which lie within the five hundred miles along the Rio Grande. It -embraces eighty thousand acres, with twenty-five thousand head of -cattle, and it has its store, its little mission, its tank, twenty or -more adobe houses with thatched roofs, and its little graveyard. There -is a post-office here, and a school, where very pretty little Mexicans -recited proudly in English words of four letters. Around them lie the -cactus and dense chaparral cut up with dusky trails, and the mail comes -but twice a week. But every Saturday the vaqueros come in from the -range, and there is dancing on the bare clay floor of one of the huts, -and the school-master postmaster sings to them every evening on his -guitar, and once a month the priest comes on horseback to celebrate -mass in the adobe mission. - -Around San Antonio are many ranches. These are more like large farms, -and there are high trees and hills and a wonderful variety of flowers. -There are also antelope and wild fowl for those who love to hunt, and -the scalp of a coyote brings fifty cents to those who care for money; -for the coyotes pull down the young calves. The life on the range is -not at all lonely here, for the women on the ranch do not mind riding -in twelve miles to a dance in San Antonio, and there are always people -coming out from town to remain a day or two. The more successful of -these ranches are like English country-houses in their free hospitality -and in the constant changing of the guests. - -[Illustration: HILLINGDON RANCH] - -Many of these about San Antonio are owned, in fact, by Englishmen, -although a record of the failures of the English colonists of good -family and of well-known youths from New York would make a book, and -a very sad one. There was a whole colony of English families and -unattached younger sons at Boerne, just outside of San Antonio, a -few years ago; but they preferred cutting to leg to cutting out cattle, -and used the ponies to chase polo balls, and their money soon went, and -they followed. Some went to England as prodigal sons, some to driving -hacks and dealing faro, and others into the army. A few succeeded, and -are still at Boerne, notably a cousin of Thomas Hughes, who founded the -ill-fated English colony of Rugby, in Tennessee. - -Of the New York men who came on to San Antonio, the two Jacob boys are -more frequently and more heartily spoken of by the Texans than almost -any other Eastern men who have been there. They did not, as the others -so often do, hire a foreman, and spend their days in the San Antonio -Club, but rode the ranch themselves, and could cut out and brand and -rope with any of those born on a range. Their ranch, the Santa Marta, -still flourishes, although they have become absentee landlords, and -have given up chasing wild steers in Texas in favor of the foxes at -Rockaway. - -A ranch which marks the exception in the rule of failures of our -English cousins is that of Alfred Giles in Kendal and Kerr counties. -It covers about thirteen thousand acres, and a very fine breed of -polled Angus cattle are bred on it. Indeed, the tendency all over -Texas at present is to cultivate certain well-known breeds, and not, -as formerly, to be content with the famous long-horned steer and the -Texan pony. Mr. Giles’s ranch, the Hillingdon, looks in the summer, -when the imported Scotch cattle are grazing over it, like a bit out of -the Lake country. Walnut, cherry, ash, and oak grow on this ranch, and -the maidenhair-fern is everywhere, and the flowers are boundless in -profusion and variety. - -The coming of the barb-wire fence and the railroad killed the cowboy -as a picturesque element of recklessness and lawlessness in south-west -Texas. It suppressed him and localized him and limited him to his own -range, and made his revolver merely an ornament. Before the barb-wire -fence appeared, the cattle wandered from one range to another, and -the man of fifteen thousand acres would over-stock, knowing that when -his cattle could not find enough pasturage on his range they would -move over to the range of his more prosperous neighbor. Consequently, -when the men who could afford it began to fence their ranges, the -smaller owners who had over-bred, saw that their cattle would starve, -and so cut the fences in order to get back to the pastures which they -had used so long. This, and the shutting off of water-tanks and of -long-used trails brought on the barb-wire fence wars which raged long -and fiercely between the cowboys and fence men of rival ranches and the -Texas Rangers. The barb-wire fences did more than this; they shut off -the great trails that stretched from Corpus Christi through the Pan -Handle of Texas, and on up through New Mexico and Colorado and through -the Indian Territory to Dodge City. The coming of the railroad also -made this trailing of cattle to the markets superfluous, and almost -destroyed one of the most remarkable features of the West. This trail -was not, of course, an actual trail, and marked as such, but a general -driveway forty miles wide and thousands of miles long. The herds of -cattle that were driven over it numbered from three hundred to three -thousand head, and were moving constantly from the early spring to the -late fall. - -[Illustration: FIXING A BREAK IN THE WIRE FENCE] - -No caravan route in the far Eastern countries can equal this six -months’ journey through three different States, and through all changes -of weather and climate, and in the face of constant danger and -anxiety. This procession of countless cattle on their slow march to the -north was one of the most interesting and distinctive features of the -West. - -An “outfit” for this expedition would consist of as many cowboys as -were needed to hold the herd together, a wagon, with the cook and the -tents, and extra ponies for the riders. In the morning the camp-wagon -pushed on ahead to a suitable resting-place for the night, and when -the herd arrived later, moving, on an average, fifteen miles a day, -and grazing as it went, the men would find the supper ready and the -tents pitched. And then those who were to watch that night would circle -slowly around the great army of cattle, driving them in closer and -closer together, and singing as they rode, to put them to sleep. This -seems an absurdity to the Eastern mind, but the familiar sounds quieted -and satisfied these great stupid animals that can be soothed like a -child with a nursery rhyme, and when frightened cannot be stopped by a -river. The boys rode slowly and patiently until one and then another of -the herd would stumble clumsily to the ground, and others near would -follow, and at last the whole great herd would be silent and immovable -in sleep. But the watchfulness of the sentries could never relax. Some -chance noise--the shaking of a saddle, some cry of a wild animal, -or the scent of distant water carried by a chance breeze across the -prairie, or nothing but sheer blind wantonness--would start one of the -sleeping mass to his feet with a snort, and in an instant the whole -great herd would go tearing madly over the prairie, tossing their horns -and bellowing, and filled with a wild, unreasoning terror. And then -the skill and daring of the cowboy was put to its severest test, as he -saw his master’s income disappearing towards a cañon or a river, or -to lose itself in the brush. And the cowboy who tried to head off and -drive back this galloping army of frantic animals had to ride a race -that meant his life if his horse made a misstep; and as the horse’s -feet often did slip, there would be found in the morning somewhere in -the trail of the stampeding cattle a horrid mass of blood and flesh and -leather. - -Do you wonder, then, after this half-year of weary, restless riding by -day, and sleepless anxiety and watching under the stars by night, that -when the lights of Dodge City showed across the prairie, the cowboy -kicked his feet out of his stirrups, drove the blood out of the pony’s -sides, and “came in to town” with both guns going at once, and yelling -as though the pent-up speech of the past six months of loneliness was -striving for proper utterance? - -The cowboy cannot be overestimated as a picturesque figure; all -that has been written about him and all the illustrations that have -been made of him fail to familiarize him, and to spoil the picture -he makes when one sees him for the first time racing across a range -outlined against the sky, with his handkerchief flying out behind, his -sombrero bent back by the wind, and his gauntlets and broad leather -leggings showing above and at the side of his galloping pony. And his -deep seat in the saddle, with his legs hanging straight to the long -stirrups, the movement of his body as it sways and bends, and his -utter unconsciousness of the animal beneath him would make a German -riding-master, an English jockey, or the best cross-country rider of a -Long Island hunting club shake his head in envy and despair. - -[Illustration: GATHERING THE ROPE] - -He is a fantastic-looking individual, and one suspects he wears -the strange garments he affects because he knows they are most -becoming. But there is a reason for each of the different -parts of his apparel, in spite of rather than on account of their -picturesqueness. The sombrero shades his face from the rain and sun, -the rattlesnake-skin around it keeps it on his head, the broad kerchief -that he wears knotted around his throat protects his neck from the -heat, and the leather leggings which cover the front of his legs -protect them from the cactus in Texas, and in the North, where the -fur and hair are left on the leather, from the sleet and rain as he -rides against them. The gauntlets certainly seem too military for such -rough service, but any one who has had a sheet rope run through his -hands, can imagine how a lasso cuts when a wild horse is pulling on -the other end of it. His cartridge-belt and his revolver are on some -ranches superfluous, but cattle-men say they have found that on those -days when they took this toy away from their boys, they sulked and -fretted and went about their work half-heartedly, so that they believe -it pays better to humor them, and to allow them to relieve the monotony -of the day’s vigil by popping at jack-rabbits and learning to twirl -their revolver around their first finger. Of the many compliments I -have heard paid by officers and privates and ranch-owners and cowboys -to Mr. Frederic Remington, the one which was sure to follow the others -was that he never made the mistake of putting the revolver on the left -side. But as I went North, his anonymous admirers would make this same -comment, but with regret that he should be guilty of such an error. I -could not understand this at first until I found that the two sides of -the shield lay in the Northern cowboy’s custom of wearing his pistol on -the left, and of the Texan’s of carrying it on the right. The Northern -man argues on this important matter that the sword has always been worn -on the left, that it is easier to reach across and sweep the pistol -to either the left or right, and that with this motion it is at once -in position. The Texan says this is absurd, and quotes the fact that -the pistol-pocket has always been on the right, and that the lasso -and reins are in the way of the left hand. It is too grave a question -of etiquette for any one who has not at least six notches on his -pistol-butt to decide. - -Although Mr. Kleberg’s cowboys have been shorn of their pistols, their -prowess as ropers still remains with them. They gave us an exhibition -of this feature of their calling which was as remarkable a performance -in its way as I have ever seen. The audience seated itself on the top -of a seven-rail fence, and thrilled with excitement. At least a part of -it did. I fancy Mr. Kleberg was slightly bored, but he was too polite -to show it. Sixty wild horses were sent into a pen eighty yards across, -and surrounded by the seven-rail fence. Into this the cowboys came, -mounted on their ponies, and at Mr. Kleberg’s word lassoed whichever -horse he designated. They threw their ropes as a man tosses a quoit, -drawing it back at the instant it closed over the horse’s head, and -not, as the beginner does, allowing the noose to settle loosely, and -to tighten through the horse’s effort to move forward. This roping was -not so impressive as what followed, as the ropes were short, owing to -the thick undergrowth, which prevents long throws, such as are made -in the North, and as the pony was trained to suit its gait to that of -the animal it was pursuing, and to turn and dodge with it, and to stop -with both fore-feet planted firmly when the rope had settled around the -other horse’s neck. - -[Illustration: REACTION EQUALS ACTION] - -But when they had shown us how very simple a matter this was, they -were told to dismount and to rope the horses by whichever foot -Mr. Kleberg choose to select. This was a real combat, and was as -intensely interesting a contest between a thoroughly wild and terrified -animal and a perfectly cool man as one can see, except, perhaps, at -a bull-fight. There is something in a contest of this sort that has -appealed to something in all human beings who have blood in their veins -from the days when one gladiator followed another with a casting-net -and a trident around the arena down to the present, when “Peter” Poe -drops on one knee and tries to throw Hefflefinger over his shoulder. -In this the odds were in favor of the horse, as a cowboy on the ground -is as much out of his element as a sailor on a horse, and looks as -strangely. The boys moved and ran and backed away as quickly as their -heavy leggings would permit; but the horses moved just twice as -quickly, turning and jumping and rearing, and then racing away out -of reach again at a gallop. But whenever they came within range of -the ropes, they fell. The roping around the neck had seemed simple. -The rope then was cast in a loop with a noose at one end as easily as -one throws a trout line. But now the rope had to be hurled as quickly -and as surely as a man sends a ball to first base when the batsman is -running, except that the object at which the cowboy aims is moving at -a gallop, and one of a galloping horse’s four feet is a most uncertain -bull’s-eye. - -It is almost impossible to describe the swiftness with which the rope -moved. It seemed to skim across the ground as a skipping-rope does when -a child holds one end of it and shakes the rope up and down to make it -look like a snake coiling and undulating over the pavement. - -One instant the rope would hang coiled from the thrower’s right hand -as he ran forward to meet the horse, moving it slowly, with a twist -of his wrist, to keep it from snarling, and the next it would spin out -along the ground, with the noose rolling like a hoop in the front, and -would close with a snap over the horse’s hoof, and the cowboy would -throw himself back to take the shock, and the horse would come down on -its side as though the ground had slipped from under it. - -The roping around the neck was the easy tossing of a quoit; the roping -around the leg was the angry snapping of a whip. - -There are thousands of other ranches in the United States besides -those in Texas, and other cowboys, but the general characteristics are -the same in all, and it is only general characteristics that one can -attempt to give. - -[Illustration] - - - - -VI - -ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION - - - - -VI - -ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION - - -THE American Indian may be considered either seriously or lightly, -according to one’s inclination and opportunities. He may be taken -seriously, like the Irish question, by politicians and philanthropists; -or lightly, as a picturesque and historic relic of the past, as one -regards the beef-eaters, the Tower, or the fishwives at Scheveningen. -There are a great many Indians and a great many reservations, and some -are partly civilized and others are not, and the different tribes -differ in speech and manner of life as widely as in the South the -clay-eater of Alabama differs from a gentleman of one of the first -families of Virginia. Any one who wishes to speak with authority on the -American Indian must learn much more concerning him than the names of -the tribes and the agencies. - -The Indian will only be considered here lightly and as a picturesque -figure of the West. - -[Illustration: THE CHEYENNE TYPE] - -Many years ago the people of the East took their idea of the Indian -from Cooper’s novels and “Hiawatha,” and pictured him shooting arrows -into herds of buffalo, and sitting in his wigwam with many scalp-locks -drying on his shield in the sun outside. But they know better than that -now. Travellers from the West have told them that this picture belongs -to the past, and they have been taught to look upon the Indian as a -“problem,” and to consider him as either a national nuisance or as a -much-cheated and ill-used brother. They think of him, if they think of -him at all, as one who has fallen from his high estate, and who is a -dirty individual hanging around agencies in a high hat and a red shirt -with a whiskey-bottle under his arm, waiting a chance to beg or steal. -The Indian I saw was not at all like this, but was still picturesque, -not only in what he wore, but in what he did and said, and was full of -a dignity that came up at unexpected moments, and was as suspicious or -trustful as a child. - -It is impossible when one sees a blanket Indian walking haughtily about -in his buckskin, with his face painted in many colors and with feathers -in his hair, not to think that he has dressed for the occasion, or goes -thus equipped because his forefathers did so, and not because he finds -it comfortable. When you have seen a particular national costume only -in pictures and photographs, it is always something of a surprise to -find people wearing it with every-day matter-of-course ease, as though -they really preferred kilts or sabots or moccasins to the gear to which -we are accustomed at home. And the Indians in their fantastic mixture -of colors and beads and red flannel and feathers seemed so theatrical -at first that I could not understand why the army officers did not look -back over their shoulders when one of these young braves rode by. The -first Indians I saw were at Fort Reno, where there is an agency for the -Cheyennes and Arapahoes. This reservation is in the Oklahoma Territory, -but the Government has bought it from the Indians for a half-dollar an -acre, and it is to be opened to white settlers. The country is very -beautiful, and the tall grass of the prairie, which hides a pony, and -shows only the red blanketed figure on his back, and over which in the -clear places the little prairie-dogs scamper, and where the red buttes -stand out against the sky, and show an edge as sharp and curving as -the prow of a man-of-war, gives one a view of a West one seems to have -visited and known intimately through the illustrated papers. - -I had gone to Fort Reno to see the beef issue which takes place there -every two weeks, when the steers and the other things which make -up the Indian’s rations are distributed by the agent. I missed the -issue by four hours, and had to push on to Anadarko, where another -beef issue was to come off three days later, which was trying, as I -had met few men more interesting and delightful than the officers at -the post-trader’s mess. But I was fortunate, in the short time in -which I was at Fort Reno, in stumbling upon an Indian council. Two -lieutenants and a surgeon and I had ridden over to the Indian agency, -and although they allow no beer on an Indian reservation, the surgeon -had hopes. It had been a long ride--partly through water, partly over -a dusty trail--and it was hot. But if the agent had a private store -for visitors, he was not in a position to offer it, for his room was -crowded with chiefs of renown and high degree. They sat in a circle -around his desk on the floor, or stood against the wall smoking -solemnly. When they approved of what the speaker said, they grunted; -and though that is the only word for it, they somehow made that form of -“hear, hear,” impressive. Those chiefs who spoke talked in a spitting, -guttural fashion, far down the throat, and without gestures; and the -son of one of them, a boy from Carlisle, in a gray ready-made suit -and sombrero, translated a five-minutes’ speech, which had all the -dignity of Salvini’s address to the Senators, by: “And Red Wolf he -says he thinks it isn’t right.” Cloud-Shield rose and said the chiefs -were glad to see that the officers from the fort were in the room, as -that meant that the Indian would have fair treatment, and that the -officers were always the Indians’ best friends, and were respected in -times of peace as friends, and in times of war as enemies. After -which, the officers, considering guiltily the real object of their -visit, and feeling properly abashed, took off their hats and tried to -look as though they deserved it, which, as a rule, they do. It may be -of interest, in view of an Indian outbreak, to know that this council -of the chiefs was to protest against the cutting down of the rations -of the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes. Last year it cost the Government -one hundred and thirteen thousand dollars to feed them, and this year -Commissioner Martin, with a fine spirit of economy, proposes to reduce -this by just one-half. This means hunger and illness, and in some cases -death. - -[Illustration: BIG BULL] - -“He says,” translated the boy interpreter, gazing at the ceiling, “that -they would like to speak to the people at Washington about this thing, -for it is not good.” - -The agent traced figures over his desk with his pen. - -“Well, I can’t do anything,” he said, at last. “All I can do is to let -the people at Washington know what they say. But to send a commission -all the way to Washington will take a great deal of money, and the cost -of it will have to come out of their allowance. Tell them that. Tell -them I’ll write on about it. That’s all I can do.” - -That night the chiefs came solemnly across parade, and said “How!” -grimly to the orderly in front of the colonel’s headquarters. - -“You see,” said the officers, “they have come to complain, but the -colonel cannot help them. If Martin wants a war, he is going just the -best way in the world to get it, and then we shall have to go out and -shoot them, poor devils!” - -I was very sorry to leave Fort Reno, not only on account of the -officers there, but because the ride to Anadarko must be made in stages -owned by a Mr. Williamson. This is not intended as an advertisement -for Mr. Williamson’s stages. He does not need it, for he is, so his -drivers tell me, very rich indeed, and so economical that he makes them -buy their own whips. Every one who has travelled through the Indian -Territory over Mr. Williamson’s routes wishes that sad things may -happen to him; but no one, I believe, would be so wicked as to hope he -may ever have to ride in one of his own stages. The stage-coach of the -Indian Territory lacks the romance of those that Dick Turpin stopped, -or of the Deadwood coach, or of those that Yuba Bill drives for Bret -Harte with four horses, with gamblers on top and road-agents at the -horses’ heads. They are only low four-wheeled wagons with canvas sides -and top, and each revolution of the wheels seems to loosen every stick -and nail, and throws you sometimes on top of the driver, and sometimes -the driver on top of you. They hold together, though, and float bravely -through creeks, and spin down the side of a cañon on one wheel, and -toil up the other side on two, and at such an angle that you see the -sun bisected by the wagon-tongue. At night the stage seems to plunge a -little more than in the day, and you spend it in trying to sleep with -your legs under the back seat and your head on the one in front, while -the driver, who wants to sleep and cannot, shouts profanely to his -mules and very near to your ear on the other side of the canvas. - -[Illustration: ONE OF WILLIAMSON’S STAGES] - -Anadarko is a town of six stores, three or four frame houses, the -Indian agent’s store and office, and the City Hotel. Seven houses in -the West make a city. I said I thought this was the worst hotel in the -Indian Territory, but the officers at Fort Sill, who have travelled -more than I, think it is the worst in the United States. It is possible -that they are right. There are bluffs and bunches of timber around -Anadarko, but the prairie stretches towards the west, and on it is the -pen from which the cattle are issued. The tepees and camp-fires sprang -up overnight, and when we came out the next morning the prairie was -crowded with them, and more Indians were driving in every minute, with -the family in the wagon and the dogs under it, as the country people -in the East flock into town for the circus. The men galloped off to -the cattle-pen, and the women gathered in a long line in front of the -agent’s store to wait their turn for the rations. It was a curious -line, with very young girls in it, very proud of the little babies in -beaded knapsacks on their backs--dirty, bright-eyed babies that looked -like mummies suddenly come to life again at the period of their first -childhood--and wrinkled, bent old squaws, even more like mummies, with -coarse white hair, and hands worn almost out of shape with work. Each -of these had a tag, such as those that the express companies use, on -which was printed the number in each family, and the amount of grain, -flour, baking-powder, and soap to which the family was entitled. They -passed in at one door and in front of a long counter, and out at -another. They crowded and pushed a great deal, almost as much as their -fairer sisters do in front of the box-office at a Patti matinée, and -the babies blinked stoically at the sun, and seemed to wish they could -get their arms out of the wrappings and rub away the tears. A man in -a sombrero would look at the tag and call out, “One of flour, two of -sugar, one soap, and one baking-powder,” and his Indian assistants -delved into the barrels behind the line of the counter, and emptied the -rations into the squaw’s open apron. She sorted them when she reached -the outside. By ten o’clock the distribution was over, and the women -followed the men to the cattle-pen on the prairie. There were not -over three hundred Indians there, although they represented several -thousand others, who remained in the different camps scattered over the -reservation, wherever water and timber, and bluffs to shield them best -from the wind, were to be found in common. Each steer is calculated to -supply twenty-five Indians with beef for two weeks, or from one and -a half to two pounds of beef a day; this is on the supposition that -the steers average from one thousand to one thousand and two hundred -pounds. The steers that I saw issued weighed about five hundred pounds, -and when they tried to run, stumbled with the weakness of starvation. -They were nothing but hide and ribs and two horns. They were driven -four at a time through a long chute, and halted at the gate at the end -of it until their owner’s names were marked off the list. The Indians -were gathered in front of the gate in long rows, or in groups of ten -or twelve, sitting easily in their saddles, and riding off leisurely -in bunches of four as their names were called out, and as their cattle -were started off with a parting kick into the open prairie. - -The Apaches, Comanches, Delawares, and Towacomies drove their share -off towards their camps; the Caddoes and the Kiowas, who live near -the agency, and who were served last, killed theirs, if they chose -to do so, as soon as they left the pen. A man in charge of the -issue held a long paper in his hand, and called out, “Eck-hoos-cho, -Pe-an-voon-it, Hoos-cho, and Cho-noo-chy,” which meant that Red-Bird, -Large-Looking-Glass, The Bird, and Deer-Head were to have the next -four steers. His assistant, an Indian policeman, with “God helps them -who help themselves” engraved on his brass buttons, with the figure of -an Indian toiling at a plough in the centre, repeated these names -aloud, and designated which steer was to go to which Indian. - -[Illustration: THE BEEF ISSUE AT ANADARKO] - -A beef issue is not a pretty thing to watch. Why the Government does -not serve its meat with the throats cut, as any reputable butcher -would do, it is not possible to determine. It seems to prefer, on -the contrary, that the Indian should exhibit his disregard for the -suffering of animals and his bad marksmanship at the same time. When -the representatives of the more distant tribes had ridden off, chasing -their beef before them, the Caddoes and Kiowas gathered close around -the gate of the pen, with the boys in front. They were handsome, -mischievous boys, with leather leggings, colored green and blue and -with silver buttons down the side, and beaded buckskin shirts. They -sat two on each pony, and each held his bow and arrows, and as the -steers came stumbling blindly out into the open, they let the arrows -drive from a distance of ten feet into the animal’s flank and neck, -where they stuck quivering. Then the Indian boys would yell, and their -fathers, who had hunted buffaloes with arrows, smiled approvingly. The -arrows were not big enough to kill, they merely hurt, and the steer -would rush off into a clumsy gallop for fifty yards, when its owner -would raise his Winchester, and make the dust spurt up around it until -one bullet would reach a leg, and the steer would stop for an instant, -with a desperate toss of its head, and stagger forward again on three. -The dogs to the number of twenty or more were around it by this time in -a snarling, leaping pack, and the owner would try again, and wound it -perhaps in the flank, and it would lurch over heavily like a drunken -man, shaking its head from side to side and tossing its horns at the -dogs, who bit at the place where the blood ran, and snapped at its -legs. Sometimes it would lie there for an hour, until it bled to death, -or, again, it would scramble to its feet, and the dogs would start off -in a panic of fear after a more helpless victim. - -The field grew thick with these miniature butcheries, the Winchesters -cracking, and the spurts of smoke rising and drifting away, the dogs -yelping, and the Indians wheeling in quick circles around the steer, -shooting as they rode, and hitting the mark once in every half-dozen -shots. It was the most unsportsmanlike and wantonly cruel exhibition I -have ever seen. A bull in a ring has a fighting chance and takes it, -but these animals, who were too weak to stand, and too frightened to -run, staggered about until the Indians had finished torturing them, and -then, with eyes rolling and blood spurting from their mouths, would -pitch forward and die. And they had to be quick about it, before the -squaws began cutting off the hide while the flanks were still heaving. - -This is the view of a beef issue which the friend of the Indian does -not like to take. He prefers calling your attention to the condition -of the cattle served the Indian, and in showing how outrageously he is -treated in this respect. The Government either purchases steers for the -Indians a few weeks before an issue, or three or four months previous -to it, feeding them meanwhile on the Government reservation. The latter -practice is much more satisfactory to the contractor, as it saves him -the cost and care of these cattle during the winter, and the inevitable -loss which must ensue in that time through illness and starvation. -Those I saw had been purchased in October, and had been weighed and -branded at that time with the Government brand. They were then allowed -to roam over the Government reservation until the spring, when they -had fallen off in weight from one-half to one-third. They were then -issued at their original weight. That is, a steer which in October was -found to weigh eleven hundred pounds, and which would supply twenty or -more people with meat, was supposed to have kept this weight throughout -the entire winter, and was issued at eleven hundred although it had -not three hundred pounds of flesh on its bones. The agent is not to -blame for this. This is the fault of the Government, and it is quite -fair to suppose that some one besides the contractor benefits by the -arrangement. When the beef is issued two weeks after the contract has -been made, it can and frequently is rejected by the army officer in -charge of the issue if he thinks it is unfit. But the officers present -at the issue that I saw were as helpless as they were indignant, for -the beef had weighed the weight credited to it once when it was paid -for, and the contractor had saved the expense of keeping it, and the -Indian received just one-fourth of the meat due him, and for which he -had paid in land. - -Fort Sill, which is a day’s journey in a stage from Anadarko, is an -eight-company post situated on the table-land of a hill, with other -hills around it, and is, though somewhat inaccessible, as interesting -and beautiful a spot to visit as many others which we cross the ocean -to see. I will be able to tell why this is so when I write something -later about the army posts. There are any number of Indians here, and -they add to the post a delightfully picturesque and foreign element. -L Troop of the Seventh cavalry, which is an Indian troop, is the -nucleus around which the other Indians gather. The troop is encamped -at the foot of the hill on which the post stands. It shows the Indian -civilized by uniform, and his Indian brother uncivilized in his -blanket and war-paint; and although I should not like to hurt the -feelings of the patient, enthusiastic officers who have enlisted the -Indians for these different troops for which the Government calls, I -think the blanket Indian is a much more warlike-looking and interesting -individual. But you mustn’t say so, as George the Third advised. The -soldier Indians live in regulation tents staked out in rows, and with -the ground around so cleanly kept that one could play tennis on it, -and immediately back of these are the conical tepees of their wives, -brothers, and grandmothers; and what Lieutenant Scott is going to do -with all these pretty young squaws and beautiful children and withered -old witches, and their two or three hundred wolf-dogs, when he marches -forth to war with his Indian troop, is one of the questions his brother -officers find much entertainment in asking. - -[Illustration: INDIAN BOY AND PINTO PONY] - -The Indian children around this encampment were the brightest spot in -my entire Western trip. They are the prettiest and most beautifully -barbaric little children I have ever seen. They grow out of it very -soon, but that is no reason why one should not make the most of it -while it lasts. And they are as wild and fearful of the white visitor, -unless he happens to be Lieutenant Scott or Second Lieutenant Quay, -as the antelope in the prairie around him. It required a corporal’s -guard, two lieutenants, and three squaws to persuade one of them to -stand still and be photographed, and whenever my camera and I appeared -together there was a wild stampede of Indian children, which no number -of looking-glasses or dimes or strings of beads could allay. Not that -they would not take the bribes, but they would run as soon as they had -snatched them. It was very distressing, for I did not mean to hurt -them very much. The older people were kinder, and would let me sit -inside the tepees, which were very warm on the coldest days, and watch -them cook, and play their queer games, and work moccasins, and gamble -at monte for brass rings if they were women, or for cartridges if they -were men. And for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, I think -the Indian monte-dealer can instruct a Chinese poker-player in many -things. What was so fine about them was their dignity, hospitality, and -strict suppression of all curiosity. They always received a present as -though they were doing you a favor, and you felt that you were paying -tribute. This makes them difficult to deal with as soldiers. They -cannot be treated as white men, and put in the guard-house for every -slight offence. Lieutenant Scott has to explain things to them, and -praise them, and excite a spirit of emulation among them by commending -those publicly who have done well. For instance, they hate to lose -their long hair, and Lieutenant Scott did not order them to have it -cut, but told them it would please him if they did; and so one by one, -and in bunches of three and four, they tramped up the hill to the post -barber, and back again with their locks in their hands, to barter them -for tobacco with the post trader. The Indians at Fort Sill were a -temperate lot, and Lieutenant Harris, who has charge of the canteen, -growled because they did not drink enough to pay for their share of the -dividend which is returned to each troop at the end of the month. - -Lieutenant Scott obtained his ascendency over his troop in several -ways--first, by climbing a face of rock, and, with the assistance of -Lieutenant Quay, taking an eagle from the nest it had built there. -Every Indian in the reservation knew of that nest, and had long wanted -the eagle’s feathers for a war-bonnet, but none of them had ever dared -to climb the mirrorlike surface of the cliff, with the rocks below. The -fame of this exploit spread, by what means it is hard to understand -among people who have no newspapers or letters, but at beef issues, -perhaps, or Messiah dances, or casual meetings on the prairie, which -help to build up reputations and make the prowess of one chief known -to those of all the other tribes, or the beauty of an Indian girl -familiar. Then, following this exploit, three little Indian children -ran away from school because they had been flogged, and tried to reach -their father’s tent fifteen miles off on the reservation, and were -found half-buried in the snow and frozen to death. One of them was -without his heavier garments, which he had wrapped around his younger -brother. The terrified school-teacher sent a message to the fort -begging for two troops of cavalry to protect him from the wrath of the -older Indians, and the post commander sent out Lieutenant Scott alone -to treat with them. His words were much more effective than two troops -of cavalry would have been, and the threatened outbreak was stopped. -The school-master fled to the woods, and never came back. What the -Indians saw of Lieutenant Scott at this crisis made them trust him -for the future, and this and the robbery of the eagle’s nest explain -partly, as do his gentleness and consideration, the remarkable hold he -has over them. Some one was trying to tell one of the chiefs how the -white man could bring lightning down from the sky, and make it talk for -him from one end of the country to the other. - -“Oh yes,” the Indian said, simply, “that is quite true. Lieutenant -Scott says so.” - -But what has chiefly contributed to make the lieutenant’s work easy -for him is his knowledge of the sign language, with which the different -tribes, though speaking different languages, can communicate one with -the other. He is said to speak this more correctly and fluently than -any other officer in the army, and perhaps any other white man. It -is a very curious language. It is not at all like the deaf-and-dumb -alphabet, which is an alphabet, and is not pretty to watch. It is -just what its name implies--a language of signs. The first time I -saw the lieutenant speaking it, I confess I thought, having heard of -his skill at Fort Reno, that he was only doing it because he could -do it, as young men who speak French prefer to order their American -dinners in that language when the waiter can understand English quite -as well as themselves. I regarded it as a pleasing weakness, and was -quite sure that the lieutenant was going to meet the Indian back of -the canteen and say it over again in plain every-day words. In this -I wronged him; but it was not until I had watched his Irish sergeant -converse in this silent language for two long hours with half a dozen -Indians of different tribes, and had seen them all laugh heartily -at his witticisms delivered in semaphoric gestures, that I really -believed in it. It seems that what the lieutenant said was, “Tell the -first sergeant that I wish to see the soldiers drill at one o’clock, -and, after that, go to the store and ask Madeira if there is to be a -beef issue to-day.” It is very difficult to describe in writing how -he did this; and as it is a really pretty thing to watch, it seems -a pity to spoil it. As well as I remember it, he did something like -this. He first drew his hand over his sleeve to mark the sergeant’s -stripes; then he held his fingers upright in front of him, and moved -them forward to signify soldiers; by holding them in still another -position, he represented soldiers drilling; then he made a spy-glass -out of his thumb and first finger, and looked up through it at the -sky--this represented the sun at one o’clock. “After that” was a -quick cut in the air; the “store” was an interlacing of the fingers, -to signify a place where one thing met or was exchanged for another; -“Madeira” he named; beef was a turning up of the fingers, to represent -horns; and how he represented issue I have no idea. It is a most -curious thing to watch, for they change from one sign to the other with -the greatest rapidity. I always regarded it with great interest as a -sort of game, and tried to guess what the different gestures might -mean. Some of the signs are very old, and their origin is as much in -dispute as some of the lines in the first folios of Shakespeare, and -have nearly as many commentators. All the Indians know these signs, but -very few of them can tell how they came to mean what they do. “To go -to war,” for instance, is shown by sweeping the right arm out with the -thumb and first finger at right angles; this comes from an early custom -among the Indians of carrying a lighted pipe before them when going on -the war-path. The thumb and finger in that position are supposed to -represent the angle of the bowl of the pipe and the stem. - -I visited a few of the Indian schools when I was in the Territory, and -found the pupils quite learned. The teachers are not permitted to study -the Indian languages, and their charges in consequence hear nothing but -English, and so pick it up the more quickly. The young women who teach -them seem to labor under certain disadvantages; one of them was reading -the English lesson from a United States history intended for much older -children--grown-up children, in fact--and explained that she had to -order and select the school-books she used from a list furnished by -the Government, and could form no opinion of its appropriateness until -it arrived. - -[Illustration: A KIOWA MAIDEN] - -Some of the Indian parents are very proud of their children’s progress, -and on beef-issue days visit the schools, and listen with great -satisfaction to their children speaking in the unknown tongue. There -were several in one of the school-rooms while I was there, and the -teacher turned them out of their chairs to make room for us, remarking -pleasantly that the Indians were accustomed to sitting around on the -ground. She afterwards added to this by telling us that there was no -sentiment in _her_, and that she taught Indians for the fifty dollars -there was in it. The mother of one of the little boys was already -crouching on the floor as we came in, or squatting on her heels, as -they seem to be able to do without fatigue for any length of time. -During the half-hour we were there, she never changed her position or -turned her head to look at us, but kept her eyes fixed only on her son -sitting on the bench above her. He was a very plump, clean, and excited -little Indian, with his hair cut short, and dressed in a very fine pair -of trousers and jacket, and with shoes and stockings. He was very keen -to show the white visitors how well he knew their talk, and read his -book with a masterful shaking of the head, as though it had no terrors -for him. His mother, kneeling at his side on the floor, wore a single -garment, and over that a dirty blanket strapped around her waist with -a beaded belt. Her feet were bare, and her coarse hair hung down over -her face and down her back almost to her waist in an unkempt mass. She -supported her chin on one hand, and with the other hand, black and -wrinkled, and with nails broken by cutting wood and harnessing horses -and ploughing in the fields, brushed her hair back from before her -eyes, and then touched her son’s arm wistfully, as a dog tries to draw -his master’s eyes, and as though he were something fragile and fine. -But he paid no attention to her whatsoever; he was very much interested -in the lesson. She was the only thing I saw in the school-room. I -wondered if she was thinking of the days when she carried his weight on -her back as she went about her cooking or foraging for wood, or swung -him from a limb of a tree, and of the first leather leggings she made -for him when he was able to walk, and of the necklace of elk teeth, and -the arrows which he used to fire bravely at the prairie-dogs. He was -a very different child now, and very far away from the doglike figure -crouching by his side and gazing up patiently into his face, as if -looking for something she had lost. - -It is quite too presumptuous to suggest any opinion on the Indian -question when one has only lived with them for three weeks, but the -experience of others who have lived with them for thirty years is worth -repeating. You will find that the individual point of view regarding -the Indian is much biassed by the individual interests. A man told me -that in his eyes no one under heaven was better than a white man, and -if the white man had to work for his living, he could not see why the -Indian should not work for his. I asked him if he thought of taking up -Indian land in the Territory when it was open in the spring, and he -said that was his intention, “and why?” - -The officers are the only men who have absolutely nothing to gain, -make, or lose by the Indians, and their point of view is accordingly -the fairest, and they themselves say it would be a mistake to follow -the plan now under consideration--of placing officers in charge -of the agencies. This would at once strip them of their present -neutral position, and, as well, open to them the temptation which -the control of many thousands of dollars’ worth of property entails -where the recipients of this property are as helpless and ignorant as -children. They rather favor raising the salary of the Indian agent -from two thousand to ten thousand dollars, and by so doing bring men -of intelligence and probity into the service, and destroy at the same -time the temptation to “make something” out of the office. It may have -been merely an accident, but I did not meet with one officer in any of -the army posts who did not side with the Indian in his battle for his -rights with the Government. As for the agents, as the people say in the -West, “they are not here for their health.” The Indian agents of the -present day are, as every one knows, political appointments, and many -of them--not all--are men who at home would keep their corner grocery -or liquor store, and who would flatter and be civil to every woman in -the neighboring tenement who came for a pound of sugar or a pitcher -of beer. These men are suddenly placed in the control of hundreds of -sensitive, dangerous, semi-civilized people, whom they are as capable -of understanding as a Bowery boy would be of appreciating an Arab of -the desert. - -The agents are not the only people who make mistakes. Some friend -mailed me a book the other day on Indian reservations, in order that I -might avoid writing what has already been written. I read only one page -of the book, in which the author described his manner of visiting the -Indian encampments. He would drive to one of these in his ambulance, -and upon being informed that the chiefs were waiting to receive him in -their tents, would bid them meet him at the next camp, to which he -would drive rapidly, and there make the same proposition. He would then -stop his wagon three miles away on the prairie, and wait for the chiefs -to follow him to that point. What his object was in this exhibition, -with which he seemed very well satisfied, he only knows. Whether it was -to teach the chiefs they were not masters in their own camps, or that -he was a most superior person, I could not make out; but he might just -as effectively have visited Washington, and sent the President word he -could not visit him at the White House, but that he would grant him an -interview at his hotel. I wonder just how near this superior young man -got to the Indians, and just how wide they opened their hearts to him. - -There was an Indian agent once--it was not long ago, but there is no -need to give dates or names, for the man is dead--who when the Indians -asked him to paint the wagons (with which the Government furnished them -through him in return for their land) red instead of green, answered -that he would not pander to their absurdly barbaric tastes. Only he -did not say absurdly. He was a man who had his own ideas about things, -and who was not to be fooled, and he was also a superior person, who -preferred to trample on rather than to understand the peculiarities of -his wards. So one morning this agent and his wife and children were -found hacked to pieces by these wards with barbaric tastes, and the -soldiers were called out, and shot many of the Indians; and many white -women back of the barracks, and on the line itself, are now wearing -mourning, and several officers got their first bar. It would seem from -this very recent incident, as well as from many others of which one -hears, that it would be cheaper in the end to place agents over the -Indians with sufficient intelligence to know just when to be firm, and -when to compromise in a matter; for instance, that of painting a wagon -red. - - - - -VII - -A CIVILIAN AT AN ARMY POST - - - - -VII - -A CIVILIAN AT AN ARMY POST - - -THE army posts of the United States are as different one from another -as the stations along the line of a great railroad system. There is -the same organization for all, and the highest officers govern one -as well as the other; but in appearance and degree of usefulness and -local rule they are as independent and yet as dependent, and as far -apart in actual miles, as the Grand Central Depot in New York, with -its twenty tracks and as many ticket-windows and oak-bound offices and -greatest after-dinner orator, is distant from the section-house at -the unfinished end of a road somewhere on the prairie. The commanding -officer’s quarters alone at Fort Sheridan cost thirty thousand dollars, -and more than a million and a half has been spent on Fort Riley; but -there are many other posts where nature supplied the mud and logs -for the whole station, and the cost to the Government could not have -been more than three hundred dollars at the most. It is consequently -difficult to write in a general way of army posts. What is true of -one is by no means true of another, and it will be better, perhaps, -to first tell of those army posts which possess many features in -common--eight-company posts, for instance, which are not too large -nor too small, not too near civilization, and yet not too far -removed from the railroad. An eight-company post is a little town or -community of about three hundred people living in a quadrangle around -a parade-ground. The scenery surrounding the quadrangle may differ -as widely as you please to imagine it; it may be mountainous and -beautiful, or level, flat, and unprofitable, but the parade-ground is -always the same. It has a flag-pole at the entrance to the quadrangle, -and a base-ball diamond marked out on the side on which the men live, -and tennis-courts towards the officers’ quarters. When you speak of the -side of the square where the enlisted men live, you say “barracks,” and -you refer to the officers’ share of the quadrangle as “the line.” In -England you can safely say that an officer is living in barracks, but -you must not say this of a United States officer; he lives in the third -or fourth house up or down “the line.” - -[Illustration: A ONE-COMPANY POST AT OKLAHOMA CITY] - -The barracks are a long continuous row of single-story buildings with -covered porches facing the parade. They are generally painted an -uncompromising brown, and are much more beautiful inside than out, -especially the messrooms, where all the wood-work has been scrubbed -so hard that the tables are worn almost to a concave surface. The -architectural appearance of the officers’ quarters on the line differs -in different posts; but each house of each individual post, whether -it is a double or single house, is alike to the number of bricks in -the walls and in the exact arrangement of the rooms. The wives of the -officers may change the outer appearance of their homes by planting -rose-bushes and ivy about the yards, but whenever they do, some other -officer’s wife is immediately transferred from another post and -“outranks” them, and they have to move farther down the line, and -watch the new-comer plucking _their_ roses, and reaping the harvest -she has not sown. This rule also applies to new wall-paper, and the -introduction at your own expense of open fireplaces, with blue and -white tiles which will not come off or out when the new-comer moves -in. In addition to the officers’ quarters and the barracks, there is -an administration building, which is the executive mansion of this -little community, a quartermaster’s storehouse, a guard-house, and -the hospital. The stables are back of the barracks, out of sight of -those who live facing the parade, and there is generally a rear-guard -of little huts and houses occupied by sergeants’ wives, who do the -washing for the posts, and do it very well. This is, briefly, the -actual appearance of an army post--a quadrangle of houses, continuous -and one-story high on two sides, and separate and two stories high on -the other two sides, facing the parade, and occasionally surrounded by -beautiful country. - -The life of an army post, its internal arrangements, its necessary -routine, and its expedients for breaking this routine pleasantly, -cannot be dealt with so briefly; it is a delicate and extensive -subject. It is impossible to separate the official and social life of -an army post. The commanding officer does not lose that dignity which -doth hedge him in when he and his orderly move from the administration -building to his quarters, and it would obviously confuse matters -if a second lieutenant bet him in the morning he could not put the -red bail into the right-corner pocket, and in the evening at dress -parade he should order the same lieutenant and his company into the -lower right-hand corner of the parade at double-quick. This would -tend to destroy discipline. And so, as far as the men of the post are -concerned, the official and social life touch at many points. With the -women, of course, it is different, although there was a colonel’s -wife not long ago who said to the officers’ wives assisting her to -receive at a dance, “You will take your places, ladies, in order of -rank.” I repeat this mild piece of gossip because it was the only -piece of gossip I heard at any army post, which is interesting when -one remembers the reputation given the army posts by one of their own -people for that sort of thing. - -The official head of the post is the commanding officer, he has under -him eight “companies,” if they are infantry, or “troops” if they are -cavalry, each commanded in turn by a captain, who has under him a first -and second lieutenant, who rule in their turn numerous sergeants and -corporals. There is also a major or two, two or three surgeons, who -rank with the captains, and a quartermaster and an adjutant, who are -selected from among the captains or lieutenants of the post, and who -perform, in consequence, double duty. The majority of the officers are -married; this is not a departmental regulation nor a general order, but -it happens to be so. I visited one very large post in which every one -was married except one girl, and a second lieutenant, who spoiled the -natural sequel by being engaged to a girl somewhere else. And at the -post I had visited before this there were ten unmarried and unengaged -lieutenants, and no young women. It seems to me that this presents -an unbalanced condition of affairs, which should be considered and -adjusted by Congress even before the question of lineal promotion. - -[Illustration: THE OMNIPOTENT BUGLER] - -It is true that the commanding officer is supposed to be the most -important personage in an army post, but that is not so. He, as well -as every one else in it, is ruled by a young person with a brass -trumpet, who apparently never sleeps, eats, or rests, and who spends -his days tooting on his bugle in the middle of the parade in rainy -and in sunny weather and through good and evil report. He sounds in -all thirty-seven “calls” a day, and the garrison gets up and lies -down, and eats, and waters the horses, and goes to church and school, -and to horse exercise, and mounts guard, and drills recruits, and -parades in full dress whenever he thinks they should. His prettiest -call is reveille, which is sounded at half-past six in the morning. -It is bright and spirited, and breathes promise and hope for the new -day, and I personally liked it best because it meant that while I -still had an hour to sleep, three hundred other men had to get up and -clean cold guns and things in the semi-darkness. Next to the bugler in -importance is the quartermaster. He is a captain or a first lieutenant -with rare executive ability, and it is he who supplies the garrison -with those things which make life bearable or luxurious, and it is he -who is responsible to the Government for every coat of whitewash on -the stables, and for the new stove-lid furnished the cook of N Troop, -Thirteenth Cavalry. He is the hardest-worked man in the post, although -that would possibly be denied by every other officer in it; and he -is supposed to be an authority on architecture, sanitary plumbing, -veterinary surgery, household furnishing from the kitchen range to the -electric button on the front door, and to know all things concerning -martial equipments from a sling-belt to an ambulance. - -He is a wonderful man, and possessed of a vast and intricate knowledge, -but his position in the post is very much like that of a base-ball -umpire’s on the field, for he is never thanked if he does well, and is -abused by every one on principle. And he is never free. At the very -minute he is lifting the green mint to his lips, his host will say, -“By-the-way, my striker tells me that last piece of stove-pipe you -furnished us does not fit by two inches; I don’t believe you looked at -the dimensions;” and when he hastens to join the ladies for protection, -he is saluted with an anxious chorus of inquiries as to when he is -going to put that pane of glass in the second-story window, and where -are those bricks for the new chimney. His worst enemies, however, lie -far afield, for he wages constant war with those clerks at the Treasury -Department at Washington who go over his accounts and papers, and who -take keen and justifiable pride in making him answer for every fraction -of a cent which he has left unexplained. The Government, for instance, -furnishes his storehouse with a thousand boxes of baking-powder, valued -at seventy dollars, or seven cents a box. If he sells three boxes -for twenty-five cents--I am quoting an actual instance--the Treasury -Department returns his papers, requesting him to explain who got the -four cents, and is anxious to know what he means by it. - -I once saw some tin roofs at a post; they had been broken in coming, -and the quartermaster condemned them. That was a year ago, and his -papers complaining about these tin roofs have been travelling back -and forth between contractor and express agent and the department at -Washington and the quartermaster ever since, and they now make up a -bundle of _seventy_ different papers. Sometimes the quartermaster -defeats the Treasury Department; sometimes it requires him to pay money -out of his own pocket. Three revolvers were stolen out of their rack -once, and the post quartermaster was held responsible for their loss. -He objected to paying the sum the Government required, and pointed out -that the revolvers should have been properly locked in the rack. The -Government replied that the lock furnished by it was perfect, and not -to be tampered with or scoffed at, and that his excuse was puerile. -This quartermaster had a mechanic in his company, and he sent for the -young man, and told him to go through the barracks and open all the -locks he could. At the end of an hour every rack and soldier’s box in -the post were burglarized, and the Government paid for the revolvers. - -[Illustration: UNITED STATES MILITARY POST AT SAN ANTONIO] - -The post quartermaster’s only pleasure lies in his storehouse, and in -the neatness and order in which he keeps his supplies. He dearly loves -to lead the civilian visitor through these long rows of shelves, and -say, while clutching at his elbow to prevent his escape, “You see, -there are all the shovels in that corner; then over there I have the -Sibley tents, and there on that shelf are the blouses, and next to them -are the overcoats, and there are the canvas shoes, and on that shelf we -keep matches, and down here, you see, are the boots. Everything is in -its proper place.” At which you are to look interested, and say, “Ah, -yes!” just as though you had expected to see the baking-powder mixed -with the pith helmets, and the axe-handles and smoking-tobacco grouped -together on the floor. - -After the quartermaster, the adjutant, to the mind of the civilian -at least, is the most superior being in the post. He is a lieutenant -selected by the colonel to act as his conscience-keeper and -letter-writer, and to convey his commands to the other officers. It -is his proud privilege to sit in the colonel’s own room and sign -papers, and to dictate others to his assistant non-coms, and it is -one of his duties to oversee the guard-mount, and to pick out the -smartest-looking soldier to act as the colonel’s orderly for the day. -You must understand that as the colonel’s orderly does not have to -remain on guard at night, the men detailed for guard duty vie with each -other in presenting an appearance sufficiently brilliant to attract -the adjutant’s eye, and as they all look exactly alike, the adjutant -has to be careful. He sometimes spends five long minutes and much -mental effort in going from one end of the ranks to the other to see -if Number Three’s boots are better blacked than Number Two’s, and in -trying to decide whether the fact that Murphy’s gunbarrel is oilier -than Cronin’s should weigh against the fact that Cronin’s gloves are -new, while Murphy’s are only fresh from the wash, both having tied on -the condition of their cartridges, which have been rubbed to look like -silver, and which must be an entirely superfluous nicety to the Indian -who may eventually be shot with them. This is one of the severest -duties of an adjutant’s routine, and after having accompanied one of -them through one of these prize exhibitions, I was relieved to hear -him confess his defeat by telling the sergeant that Cronin and Murphy -could toss for it. Another perquisite of the adjutant’s is his right to -tell his brother officers at mess in a casual way that they must act as -officer of the day or officer of the guard, or relieve Lieutenant Quay -while he goes quail-hunting, or take charge of Captain Blank’s troop of -raw recruits until the captain returns to their relief. To be able to -do this to men who outrank you, and who are much older than yourself, -and just as though the orders came from you direct, must be a great -pleasure, especially as the others are not allowed the satisfaction of -asking, “Who says I must?” or, “What’s the matter with your doing it -yourself?” These are the officials of the post; the unofficials, the -wives and the children, make the social life whatever it is. - -[Illustration: UNITED STATES CAVALRYMAN IN FULL DRESS] - -There are many in the East who think life at an army post is one of -discomfort and more or less monotony, relieved by petty gossip and -flirtations. Of course one cannot tell in a short visit whether or -not the life might become monotonous, though one rather suspects it -would, but the discomforts are quite balanced by other things which we -cannot get in the city. Of jealousy and gossip I saw little. I was told -by one officer’s wife that to the railroads was due the credit of the -destruction of flirtations at garrisons; and though I had heard of many -great advances and changes of conditions and territories brought about -by the coming of the railroads, this was the first time I had ever -heard they had interfered with the course of more or less true love. -She explained it by saying that in the days when army posts lay afar -from the track of civilization the people were more dependent upon one -another, and that then there may have existed Mrs. Hauksbees and Mrs. -Knowles, but that to-day the railroads brought in fresh air and ideas -from all over the country, and that the officers were constantly being -exchanged, and others coming and going on detached service, and that -visitors from the bigger outside world were appearing at all times. - -The life impresses a stranger as such a peaceful sort of an existence -that he thinks that must be its chief and great attraction, and that -which makes the army people, as they call themselves, so well content. -It sounds rather absurd to speak of an army post of all places in the -world as peaceful; but the times are peaceful now, and there is not -much work for the officers to do, and they enjoy that blessing which is -only to be found in the army and in the Church of Rome--of having one’s -life laid out for one by others, and in doing what one is told, and in -not having to decide things for one’s self. You are sure of your home, -of your income, and you know exactly what is going to be your work a -month or five years later. You are not dependent on the rise of a -certain stock, nor the slave of patients or clients, and you have more -or less responsibility according to your rank, and responsibility is -a thing every man loves. If he has that, and his home and children, a -number of congenial people around him, and good hunting and fishing, it -would seem easy for him to be content. It is different with his wife. -She may unconsciously make life very pleasant for her husband or very -uncomfortable, in ways that other women may not. If she leaves him and -visits the East to see the new gowns, or the new operas, or her own -people, she is criticised as not possessing a truly wifely spirit, and -her husband is secretly pitied; and he knows it, and resents it for -his wife’s sake. While, on the other hand, if she remains always at -the post, he is called a selfish fellow, and his wife’s people at home -in the East think ill of him for keeping her all to himself in _that_ -wilderness. - -[Illustration: UNITED STATES MILITARY POST--INFANTRY PARADE] - -The most surprising thing about the frontier army posts, to my mind, -was the amount of comfort and the number of pretty trifles one -found in the houses, especially when one considered the distance -these trifles--such as billiard-tables for the club or canteen, and -standing-lamps for the houses on the line--had come. At several -dinners, at posts I had only reached after two days’ journey by stage, -the tables were set exactly as they would have been in New York City -with Sherry’s men in the kitchen. There were red candle-shades, and -salted almonds and ferns in silver centre-pieces, and more forks than -one ever knows what to do with, and all the rest of it. I hope the army -people will not resent this, and proudly ask, “What did he expect to -find?” but I am sure that is not the idea of a frontier post we have -received in the East. There was also something delightfully novel in -the table-talk, and in hearing one pretty, slight woman, in a smart -_décolleté_ gown, casually tell how her husband and his men had burned -the prairie grass around her children and herself, and turned aside -a prairie fire that towered and roared around them, and another of -how her first child had been seized with convulsions in a stage-coach -when they were snow-bound eighty miles from the post and fifty miles -from the nearest city, and how she borrowed a clasp-knife from one -of the passengers with which he had been cutting tobacco, and lanced -the baby’s gums, and so saved his life. There was another hostess who -startled us by saying, cheerfully, that the month of June at her last -post was the most unpleasant in the year, because it was so warm that -it sometimes spoiled the ice for skating, and that the snow in April -reached to the sloping eaves of the house; also the daughter of an -Indian fighter, while pouring out at a tea one day, told calmly of -an Indian who had sprung at her with a knife, and seized her horse’s -head, and whom she had shaken off by lashing the pony on to his hind -legs. She could talk the Sioux language fluently, and had lived for -the greater part of her life eight hundred miles from a railroad. Is -it any wonder you find all the men in an army post married when there -are women who can adapt themselves as gracefully to snow-shoes at Fort -Brady as to the serious task of giving dinners at Fort Houston? - -Fort Sam Houston at San Antonio is one of the three largest posts in -the country, and is in consequence one of the heavens towards which the -eyes of the army people turn. It is only twenty minutes from the city, -and the weather is mild throughout the year, and in the summer there -are palm-trees around the houses; and white uniforms--which are unknown -to the posts farther north, and which are as pretty as they are hard -to keep clean--make the parade-ground look like a cricket-field. -They have dances at this post twice a month, the regimental band -furnishing the music, and the people from town helping out the sets, -and the officers in uniforms with red, white, and yellow stripes. A -military ball is always very pretty, and the dancing-hall at Houston -is decorated on such occasions with guidons and flags, and palms and -broad-leaved plants, which grow luxuriously everywhere, and cost -nothing. I went directly from this much-desired post to the little one -at Oklahoma City, which is a one-company post, and where there are no -semi-monthly dances or serenades by the band; but where, on the other -hand, the officers do not stumble over an enlisted man at every step -who has to be saluted, and who stands still before them, as though he -meant to “hold them up” or ask his way, until he is recognized. The -post at Oklahoma City is not so badly off, even though it is built of -logs and mud, for the town is near by, and the men get leave to visit -it when they wish. But it serves to give one an idea of the many other -one-company posts scattered in lonely distances along the borders of -the frontier, where there are no towns, and where every man knows what -the next man is going to say before he speaks--single companies which -the Government has dropped out there, and which it has apparently -forgotten, as a man forgets the book he has tucked away in his shelf -to read on some rainy day. They will probably find they are remembered -when the rainy days come. Fort Sill, in the Oklahoma Territory, is -one of the eight-company posts. I visited several of these, and liked -them better than those nearer the cities; but then I was not stationed -there. The people at these smaller isolated posts seem to live more -contentedly together. There is not enough of them to separate into -cliques or sets, as they did at the larger stations, and they were more -dependent one upon another. There was a night when one officer on the -line gave a supper, and another (one of his guests) said he wished to -contribute the cigars. There had not been an imported cigar in that -post for a year at least, and when Captain Ellis brought in a fresh -box with _two_ paper stamps about it, and the little steamer engraved -on the gray band met our eyes, and we knew they had paid the customs -duty, there was a most unseemly cheer and undignified haste to have -the box opened. And then each man laid his cigar beside his plate, -and gazed and sniffed at it, and said “Ah!” and beamed on every one -else, and put off lighting it as long as he possibly could. That was -a memorable night, and I shall never sufficiently thank Captain Ellis -for that cigar, and for showing me how little we of the East appreciate -the little things we have always with us, and which become so important -when they are taken away. - -[Illustration: FORT HOUSTON, AT SAN ANTONIO--OFFICERS’ QUARTERS] - -Fort Sill is really a summer resort; at least, that is what the -officers say. I was not there in summer, but it made a most delightful -winter resort. There is really no reason at all why people should -not go to these interior army posts, as well as to the one at Point -Comfort, and spend the summer or winter there, either for their -health or for their pleasure. They can reach Fort Sill, for instance, -in a three-days’ journey from New York, and then there are two days -of staging, and you are in a beautiful valley, with rivers running -over rocky beds, with the most picturesque Indians all about you, -and with red and white flags wigwagging from the parade to the green -mountain-tops, and good looking boy-officers to explain the new -regulations, and the best of hunting and fishing. - -[Illustration: THE BARRACKS, FORT HOUSTON] - -I do not know how the people of Fort Sill will like having their home -advertised in this way, but it seems a pity others should not enjoy -following Colonel Jones over the prairie after jack-rabbits. We started -four of them in one hour, and that is a very good sport when you have -a field of twenty men and women and a pack of good hounds. The dogs of -Colonel Jones were not as fast as the rabbits, but they were faster -than the horses, and so neither dogs nor rabbits were hurt; and that -is as it should be, for, as Colonel Jones says, if you caught the -rabbits, there would be no more rabbits to catch. Of the serious side -of the life of an army post, of the men and of the families of the men -who are away on dangerous field service, I have said nothing, because -there was none of it when I was there, nor of the privations of those -posts up in the far Northwest, where snow and ice are almost a yearly -accompaniment, and where the mail and the papers, which are such a -mockery as an exchange for the voices of real people, come only twice a -month. - -It would be an incomplete story of life at a post which said nothing -of the visits of homesickness, which, many strong men in the West have -confessed to me, is the worst sickness with which man is cursed. And -it is an illness which comes at irregular periods to those of the men -who know and who love the East. It is not a homesickness for one home -or for one person, but a case of that madness which seized Private -Ortheris, only in a less malignant form, and in the officers’ quarters. -An impotent protest against the immutability of time and of space is -one of its symptoms--a sick disgust of the blank prairie, blackened by -fire as though it had been drenched with ink, the bare parade-ground, -the same faces, the same stories, the same routine and detailed life, -which promises no change or end; and with these a longing for streets -and rows of houses that seemed commonplace before, of architecture -which they had dared to criticise, and which now seems fairer than the -lines of the Parthenon, a craving to get back to a place where people, -whether one knows them or not, are hurrying home from work under the -electric lights, to the rush of the passing hansoms and the cries of -the “last editions,” and the glare of the shop-windows, to the life of -a great city that is as careless of the exile’s love for it as is the -ocean to one who exclaims upon its grandeur from the shore; a soreness -of heart which makes men while it lasts put familiar photographs out of -sight, which makes the young lieutenants, when the band plays a certain -waltz on the parade at sundown, bite their chin-straps, and stare ahead -more fixedly than the regulations require. Some officers will confess -this to you, and some will not. It is a question which is the happier, -he who has no other scenes for which to care, and who is content, or he -who eats his heart out for a while, and goes back on leave at last. - - - - -VIII - -THE HEART OF THE GREAT DIVIDE - - - - -VIII - -THE HEART OF THE GREAT DIVIDE - - -THE City of Denver probably does more to keep the Eastern man who is -mining or ranching from returning once a year to his own people, and -from spending his earnings at home, than any other city in the West. -It lays its charm upon him, and stops him half-way, and he decides -that the journey home is rather long, and puts it off until the next -year, and again until the next, until at last he buys a lot and builds -a house, and only returns to the East on his wedding journey. Denver -appeals to him more than do any of these other cities, for the reason -that the many other Eastern men who have settled there are turning it -into a thoroughly Eastern city--a smaller New York in an encircling -range of white-capped mountains. If you look up at its towering office -buildings, you can easily imagine yourself, were it not for the breadth -of the thoroughfare, in down-town New York; and though the glimpse -of the mountains at the end of the street in place of the spars and -mast-heads of the East and North rivers undeceives you, the mud at your -feet serves to help out the delusion. Denver is a really beautiful -city, but--and this, I am sure, few people in New York will believe--it -has the worst streets in the country. Their mud or their dust, as the -season wills it, is the one blot on the city’s fair extent; it is as -if the City Fathers had served a well-appointed dinner on a soiled -table-cloth. But they say they will arrange all that in time. - -The two most striking things about the city to me were the public -schools and the private houses. Great corporations, insurance -companies, and capitalists erect twelve-story buildings everywhere. -They do it for an advertisement for themselves or their business, and -for the rent of the offices. But these buildings do not in any way -represent a city’s growth. You will find one or two of such buildings -in almost every Western city, but you will find the people who rent -the offices in them living in the hotels or in wooden houses on the -outskirts. In Denver there are not only the big buildings, but mile -after mile of separate houses, and of the prettiest, strictest, and -most proper architecture. It is a distinct pleasure to look at these -houses, and quite impossible to decide upon the one in which you would -rather live. They are not merged together in solid rows, but stand -apart, with a little green breathing-space between, each in its turn -asserting its own individuality. The greater part of these are built of -the peculiarly handsome red stone which is found so plentifully in the -Silver State. It is not the red stone which makes them so pleasantly -conspicuous, but the taste of the owner or the architect which has -turned it to account. As for the public schools, they are more like art -museums outside than school-houses; and if as much money and thought -in proportion are given to the instruction as have been put upon the -buildings, the children of Denver threaten to grow up into a most -disagreeably superior class of young persons. Denver possesses those -other things which make a city livable, but the public schools and the -private houses were to me the most distinctive features. The Denver -Club is quite as handsome and well ordered a club as one would find in -New York City, and the University Club, which is for the younger men, -brings the wanderers from different colleges very near and pleasantly -together. Its members can sing more different college songs in a given -space of time than any other body of men I have met. The theatres and -the hotels are new and very good, and it is a delight to find servants -so sufficiently civilized that the more they are ordered about and the -more one gives them to do, the more readily they do it, knowing that -this means that they are to be tipped. In the other Western cities, -where this pernicious and most valuable institution is apparently -unknown, a traveller has to do everything for himself. - -[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF THE GODS, AND PIKE’S PEAK] - -You will find that the people of a city always pride themselves on -something which the visitor within their gates would fail to notice. -They have become familiar with those features which first appeal to -him, have outgrown them, and have passed on to admire something else. -The citizen of Denver takes a modest pride in the public schools, the -private houses, and the great mountains, which seem but an hour’s walk -distant and are twenty miles away; but he is proudest before all of -two things--of his celery and his cable-cars. His celery is certainly -the most delicious and succulent that grows, and his cable-cars are -very beautiful white and gold affairs, and move with the delightfully -terrifying speed of a toboggan. Riding on these cable-cars is one of -the institutions of the city, just as in the summer a certain class -of young people in New York find their pleasure in driving up and -down the Avenue on the top of the omnibuses. But that is a dreary -and sentimental journey compared with a ride on the grip-seat of a -cable-car, and every one in Denver patronizes this means of locomotion -whether on business or on pleasure bent, and whether he has carriages -of his own or not. There is not, owing to the altitude, much air to -spare in Denver at any time, but when one mounts a cable-car, and -is swept with a wild rush around a curve, or dropped down a grade -as abruptly as one is dropped down the elevator shaft in the Potter -Building, what little air there is disappears, and leaves one gasping. -Still, it is a most popular diversion, and even in the winter some -of the younger people go cable-riding as we go sleighing, and take -lap-robes with them to keep them warm. There is even a “scenic route,” -which these cars follow, and it is most delightful. - -Denver and Colorado Springs pretend to be jealous of one another; why, -it is impossible to understand. One is a city, and the other a summer -or health resort; and we might as properly compare Boston and Newport, -or New York and Tuxedo. In both cities the Eastern man and woman and -the English cousin are much more in evidence than the born Western man. -These people are very fond of their homes at Denver and at the Springs, -but they certainly manage to keep Fifth Avenue and the Sound and the -Back Bay prominently in mind. Half of those women whose husbands are -wealthy--and every one out here seems to be in that condition--do the -greater part of their purchasing along Broadway below Twenty-third -Street, their letter-paper is stamped on Union Square, and their -husbands are either part or whole owners of a yacht. It sounds very -strange to hear them, in a city shut in by ranges of mountain peaks, -speak familiarly of Larchmont and Hell Gate and New London and “last -year’s cruise.” Colorado Springs is the great pleasure resort for the -whole State, and the salvation and sometimes the resting-place of a -great many invalids from all over the world. It lies at the base of -Pike’s Peak and Cheyenne Mountain, and is only an hour’s drive from the -great masses of jagged red rock known as the Garden of the Gods. Pike’s -Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and the Mount of the Holy Cross are the -proudest landmarks in the State. This last mountain was regarded for -many years almost as a myth, for while many had seen the formation -which gives it its name, no one could place the mountain itself, the -semblance of the cross disappearing as one drew near to it. But in 1876 -Mr. Hayden, of the Government Survey, and Mr. W. H. Jackson, of Denver, -found it, climbed it, and photographed it, and since then artists and -others have made it familiar. But it will never become so familiar as -to lose aught of its wonderfully impressive grandeur. - -There are also near Colorado Springs those mineral waters which give it -its name, and of which the people are so proud that they have turned -Colorado Springs into a prohibition town, and have made drinking the -waters, as it were, compulsory. This is an interesting example of -people who support home industries. There is a casino at the Springs, -where the Hungarian band plays in summer, a polo field, a manufactured -lake for boating, and hundreds of beautiful homes, fashioned after -the old English country-house, even to the gate-keeper’s lodge and -the sun dial on the lawn. And there are cañons that inspire one _not_ -to attempt to write about them. There are also many English people -who have settled there, and who vie with the Eastern visitors in the -smartness of their traps and the appearance of their horses. Indeed, -both of these cities have so taken on the complexion of the East that -one wonders whether it is true that the mining towns of Creede and -Leadville lie only twelve hours away, and that one is thousands of -miles distant from the City of New York. - -It is possible that some one may have followed this series of articles, -of which this is the last, from the first, and that he may have -decided, on reading them, that the West is filled with those particular -people and institutions of which these articles have treated, and that -one steps from ranches to army posts, and from Indian reservations -to mining camps with easy and uninterrupted interest. This would be, -perhaps it is needless to say, an entirely erroneous idea. I only -touched on those things which could not be found in the East, and said -nothing of the isolation of these particular and characteristic points -of interest, of the commonplace and weary distances which lay between -them, and of the difficulty of getting from one point to another. -For days together, while travelling to reach something of possible -interest, I might just as profitably, as far as any material presented -itself, have been riding through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Ohio. -Indians do not necessarily join hands with the cowboys, nor army -posts nestle at the feet of mountains filled with silver. The West is -picturesque in spots, and, as the dramatic critics say, the interest -is not sustained throughout. I confess I had an idea that after I had -travelled four days in a straight line due west, every minute of my -time would be of value, and that if each man I met was not a character -he would tell stories of others who were, and that it would merely be -necessary for me to keep my eyes open to have picturesque and dramatic -people and scenes pass obligingly before them. I was soon undeceived -in this, and learned that in order to reach the West we read about, -it would be necessary for me to leave the railroad, and that I -must pay for an hour of interest with days of the most unprofitable -travel. Matthew Arnold said, when he returned to England, that he had -found this country “uninteresting,” and every American was properly -indignant, and said he could have forgiven him any adjective but that. -If Matthew Arnold travelled from Pittsburg to St. Louis, from St. -Louis to Corpus Christi, and from Corpus Christi back through Texas to -the Indian Territory, he not only has my sympathy, but I admire him -as a descriptive writer. For those who find the level farm lands of -Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and the ranches of upper Texas, -and the cactus of Southern Texas, and the rolling prairie of the Indian -Territory interesting, should travel from Liverpool to London on either -line they please to select, and they will understand the Englishman’s -discontent. Hundreds of miles of level mud and snow followed by a hot -and sandy soil and uncultivated farm lands are not as interesting -as hedges of hawthorn or glimpses of the Thames or ivy-covered -country-houses in parks of oak. The soldiers who guard this land, the -Indians who are being crowded out of it, and the cowboys who gallop -over it and around their army of cattle, _are_ interesting, but they do -not stand at the railroad stations to be photographed and to exhibit -their peculiar characteristics. - -[Illustration: WITHIN THE GATES, GARDEN OF THE GODS] - -But after one leaves these different States and rides between the -mountain ranges of Colorado, he commits a sin if he does not sit day -and night by the car-window. It is best to say this as it shows the -other side of the shield. - -You may, while travelling in the West, enjoy the picturesque excitement -of being held up by train robbers, but you are in much more constant -danger of being held up by commercial travellers and native Western -men, who demand that you stand and deliver your name, your past -history, your business, and your excuse for being where you are. -Neither did I find the West teeming with “characters.” I heard of them, -and indeed the stories of this or that pioneer or desperado are really -the most vivid and most interesting memories I have of the trip. But -these men have been crowded out, or have become rich and respectably -commonplace, or have been shot, as the case may be. I met the men who -had lynched them or who remembered them, but not the men themselves. -They no longer overrun the country; they disappeared with the buffalo, -and the West is glad of it, but it is disappointing to the visitor. -The men I met were men of business, who would rather talk of the new -court-house with the lines of the sod still showing around it than -of the Indian fights and the killing of the bad men of earlier days -when there was no court-house, and when the vigilance committee was a -necessary evil. These were “well-posted” and “well-informed” citizens, -and if there is one being I dread and fly from, it is a well-posted -citizen. - -[Illustration: POLO ABOVE THE SNOW-LINE AT COLORADO SPRINGS] - -The men who are of interest in the West, and of whom most curious -stories might be told, are the Eastern men and the Englishmen who have -sought it with capital, or who have been driven there to make their -fortunes. Some one once started a somewhat unprofitable inquiry as -to what became of all the lost pins. That is not nearly so curious -as what becomes of all the living men who drop suddenly out of our -acquaintanceship or our lives, and who are not missed, but who are -nevertheless lost. I know now what becomes of them; they all go West. -I met some men here whom I was sure I had left walking Fifth Avenue, -and who told me, on the contrary, that they had been in the West -for the last two years. They had once walked Fifth Avenue, but they -dropped out of the procession one day, and no one missed them, and they -are out here enjoying varying fortunes. The brakesman on a freight -and passenger train in Southern Texas was a lower-class man whom I -remembered at Lehigh University as an expert fencer; the conductor on -the same train was from the same college town; the part owner of a -ranch, whom I supposed I had left looking over the papers in the club, -told me he had not been in New York for a year, and that his partner -was “Jerry” Black, who, as I trust no one has forgotten, was one of -Princeton’s half-backs, and who I should have said, had any one asked -me, was still in Pennsylvania. Another man whom I remembered as a -“society” reporter on a New York paper, turned up in a white apron as -a waiter at a hotel in ----. I was somewhat embarrassed at first as to -whether or not he would wish me to recognize him, but he settled my -doubts by winking at me over his heavily-loaded tray, as much as to say -it was a very good joke, and that he hoped I was appreciating it to -its full value. We met later in the street, and he asked me with the -most faithful interest of those whose dances and dinners he had once -reported, deprecated a notable scandal among people of the Four Hundred -which was filling the papers at that time, and said I could hardly -appreciate the pity of such a thing occurring among people of his set. -Another man, whom I had known very well in New York, turned up in San -Antonio with an entirely new name, wife, and fortune, and verified -the tradition which exists there that it is best before one grows to -know a man too well, to ask him what was his name _before_ he came to -Texas. San Antonio seemed particularly rich in histories of those who -came there to change their fortunes, and who had changed them most -completely. The English gave the most conspicuous examples of these -unfortunates--conspicuous in the sense that their position at home had -been so good, and their habits of life so widely different. - -The proportion of young English gentlemen who are roughing it in the -West far exceeds that of the young Americans. This is due to the fact -that the former have never been taught a trade or profession, and in -consequence, when they have been cheated of the money they brought with -them to invest, have nothing but their hands to help them, and so take -to driving horses or branding cattle or digging in the streets, as one -graduate of Oxford, sooner than write home for money, did in Denver. -He is now teaching Greek and Latin in one of our colleges. The manner -in which visiting Englishmen are robbed in the West, and the quickness -with which some of them take the lesson to heart, and practise it upon -the next Englishman who comes out, or upon the prosperous Englishman -already there, would furnish material for a book full of pitiful -stories. And yet one cannot help smiling at the wickedness of some of -these schemes. Three Englishmen, for example, bought, as they supposed, -thirty thousand Texas steers; but the Texans who pretended to sell them -the cattle drove the same three thousand head ten times around the -mountain, as a dozen supers circle around the backdrop of a stage to -make an army, and the Englishmen counted and paid for each steer ten -times over. There was another Texan who made a great deal of money by -advertising to teach young men how to become cowboys, and who charged -them ten dollars a month tuition fee, and who set his pupils to work -digging holes for fence-posts all over the ranch, until they grew wise -in their generation, and left him for some other ranch, where they were -paid thirty dollars per month for doing the same thing. But in many -instances it is the tables of San Antonio which take the greater part -of the visiting Englishman’s money. One gentleman, who for some time -represented the Isle of Wight in the Lower House, spent three modest -fortunes in the San Antonio gambling-houses, and then married his cook, -which proved a most admirable speculation, as she had a frugal mind, -and took entire control of his little income. And when the Marquis of -Aylesford died in Colorado, the only friend in this country who could -be found to take the body back to England was his first-cousin, who at -that time was driving a hack around San Antonio. We heard stories of -this sort on every side, and we met faro-dealers, cooks, and cowboys -who have served through campaigns in India or Egypt, or who hold -an Oxford degree. A private in G troop, Third Cavalry, who was my -escort on several scouting expeditions in the Garza outfit, was kind -enough and quite able to tell me which club in London had the oldest -wine-cellar, where one could get the best visiting-cards engraved, -and why the Professor of Ancient Languages at Oxford was the superior -of the instructor in like studies at Cambridge. He did this quite -unaffectedly, and in no way attempted to excuse his present position. -Of course, the value of the greater part of these stories depends on -the family and personality of the hero, and as I cannot give names, I -have to omit the best of them. - -There was a little English boy who left San Antonio before I had -reached it, but whose name and fame remained behind him. He was -eighteen years of age, and just out of Eton, where he had spent all his -pocket-money in betting on the races through commissioners. Gambling -was his ruling passion at an age when ginger-pop and sweets appealed -more strongly to his contemporaries. His people sent him to Texas -with four hundred pounds to buy an interest in a ranch, and furnished -him with a complete outfit of London-made clothing. An Englishman who -saw the boy’s box told me he had noted the different garments packed -carefully away, just as his mother had placed them, and each marked -with his name. The Eton boy lost the four hundred pounds at roulette -in the first week after his arrival in San Antonio, and pawned his -fine clothes in the next to “get back.” He lost all he ventured. At -the end of ten days he was peddling fruit around the streets in his -bare feet. He made twenty-five cents the first day, and carried it to -the gambling-house where he had already lost his larger fortune, and -told one of the dealers he would cut the cards with him for the money. -The boy cut first, and the dealer won; but the other was enough of a -gambler to see that the dealer had stooped to win his last few pennies -unfairly. The boy’s eyes filled up with tears of indignation. - -“You thief!” he cried, “you cheated me!” - -The dealer took his revolver from the drawer of the table, and, -pointing it at his head, said: “Do you know what we do to people who -use that word in Texas? We kill them!” - -The boy clutched the table with both hands and flung himself across it -so that his forehead touched the barrel of the revolver. “You thief!” -he repeated, and so shrilly that every one in the room heard him. “I -say you cheated me!” - -The gambler lowered the trigger slowly and tossed the pistol back in -the drawer. Then he picked up a ten-dollar gold piece and shoved it -towards him. - -[Illustration: MOUNT OF THE HOLY CROSS] - -“Here,” he said, “that’ll help take you home. You’re too damned tough -for Texas!” - -The other Englishmen in San Antonio filled out the sum and sent him -back to England. His people are well known in London; his father is a -colonel in the Guards. - -The most notable Englishman who ever came to Texas was Ben Thompson; -but he arrived there at so early an age, and became so thoroughly -Western in his mode of life, that Texans claim him as their own. I -imagine, however, he always retained some of the traditions of his -birthplace, as there is a story of his standing with his hat off -to talk to an English nobleman, when Thompson at the time was the -most feared and best known man in all Texas. The stories of his -recklessness and ignorance of fear, and utter disregard of the value -of others’ lives as well as his own, are innumerable. A few of them -are interesting and worth keeping, as they show the typical bad man -of the highest degree in his different humors, and also as I have not -dared to say half as much about bad men as I should have liked to do. -Thompson killed eighteen men in different parts of Texas, and was for -this made marshal of Austin, on the principle that if he must kill -somebody, it was better to give him authority to kill other desperadoes -than reputable citizens. As marshal it was his pleasure to pull up his -buggy across the railroad track just as the daily express train was -about to start, and covering the engineer with his revolver, bid him -hold the train until he was ready to move on. He would then call some -trembling acquaintance from the crowd on the platform and talk with him -leisurely, until he thought he had successfully awed the engineer and -established his authority. Then he would pick up his reins and drive -on, saying to the engineer, “You needn’t think, sir, any corporation -can hurry me.” The position of the unfortunate man to whom he talked -must have been most trying, with a locomotive on one side and a -revolver on the other. - -One day a cowboy, who was a well-known bully and a would-be desperado, -shot several bullet-holes through the high hat of an Eastern traveller -who was standing at the bar of an Austin hotel. Thompson heard of this, -and, purchasing a high hat, entered the bar-room. - -“I hear,” he said, facing the cowboy, “that you are shooting plug-hats -here to-day; perhaps you would like to take a shot at mine.” He then -raised his revolver and shot away the cowboy’s ear. “I meant,” he said, -“to hit your ear; did I do it?” The bully showed proof that he had. -“Well, then,” said the marshal, “get out of here;” and catching the man -by his cartridge-belt, he threw him out into the street, and so put an -end to his reputation as a desperate character forever. - -Thompson was naturally unpopular with a certain class in the community. -Two barkeepers who had a personal grudge against him, with no doubt -excellent reason, lay in ambush for him behind the two bars of the -saloon, which stretched along either wall. Thompson entered the room -from the street in ignorance of any plot against him until the two men -halted him with shot-guns. They had him so surely at their pleasure -that he made no effort to reach his revolver, but stood looking from -one to the other, and smiling grimly. But his reputation was so great, -and their fear of him so actual, that both men missed him, although not -twenty feet away, and with shot-guns in their hands. Then Thompson took -out his pistol deliberately and killed them. - -A few years ago he became involved in San Antonio with “Jack” Harris, -the keeper of a gambling-house and variety theatre. Harris lay in wait -for Thompson behind the swinging doors of his saloon, but Thompson, as -he crossed the Military Plaza, was warned of Harris’s hiding-place, and -shot him through the door. He was tried for the murder, and acquitted -on the ground of self-defence; and on his return to Austin was met -at the station by a brass band and all the fire companies. Perhaps -inspired by this, he returned to San Antonio, and going to Harris’s -theatre, then in the hands of his partner, Joe Foster, called from the -gallery for Foster to come up and speak to him. Thompson had with him -a desperado named King Fisher, and against him every man of his class -in San Antonio, for Harris had been very popular. Foster sent his -assistant, a very young man named Bill Sims, to ask Thompson to leave -the place, as he did not want trouble. - -“I have come to have a reconciliation,” said Thompson. “I want to shake -hands with my old friend, Joe Foster. Tell him I won’t leave till I see -him, and I won’t make a row.” - -Sims returned with Foster, and Thompson held out his hand. - -“Joe,” he said, “I have come all the way from Austin to shake hands -with you. Let’s make up, and call it off.” - -“I can’t shake hands with you, Ben,” Foster said. “You killed my -partner, and you know well enough I am not the sort to forget it. Now -go, won’t you, and don’t make trouble.” - -Thompson said he would leave in a minute, but they must drink together -first. There was a bar in the gallery, which was by this time packed -with men who had learned of Thompson’s presence in the theatre, but -Fisher and Thompson stood quite alone beside the bar. The marshal of -Austin looked up and saw Foster’s glass untouched before him, and said, - -“Aren’t you drinking with me, Joe?” - -Foster shook his head. - -“Well, then,” cried Thompson, “the man who won’t drink with me, nor -shake hands with me, fights me.” - -He reached back for his pistol, and some one--a jury of twelve -intelligent citizens decided it was not young Bill Sims--shot him -three times in the forehead. They say you could have covered the three -bullet-holes with a half-dollar. But so great was the desperate courage -of this ruffian that even as he fell he fired, holding his revolver -at his hip, and killing Foster, and then, as he lay on his back, with -every nerve jerking in agony, he emptied his revolver into the floor, -ripping great gashes in the boards about him. And so he died, as he -would have elected to die, with his boots on, and with the report of -his pistol the last sound to ring in his ears. King Fisher was killed -at the same moment; and the _Express_ spoke of it the next morning as -“A Good Night’s Work.” - -I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sims at the gambling palace, which -was once Harris’s, then Foster’s, and which is now his, and found him a -jolly, bright-eyed young man of about thirty, with very fine teeth, and -a most contagious laugh. He was just back from Dwight, and told us of -a man who had been cured there, and who had gone away with his mother -leaning on his arm, and what this man had said to them of his hopes -for the future when he left; and as he told it the tears came to his -eyes, and he coughed, and began to laugh over a less serious story. I -tried all the time to imagine him, somewhat profanely, I am afraid, as -a young David standing up before this English giant, who had sent -twoscore of other men out of the world, and to picture the glaring, -crowded gallery, with the hot air and smoke, and the voice of the -comic singer rising from the stage below, and this boy and the marshal -of Austin facing one another with drawn revolvers; but it was quite -impossible. - -[Illustration: PIKE’S PEAK FROM COLORADO SPRINGS] - -There are a great many things one only remembers to say as the train -is drawing out of the station, and which have to be spoken from the -car-window. And now that my train is so soon to start towards the East, -I find there are many things which it seems most ungracious to leave -unsaid. I should like to say much of the hospitality of the West. We -do not know such hospitality in the East. A man brings us a letter of -introduction there, and we put him up at the club we least frequently -visit, and regret that he should have come at a time when ours is so -particularly crowded with unbreakable engagements. It is not so here. -One might imagine the Western man never worked at all, so entirely is -his time yours, if you only please to claim it. And from the first -few days of my trip to the last, this self-effacement of my hosts and -eagerness to please accompanied me wherever I went. It was the same -in every place, whether in army posts or ranches, or among that most -delightful coterie of the Denver Club “who never sleep,” or on the -border of Mexico, where “Bob” Haines, the sheriff of Zepata County, -Texas, before he knew who I or my soldier escort might be, and while we -were still but dust-covered figures in the night, rushed into the house -and ordered a dinner and beds for us, and brought out his last two -bottles of beer. The sheriff of Zepata County, “who can shoot with both -hands,” need bring no letter of introduction with him if he will deign -to visit me when he comes to New York. And as for that Denver Club -coterie, they already know that the New York clubs are also supplied -with electric buttons. - -And now that it is at an end, I find it hard to believe that I am not -to hear again the Indian girls laughing over their polo on the prairie, -or the regimental band playing the men on to the parade, and that I am -not to see the officers’ wives watching them from the line at sunset, -as the cannon sounds its salute and the flag comes fluttering down. - -And yet New York is not without its good points. - -If any one doubts this, let him leave it for three months, and do -one-night stands at fourth-rate hotels, or live on alkali water and -bacon, and let him travel seven thousand miles over a country where -a real-estate office, a Citizen’s Bank, and Quick Order Restaurant, -with a few surrounding houses, make, as seen from the car-window, a -booming city, where beautiful scenery and grand mountains are separated -by miles of prairie and chaparral, and where there is no Diana of the -Tower nor bronze Farragut to greet him daily as he comes back from work -through Madison Square. He will then feel a love for New York equal to -the Chicagoan’s love for _his_ city, and when he sees across the New -Jersey flats the smoke and the tall buildings and the twin spires of -the cathedral, he will wish to shout, as the cowboys do when they “come -into town,” at being back again in the only place where one can both -hear the Tough Girl of the East Side ask for her shoes, and the horn of -the Country Club’s coach tooting above the roar of the Avenue. - -The West is a very wonderful, large, unfinished, and out-of-doors -portion of our country, and a most delightful place to _visit_. I -would advise every one in the East to visit it, and I hope to revisit -it myself. Some of those who go will not only visit it, but will make -their homes there, and the course of empire will eventually Westward -take its way. But when it does, it will leave one individual behind it -clinging closely to the Atlantic seaboard. - -Little old New York is good enough for him. - - -THE END - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEST FROM A CAR -WINDOW *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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