THE WESTERN COWBOY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 10

THE WESTERN COWBOY

POPULAR FALLACY EXPLODED. So much amubirig talk is being made anent the blood-bedraggled cowboy of the Wild West thnt I rise, as one man, to say a, few thing's, not in a dictatorial style, but regarding this socalled or so-esteemed dry land pirate who, mounted on a little cow pony and under the black flag, 'sails out across the green surge of the plai'ne 16 scatter the rocky ehoies of Time' with the bones of his fellow-man. A greut many people wonder whei'e the cowboy, with . his abnormal thust for blood, originated. Where, did this young Jei3h_e Jamrs, with his govy record and hie dauntless ey«s come ti'om? Wa« he born in a buffalo wallow at thn foot of some rock-ribbed mountain, or did he first breathe the thin air -along the brink of an alkali pond, where tho horned toad and the", centipede Banu him to sleep and the tarantula, tickled him' under the chin with .hits .baity legs' Cartifiil research, and cold, hard statistics show that the cowboy, as a general thing, was born in an unostentatious manner on ' the fainl. 1 hutu to 'sif d<uVn on a mmarute and Bijiiash tho breath out of a loinaiitiu dream, but the cowboy who gef> too jnuch "nioiKt damnation" ih hta system and rides on a gallop up and down Main-street, shooting out the litfhtfi of the billiard palaces, Would be just as unhappy if v mouse van up bin pantaloon logs as you would, gentlo reader. He h generally a youth who thinks he will not eaiu his 25d01e. per mouth if he does not yell, aud whoop, and shoot, and scare little girls into St. Vitus'a dance. I've known moro cowboys to injure themselves with tlieir own revolvers than to injure anyone else. This is evidently because they are more- familiar with the hoe than they are with the Smith and Wesson." IN THE' ROCKY MOUNTAINS. One night, while I had roomß in the business part of a territorial city in the Itocky Mountain cattle country, I was awakened at about 1 a.m. by the most blood-curdling cry of "Murder" I ever heard. • It was murder with a big"M.'' Acroee the street, in the bright light pf a restaurant, a dozen cowboya, with broad sombreros and , flashing silver | braid, huge leather chaperajas, Mexican spurs and orange silk neckties, and with . flashing revolvers, were standing. It seemed that a big, red- faced Captain Kidd of the band, with his ekin full of valley tan, had marched into an ice cream resort with a self-cocker in his hand, and ordered the vanilla coolness for the gang. There being ' a dozen young folks at the place, mostly^ male and female, from a neighbouring hop, indulging in cream, the proprietor, .a meek Norwegian, with tnin, white hair, deemed it rude and outre to do so. He Baid something to that effect, whereat the other eleven men. of alcoholic courage let off a yell that froze' the cream into a solid glacier,* and shook two kerosene lamps out of their sockets in the chandeliers. A. GENTLE NORWEGIAN. Thereupon, the little V.M.C.A. Nor.wegian aaid : "Gentlemans, I kain't Hefner like dot squealinks and dot kaind of a tings, and you fel'°rs mit dot leder pantses on and dot funny glose and such a tings like dot, better keep . kaind of quiet, or I , shall call up the policemen) mit ray delephone." (i Then they laughed at, him, and cried, yet,.again with, a loud voiced •This annoyed the ice-cream agriculturist, and he- took the old axe handle that h© used to jam tho ice down around the freezer with and peeled a large area of ecfilp off the leader's "dome ' of thought," .and it hung down over his eyes so that he could not see to shoot with any degree of accuracy. After he had yelled "Murder!" three or four times he fell under an ice-cream table, and the mild-eyed Scandinavian broke a silver-plated castor over the organ of self-esteem, and poured red pepper, and salt, and vinegar, and Halford sauce and other relishes on the place where the scalp was loose. This revived the* brave but murderous ' cowgentJeman, and ho begged that tie might be allowed to go away. The gentle V.M.C.A. superintendent of the ten-stamp ice-cream freezers then j

took the revolvers away from the bold buccaneer, aftd kicked him out through a showcase, and saluted him with a bouquot of July oysters thab suffered severely from malaria. All cowboys are not sanguinary, but out of twenty you will generally find one .who is brave when he has his revolvers with him ; but when he forgets and leaves his shooters at home on the piano the most tropical violet-eyed dude can climb him with tho butt-cud of a, eunHower and beat his brains out and spatter them all over that school district. In the wild, unfettered West beware of the miui > who never carries arms, never gets drunk, and always minds his own business. He doesn't go around shooting out the gas or intimidating a kindergarten school, but when a brave frontiersman, with 0. revolver in each boot .and a bowie down the back Of his neck, insults a modest young lady and needs to be thrown through a plate-glass window, and then walked over by the populace, cair~on the silent man who dares to wear a clean shii-t and, human clothes.— Bill Nye. in New York Life.