THE REAL WILD WEST

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 132, 15 December 1928, Page 21

THE REAL WILD WEST

TIIUTH SUPERIOR TO PICTION (Reviewed by "One Who Obeyed.") In "Hands Up" wo have, not a work of iiction, nor yet tlio lilie story of a famed six-gun lighter, but a series of storius concerning prominent frontiersmen, and dealing principally with the last era of the Wild West culture stage, that following the wiping out of the buffalo. In the opening chapter the author alludes to the different eras of tho west, that of exclusive Indian occupancy, that of infiltration by whites, that of the advent of stockmen, and then tho stoik-inininju-ailroad era. With tlio purely Indian period we have [nought to do, but may remark that au important change occurred in the life of tho prairie tribes after the introduction of the horse by the Spanish. These four-legged immigrants caused greater changes than the two-legged Spanish hombres did, for as late as the "thirties" of last century the Indian braves were raiding far southward into Mexico, oven to Durango. The second era referred to was marked by the activities of the' trappers and traders, but these we're not settlers, they merely held fortified trading posts, such as Bent's Fort on tho Arkansas and St. Frain's Fort. This was the period "of the famed Santa Fe traders, of the Kit Carson breed of frontiersmen, the period we read of in Mayno Reid's "Scalp Hunters." The men w read about in "Hands Up" know life and death as they were in tho last two eras. The query in paragraph three of page fifteen, "Why was the west wild'/" was not answered as it should have been; the Wild West was wild because the Americano will not or cannot administer laws. Everything ran wide open, and so camo lynch law, private administration of justice, brigands, and murderers , innumerable, and —the Wild West. "When Roosevelt farewelled at Chicago a baud of Americanos about to settle iv Western Canada, he said: "You are going to a land ■ the laws of which are much the same as our own— but they are administered." Iv chapter 1., we aro given some interesting data concerning the hordes of bison that roamed the great plains to about the early 'seventies, also a description of the famous fight at the Adobe Walls, .nineteen buffalo hunters against some hundreds of Indians, and stood them off for a week, when relief came. That was the two-bit era, when a quarter dollar was the smallest coin seen in that region. Ten years later I found that copper coins had crept west as far as Kansas City, but I saw no paper money west of the Rockies. At page 36 one will read with unholy joy how Allison, the killer, remonstrated with a dentist for pulling the wrong tooth out; and then the tragic tale of Billy the Kid, who, when killed at twonty-one years of age, was already a 22-notcher. I heard a lot about Billy when in New Mexico two years after his death, and was not sorry that ho had "ca#hed in," or perchance I might have been JTo. 23! We are regaled with interesting and correct explanations of weapons and shooting methods. Note on page 66 the contempt poured on a man who would sight a revolver,, and the details concerning "fanning" a Gatling are O.K. Tho can-rolling feat described at page 70 I have seen performed by a man using two S.A. Colts, one in each hand, and each one twirled on the forefinger prior to the shot. Observe at page 97 how a man pulled when wearing the Texas shoulder holster, and do not forget page 99, where Wild Bill pulls two Gatlings while a bullet is passing through his brain. That was an instinctive act following a life's training. And rely on that account of how to swing a Gatling as a club—it is most effective. The accounts of the remarkable episodes in the lives of Wild Bill,. Bat Mastcrson, Pat Garret, and other sis-gun artists are highly entertaining, not to say marvellous, but they are not overdrawn. The account of the killing of Jesse James agrees with that given me by Mrs. C. Kirkby, an old neighbour of the James family, some years later. What that old lady told me about the James and Younger boys, the Kansas border war, and Quantrell's sack of the town of Lawrence, convinced me that I was not in any British country. Look up page 127 for some remarks on Quantrell. Chapter X. gives us the opening of the Indian territory (now known as Oklahoma) to settlement, a wild stampede of homo seekers from a base line. The story is a picturesque one, and saturated with the extraordinary irresponsibility of the border settlers, tlic loose methods of authority in the west. Of this the writer of this review saw nothing, but I had ridden across tho territory years before, and so had seen it as it was in pre-Columbian titties — a fair and goodly land. When Mulf ord sent Hopalong and his outfit to entertain us by wiping out the Perry's Bend bunch, we spoke of the fiction writer's license, but compare a genuine fandango at page 194 of this work; not much difference to note. And right hero let us ponder a space upon the statement made at page 232, that all Al gunmen are fair "complected,'1 with grey or blue eyes; the black or brown eyed man grades A 2 or lower. I wonder? But enough of this scanning of reminiscences of an ex-puncher and Oklahoma boomer. If you want to know what the west was like in those days, how Doolin the bandolero was found and Jost, how Bill Tilghman received 2500 post cards in one batch, well, just consult 'Hands up" as told by F. E. Sutton and written by A. B. Macdonald.