IF you will examine a map of the United States printed fifty years ago you will find a large tract of land between the Missouri River and California designated as the Great American Desert. If you examine a recent map of the same country you will be surprised to note that this desert has entirely disappeared and that in its place are half a dozen prosperous and populous states.
The truth is that the desert never really existed except in the imagination of the geographer, with the exception of a small portion of Utah where there is still some desert land.
After the Lewis and Clarke expedition up the Missouri, and after the discovery of gold in California in 1849, a goodly number of adventurous spirits flocked across the western plains in search of gold and adventure. These adventurers who were always fickle and restless were shortly followed by a more serious-minded company who were homemakers and settlers. The thing that most vividly impressed these settlers on coming into this new El Dorado was the great herds of bison grazing upon the western prairies.
These bison kept sleek and fat not only in the summer, but in the winter as well, and they subsisted merely upon the bounty of nature.
Thus the question at once arose, if the bison could subsist in this way merely upon the bounty of nature, why could not cattle be raised in the same manner and thus get rid of the first cost of raising them.
So the western emigrant soon had small herds of cattle grazing upon the prairies just as the bison had done before them. These were the nuclei for the mighty herds of cattle in our western grazing land which finally made this nation the greatest beef-raising country in the world.
The root stock however, of this cattle raising industry had already been planted on this continent nearly two hundred years when the original "Texas Longhorn" was imported from Spain into Mexico. These long-horned, tall, gaunt cattle finally drifted across the Rio Grande into Texas, and thence up the Panhandle into New Mexico and what is now Oklahoma and still further north, so when the western settlers first came to the western prairies there were wild cattle grazing on the plains in the same herds with the bison.
From time to time the early cattle men introduced new stock of Durham, Hereford, and other large breeds and crossed them with the Texas Longhorn. The real Texas steer is a tall, rangy animal weighing when fat a thousand pounds.
Since the herds of cattle ran unrestrained upon the prairies the question of identification very early arose, so it was not long before branded cattle and cattle with either one or both ears slit appeared upon the prairies. At first these branding marks were rather simple, but it soon became apparent that they had to be more complicated as the cattle rustler who was the professional cattle thief could easily change simple markings. Thus the letter could be changed into a G or a cipher, I could be easily changed to L, M to N and so on. This necessity for an elaborate mark soon led to a branding iron which was six or seven inches square and cattle were marked either on the shoulder or hind quarters, or both. Also in many cases the ears were slit as well. But even so the professional cattle thief or rustler grew bold and rich as well; this, notwithstanding the fact that the branding irons had been registered at the local county seats as soon as the particular district had a seat of government.
Since there were few sheriffs in the primitive west in those early days, and fewer courts and justice was very tardy, what was called necktie parties were very soon in vogue. This seemed the only way in which to deal with the professional rustler. These parties always took the form of a surprise party. In fact, the surprise of the recipient of such honors was usually beyond words to describe. From the moment that his fellow citizens called upon the rustler he was the very center of the festivity. In fact, all eyes were upon him. For once he was the observed of all observers.
He was speedily conducted to a remote region where the trees grew tall. There being few stores in the region and neckties being hard to procure, an inch rope served instead. The offending rustler was soon given a commanding position above the rest of the company and the party broke up feeling well satisfied because there was one less cattle thief in the world. Of course this was not lawful, but it was a sort of primitive justice.
Not only did the cattle men have to contend with the rustlers but soon very serious differences sprang up between themselves. These were over grazing grounds, water holes, and priority of brands, etc. Here again there were no courts to settle these disputes and once again primitive methods were resorted to.
These cattle feuds became so bad in portions of Texas and New Mexico and even farther north that as a result many scores of cow-punchers finally left their bones bleaching in the sun upon the mesas and tablelands as a result of these disputes. The arbitor in most cases was the renowned Colt's forty-five revolver which the cow-puncher always carried in the holster upon his thigh.
As soon as the homesteaders flocked into the grazing country and began building homes and tilling the land, another quarrel arose. This was between the settler, or nester, as he was often called and the cattle men. These nesters often preempted the water holes which were very important and also fenced off the best grazing lands, so pitched battles ensued between the cattle men and the settlers who were frequently of foreign birth and unacquainted with our laws and customs.
About 1892 this tension between the homesteaders and the cattle kings came to a crisis. This was when the cow-punchers assembled two hundred strong, and tried to dispel a settler from his holding in which he had fenced off the best water hole in the region. This force of cattle men were promptly met by an equal body of local deputies which was largely made up of homesteaders. A pitched battle was imminent near Cheyenne, Wyoming, when the United States cavalry appeared, and dispersed both parties, and the despotic power of the cattle men was forever broken. After that, barbed wire fences appeared on many of the great ranches and the cattle business was restricted.
Then there were still other fights between the cattle men and the sheep men, and finally the goat men appeared and cleaned up what the sheep had left. So from the time when the first herds of domestic cattle appeared upon the western prairies the cattle business has been surrounded by romance and glamour, and attended with fighting and many conditions that lent themselves to dramatic action.
The cowboy from the very early days has been a picturesque historic figure, figuring very largely in the literature of the great west. In the very early days his life was a hard one, and many have been the stirring scenes in which he has taken part. He has ranged all the way from the Rio Grande on the south, to the Peace River in the very northern confines of civilization in British America. The cow-puncher also has ridden over the great divide into California, and up into Oregon and Washington. But wherever he has gone he has always been a chivalrous hero doing his work like a man. He might well be called the knight of the plains.
He has always ridden his faithful broncho, or mustang, or cayuse, according to the locality where his range was located. But by all three names this is still the same wirey, devil—may-care, little horse, tough as a pine knot, and doing a day's work that would kill any other horse in the world.
The cowboy's dress had been as picturesque as his wild life, with the broad-brimmed felt hat, the bright kerchief, the oil slicker worn in stormy weather, and the tall riding boots and chaps not to mention the historic forty-five reposing in the holster on his hip. All these are well known characteristics of this knight of the plains.
There are few dull days in the life of a cow-puncher for adventure camps upon his trail, so what with heading off wild stampedes of cattle on dark nights, riding at a headlong pace, God only knows just where, and fighting cattle rustlers and nesters, as well as wolves and grizzly bears, the cow-puncher has always had plenty to test his nerve and keep him fit.
In the old days of the Gilson and Santa Fe trails the cattle used to be driven to the north in the summer time and back south in the winter migrating just as the buffalo did. But today all the large open ranges are gone. Instead the cattle graze over a much smaller range and the riding is all done from a central camp in one day.
All these things have tended to narrow down the once endless range of possibilities in the cowboy's life, so that to-day he is a much more sophisticated creature than of yore. And cannot expect a skulking Indian to take a pot shot at him as he rides over the range, while the grizzly has become much more wary and fearful of repeating rifles.
So with this word picture of the cowboy's arena and the conditions and action which have given him his place in both fiction and history, I leave you to the adventures of this knight of the range, and more espe cially to the heroism of his faithful little horse. He may on occasion buck like a fractious ram and try to pile his rider in a sorry heap on the ground, but when his antics are over he will carry his rider at a pace which would leave the best cavalry horses dead on the trail at the end of twenty-four hours. For this wild horse is a product of nature, toughened by exposure and hard conditions, and he has the fiber and heart of a wind-whipped oak.
Patches