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.
