The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1880-03-05
A KANSAS SKETCH.
Saturday Night in a Cattle Town-Th.
Typical Cow Boy

Typical Cow Boy.
Henry King. in Scribaer Tor March
The dizziness which has so weighed
upon US through the long, uneventfuI
afternoon was but iuil, we soon learn
ed, and not staghation. With the first
approach of darkness, the lethargic town
rubbed its eyes, so to speak, and leaped
TO its feet-and in twinkling, il SEEM
ed, like an incarnation, Eastman said,
Grand avenue was a carnival of light
and motion, and music. The broad
beard sidewalks were crowded with
promenaders; smiling groups passed in
and out of the Neutrality-suspicious. and
gambling places; in every quarter glass
es clinked and dice ratified lis there an
other sound in the world like that of
shaken dice y; viOlins, flutes and comets
sent out eager, inviting strains of waltz
and polka from score or more Of estab-
lishments, and brass band was playing
patriotic airs in front of the theater,
where, oddly enough, the crude morality
of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" was
the full strength of The company
in the cast" Everywhere the
cowboys made themselves manifest,
clad now in the soiled and dingy Jeans
of the trail, then in a suit of many-but-
toned corduroy, and again in affluence
of broadcloth, silk hat, gloves, cane and
sometimes Il clerical white necl1tie And
everywhere, also, started and shone the
lone star of TeXas-for the cowboy,
wherever he may wander, and However
he may change, never forgets TO be Il
| Texan, and never spends his money or
lends his presence to any concern that
does not in some way recognize the en-
blem of his native state; so you will see
| in towns like New Sharon a general
| pandering 10 this sentiment, and lone
| stars abound of all sizes and hues, from
the big, disliguring white one painted
| on the hotel front down TO the little pink
| one stitched in silk on the cowboys
| handkerchief. Barring these numerous
| stars, the rich lights and the music, we
| missed sight of any special efforts to be
| guile or entrap passers-b y-perhaps be-
cause we were not looking for them
nor was there for some hours a sound
10 reveal the spirit of coiled and utter
vileness which the cheerful outside
so well belied. 1t was in the mann
much the kind of scene one would be
apt to conjecture for an Oriental holi
day. But as the night sped on the fes
tivities deepened, and the jovial aspect
of the picture began to be touched and
tainted with subtle, rebuking some
thing, which gradually disclosed the
passion, the crime, the depravity, that
really vivified and swayed il all anG
made it Internal. The saloons became
clamorous with profanity and ribald
songs and laughter. There were nc
longer any promenaders on the sidewalks
save once in while bleared and stag
gering fellow, with a difficulty in HI.
clumsy lips over some such thing a
"The Girl / Left Behind Me" An in
famed and quivcring fierceness crep
into the busy music. The lights paled
fickered, and here and there went out
Doors were stealthily closed, window
shutters slammed 10 with angry creaks
And at length, Us we looked and listen
ed, the sharp, significant report of pts
tol, with shrek behind it, was born
toward us from a turbulent dancing ball
to certify its tale of combat and probabl
homicide, and to be succeeded by a clos
but brief halt in the noisy quadrille-
presumably for the removal of the vic
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