The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-10-29
The Life Of a Cowboy.


sailors life has for boys of the Atlantic
States. The life is looked on by them
as a career of considerable excitement
ard adventure. This is consideration
that appeals more to boys than to sober
minded men, and yet it is the means of
drawing not little of the best young
brain and muscle into this channel. As
compared with the quiet plodding life
OF a farmers boy, it-does indeed seem
life of wild excitement. AS the red
men retire farther and farther into the
west and North, the ''cow- puncher'' is
the first precursor of civilization. The
very great advantage of being the first
occupant of new range keeps the
cattle-men forever pushing onward and
taking the risks of too close proximity
to the savages. The life on one OF
these frontier ranges has a.good deal
OF adventurous excitement about it in
the way Of encounters with all the nu.
merous varieties of wild animals which
abound there, and has beside the vari-
Gus ATTRACTIONS as well as the hardships
that belong to genuine pioneer life.
Before man has been in the business
many years he is pretty certain to be
engaged in one or more of the long
cattle-driyes which transfer enormous
herds across wide stretches of territory.
In this way many workmen drift in the
course of a year or two from Texas to
wyoming or Montana, Or from Oregon
TO Nebraska; and thus the sicow-
puncher'i often comes, in thine, to have
wide and varied experience of the
least-known regions of our wide
country. -
Perhaps the greatest attraction about
this life to frugal workingman is the
great variety of chances that exist for
profitable y investment of every dollar
that he is able to lay aside. All en-
ployers will permit a good hand, who
invests his.savings in horses, to turn his
little band in with the other stock with
OUT any charge. Thus he goes into
stock RAISING on small scale without
dollar drumming expenses to. pay. 2 If
a man. can buy few mares at a bargain
he can often make clear annual profit
OF fifty per cent On few hundred dol
lars, if he isshrewd in selling and care
full ip breeding up. This is a very IA
vorite way of investing earnings, as it
is at once very safe and very profitable.
But there are many other WAYS of get
ting handsome income for a small in
vestment in the Far West, though hard
ly ANY. of, them is so perfectly safe as
this which have mentioned. There
are well-known opportunities for pre-.
empting land, investing in approaching
town real estate, mining stocks and
trade which are so easy to seize in
very new country; so that man who
is industrious, saving and shrewd can
hardly fail to roll up a neat little prop
erty from his savings in few years.
This cowboy life will not be found
satisfactory to every one who enters it.
1t is impossible to say certainly of any
individual or any class of men that they
will not succeed in it. Some men who
at first seem less adapted for the work
become most excellent hands by long
pluck and perseverance. But it may be
said more emphatically of this man of
other callings that it should be learned
in youth. The chances of marked sue
cess are against man who begins the
work after he is twenty years old. Men
who have been trained to it almost from
childhood in Texas and Colorado are,
as class, the most successful. Among
those who are born farther east, young
men brought up on farms, with good
understanding of the management of
horses, adapt themselves most readily
to ''cow puncher's' work. Delicately
nurtured city boys have the least chance
of success in this rough life, and yet
not few of them have, by long persist
ence, made themse Ives skillful in it.
A man who believes himself to have
already some training and fitness to. en-
ter at once upon the work would do
best to seek employment in Cheyenne
or Greeley in the spring. That is the
season when cattle men are making
their plans and hiring their hands for
the year. Most of the 's round-ups"
take their start in the latter half of
May. At that time a man who has
been trained to the management of
horses and is quite at home in the sad
die need have little fear of not finding
work, even though he may be without
friends or recommendation. But any
person who is not fitted must work into
the business much more gradually. A
new conner on the plains feels at first
as much out of his element as a fish out
of water. The habits, the ways of life.
the occupations and even the dialect are
all strange to him. He is as easily rec
ognized as green as any foreign
clodhopper just landed in New York.
He hears himself called a ''tenderfoot.f
The plains are mainly a grazing region.
All the United States east of the plains
are mainly agricultural; consequently
/ the manners and customs of the two
districts are, and must always be, very
different. To learn the ways of the
country, to ,outgrow the " tenderfoot'
stage of existence, is gradual and
sometimes a trying process. A man
coming to the far West with the inten-
ton of making it his permanent home
would do well to come in the fall, if
possible-for, though it is not good
time for a workingman to find occupa-
ton, tits usually possible to find chances
towork about some stock-ranch or farm,
through the winter either for small
wages or for board, and in this way a
man grows well accustomed to the WAYS
of the country and acquainted with the
people, and so has the best preparation
for securing profitable situation when
the spring work with the cattle begins.
If in the course of the winter he learns