Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-04-27
The Texas Desperate.

Texas siftings.
The reputation for lawlessness thai
Texas has among the people of some OF
the northern and eastern states, is not
the result of the Sam Bass and Wesley
Hardin sort of outlaw and their lawleSs
deeds, but rather the result ORthe Wis
its that Texas enjoys from the peaceful
but imaginative young man who comes
from some virtuous eastern city to
spend the winter, for the benefit of hi:
health, in western Texas. Before com.
ing to Texas. he has read a good deal
OF the Zone Eyed Zeke-the-Scout," and
"Dick, the Desperate" sort of literature
Previous to the packing of his trunk
he provides himself with some guns, a
few revolvers, and a double edged
weapon with spring back, and blade
like hay knife. The latter he pro.
poses using whenever it becomes
necessary to cut his way through the
jungle, or when fate may put it in his
power to rescue some beautiful pale
faced maiden from her red. skin captors.
He has rehearsed the thing so often in
his mind, that he knows exactly how
the incidents will follow in rapid sue.
cession; how he will rush in on the
foe and, first cutting the rawhide
thongs that bind the captive, turn, and.
with his trusty knife, pile up cord or
two of dead Indians; how he will seize
the captive maiden, the beautiful Inez
de Gonzales, daughter of a Spanish
hidalgo, and vaulting on the back of a
coal-black mustang, etc, ETC., etc.
He tells the boys at home what he is
going to do, and he promises that he
will bring back scalps, wampum, wig
vans, liz 3ian me- u Ids, and other brio
brac, and present them to his friends
as mementoes of his sojourn in Texas.
When he arrives in Texas he is disgust
ed to find schools, faro banks, neWspa-
pers, church scandals. and other evil
dences of civilization. To the first man
who will buy, he sells some of his re-
volvers, and secretly drops his hay
knife into well. Helives quiet and
uneventful life at a boarding house.
where he eats the best canned goods
that the market and his landlady can
afford for So week, and never meets
with any more exciting adventure than
being arrested and fined for carrying a
pistol.
When his father sends him money
enough to buy railroad ticket, he
goes back home in the spring, wearing
broad brimmed hat-which he os-
tentatiously calls a sombrero-and
jangling huge pair of Mexican spurs
at his heels. This is the time when he
develops into the noted desperate.
about the only desperate Texas can
now lay claim to. Before retiring on
the first night of his return home, he
asks his mother to just lay blanket
beside tree box on the sidewalk. and
he will'try and borrow an old saddle or
brick for pillow. He is so accus-
toned to sleeping in the open air, he
says, that he cannot bear the close con-
fiuement of house. When the boys
call around for the scalps, Indian
mounds, and things that he
promised to bring them from
Texas, he tells them how he
lost, in a border foray, a large.
Saratoga trunk filled with scalps. and
gripsack packed full of wampum
and wigwams. Then he gives them
thrilling account of a prairie fire, and
how he saved his life by crawling into
the inside of buffalo he had slain,
until the fire passed over and exhausted
itself. After this, he recounts des-
perate encounter he had with stage
robber, and gives detailed and hair.
curdling description of scene at
lynching, where he got the drop on the
crowd and rescued the doomed man.
His conversation bristles with profani-
ty and is saturated with gore. The
writer of this has been ten years in
Texas, has been among the chivaIrous
Mexicsns on the Rio Grande, the es
thetic cowboys on the plains, and the
wild and hilarious church members in
the cities, and has not yet seen a
single pistol fred with intent to injure
human being, nor has he ever seen
buffalo goring Sundayschool children
on the streets of any city of Texas,
and the only genuine blood-thirsty des-
perado he has seen was the young man
above described. Of course, there are
some lawless and desperate men in
Texas, but none of them equal the
tenderfoot from the east, for cold
blOoded ferocity-after he gets back
home.