National Republican., 1883-03-15
RANCH LEE IN WYOMING.
Senator Bccl's Description OF the Way His
Son George ia Getting ON I'm the World
Ont West,


Senator Bcclk's Description OF the Way His
Son George ia Getting ON i'm the World
Ont West.
When senator's son rises in the full
strength of six-feot-two, with youthful health,
and gets himself into the territories to raise
stock and till the soil rather than dawdle
around the moro gittering haunts of thickly-
settled society, it is an act so commendable
that father of the right sort ought to bo
proud of it; and he is, as will appear in what
follows:
Senator Beck remarked yesterday that he
did not believe he would get started for
Florida before Thursday.
A friend asked him If he would get out to
Wyoming this summer TO visit his son.
He said he didn't know, and as they settled
back in their chairs TO rest after n long walk
Mr.. Beck went on talking about his son
George and his ranch. II was as good as u
trip to Wyoming to hear him, and he must
not get offended because it gets into print
without his leave. THE REPUBLICAN in
tends that all the good stories shall get into
print, and that is why it employs sketchers
and historians and biographcrs to talk with
the men whose lives and experiences are full
of interest.
Mr.. Beck said he couldn't think of going
so far away to live, but he could readily un-
derstand why George should have fancy for
that boundless and beautiful country, and he
was glad he took to that life rather than an
indoor life. He is out there with his 400
acres of land, with part of it under cultiva-
tion, and 1900 sheep running over the rest.
The new house, he said, was a very good one,
made from pine lumber, though when he was
out there last year with Mrs. Beck they
found him living in mudplastered log house
with clay floor; but IL was so healthy there
that Mrs. Beck who was so i'll before starting
that the trip was delayed from day to day,
got well, and felt such redundancy of
strength that she took hold of the household
matters, and taught an Irish boy George
had brought from st. Paul how to bake bread
and do all sorts of cooking for the men on the
ranch.
Young Beck, who is q graduate of the Troy
Polytechnic school, has made a system of
bitches which by nice surveying he has
caused to lead irrigating streams from the
Rosebud up on the side of Bighorn mountain
down over and across his ranch in way to
give him control of the soil, and almost make
his own seasons for crops of different sorts.
The air is so clear that in getting up in the
morning the Bighorn seems so near that one
might almost put out his hand and touch it,
though 1t is miles away. In digging these
bitches and shearing his sheep Beck man
ages by swapping days works" with
his ueighbors. They turn in and help
in the shearing season and when other
work is to do, and in return the young man
does all the surveying, laying out of bitches,
&C., for them. When he went there his only
neighbor was the postmaster, eight miles
away, and some of the other young mon who
thought they would like the ranch life, got so
awfully tired of it that they quit and come
home. 1t was u pretty hard test of ones
quality, but the neighborhood grew until
now one passes well titled farms on every
mile between that postotiice and the ranch;
and with working on the land there came
love for it, while common interest created an
attachment for the people about him, so he
grew not only content, but is now so much in
love witrthe life and the country that nothing
would tempt him to como away. Before it
had come to be settled neighborhood his
father offered him 600 acres of land under
cultivation in Missouri, but he wouldn't
make the change even then.
This turning from books to the actual de-
velopment of a new country is as admirable
as 1t is uncommon, and hearing about it led
to some questions as to how George Beck
came to land away out there.
His father said that he saw while the boy
was mt school that he would never be content
to lead the life of a lawyer. He always found
him at night with his blowpipe and metals,
or at chemistry, or some experimental occu-
pationsi and when he said he wanted to go to
Colorado and try his hand as an assayer he
encouraged him. Then he got notion for
Mexico and the railroad business, but it hap
pened so that the senator was going to st.
Paul about that time, and his son met him
there and engaged to go with surveying
party on the Northern Pacific railway. He
liked the country better than he did the sur
vcying business and so landed on the ranch.
Thus q string of circumstances mainly hap
hazard, led to what the young man wanted
and decided his future.
Speaking of Kentucky and young men and
their habits, Mr.. Beck said he had his son
taught boxing and encouraged him to take
hand in all kinds of athletic exercise and
discouraged any carrying of knives or pistols.
He believed in defending oneself without
running the risk of taking human life. IF
you knock man down." said he, "you
can apologize afterward, but if YOU
shoot him you will be more unfortunate
than the man shot" He said the young men
of Kentucky had got in q way of arming
themselves to guard against attack or indig-
nifty. They were neither murderous nor
malicious but having the weapons and some
provocation used them. lie was in favor of
more boxing as discouragement of pistol
carrying.
When asked If his son had n fancy for poll
tics Mr.. Beck said he supposed he would get
into them sooner or later, but he advised
against running for the legislature last year
when they wanted him to.