Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1884-01-24
FESTIVE COWBOY.
characteristics Ofthe Land Pirate of
the Wild West.

Bill Nye.l
So much amusing talk is being made
recently about the blood -bedraggled cow
boy of the wild West that arise as one
man to say a few things, not in a dicta-
torial style, but regarding this so-called or
so-esteemed dry land pirate, who, mounted
on little cow pony and under the black
flag, sails out across the green surge of the
plains to scatter the rocky shores of time
with the bones of his fellow man.
A great many people wonder where the
cowboy, with his abnormal thirst for blood,
originated. Where did this young Jesse
James, with his CORY record and his daunt-
less eve, come from? Was he born in q
buffalo wallow at the foot of some rock
ribbed mountain, or did he first breathe
thin air along the brink of an alkah pond,
where the horned toad and the centipede
sang him to sleep and the tarantula tickled
him under the chin with its hairy legs?
Careful research and cold, hard statistics
show that the cowboy, as general thing,
was born in an unOstentatiOus manner on
the farm. l hate to sit down on beauti-
ful romance and squash the breath out of a
romantic dream; but the cowboy who gets
too much moist damnation into his system
and rides on gallop up and down Main
street shooting out the lights of the beauti-
full billiard palaces would be just as un-
happy if mouse ran up his pantalOOn
leg as you would, gentle reader.
He is generally youth who thinks he
will not earn his S25 per month if he
does not yell and. whOOp and shoot and
scare little girls into ST. Fitus' dance. I'VE
known more cowboys to iDjure themselves
with their own revOlvers than to injure
any one else. This is evidently because
they are more familiar with the hoe than
with the Smith & WessOn.
One night while had rooms in the bus
mess pant of Territorial city in the
Rocky Mountain cattle country, l was
awakened at about l o'clock a. m. by the
most blood curdling cry of Murder" l
ever heard. 1t was murder with a big NJ
Across the street, in the bright light of a
restaurant, a dozen cowboys, with broad
sombreros and flashing silver braid, huge
leather chaperajas, Mexican spur, and
orange silk neckties, and with flashing re-
volvers, were standing. 1t seemed that a
big, red faced Captain Kid of the band
with his skin full of valley tan, had
marched into an ice cream resort with a
self-cocker in his hand and ordered the
vanilla GOODNESS for the gang. There being
a dozen young folks at the place, mostly
male and female, from a neighbOring hop
indulging in cream, the proprietor
meek Norwegian, with thin white hair
deemed it rude and Outre to do so. He
said something to that effect, whereat the
other eleven men of alcoholic courage lei
off yell that froZe the cream into a solid
glazier and shook two kerosene lamps out
of their sockets in the chandeliers.
Thereupon the little Y. NJ. C. A. Nor
wegian said:
Gentlemans, / KANT neffer like dot
squealinks and dot kaind af tings, and
you fellers NIT dot ledder pantses on and
dot funny CLOSE and such tings like dot
better keep kaind of quiet, or l shall call
up the policemen nit my telephone"
Then they laughed at him and cried yet
again with a loud voice.
This annoyed the ice cream agriculturist
and he took the old axe handle that he
used to jam the ice down around the freezer
with and pealed large area Of scalp of
the leaders dome of thought, and it hung
down over his eyes so that he could not
After he had yelled murderw three OF
four times he fell under an ice cream table
and the mild-eyed Scandinavian broke a
silver plated castor over the organ of self
esteem and poured red pepper and salt and
vinegar and Halford sauce and other rel
ishes on the place where the scalp was
loose.
This revived the brave but murderous
cow gentleman and he begged that he
might be allowed to 60 away.
The gentle Young Mems Christian Asso-
citation superintendent of the ten-stamp ice
cream freezers then took the revOlvers
away from the bold buccaneer and kicked
him out through showcase and saluted
him with bouquet of July oysters that
suffered severely from malaria.
All cowboys are not sanguinary but out
Of twenty you will generally find one who
sbrave when he has his revOlvers with
him; but when he forgot and left his
shooters at home on the piano, the most
tropical violet-eyed dude can climb him
with the but end of sunf1Ower and beat
his brains out and spatter them all over
that school district.
In the wild, unfettered West beware of
the man who never carries arms, never gets
drunk and minds his own business. He
doesent 60 around shooting out the gas
or intimidating a Kindergarten school
but when brave frOntiersman, with re-
yolver in each boot and bowie knife down
the back of his neck, insults modest
young lady and needs to be thrown through
plate glass window and then walked over
by the populace, call on the silent man who
dares to wear clean shirt and human