Griggs courier., 1893-06-30
PASSING AWAY.
The Cowboy Fast disappearing From the
Plains Of Wyoming.

PASSING AWAY.
tn. Cowboy Fast Disappearing From the
Plains OF Wyoming.
The rapid decline of the range bust.
ness of Wyoming began six years ago.
Before that it had been of a character
to tempt even the rich. At one time
men paid two per cent. month for
money, and made one hundred per cent.
profits q year. That was when cows
came up from Texas at cost of seven
dollars each, sold in two years for
twenty-five dollars and in three years
for forty dollars and more, when the
ranges were not overstocked, the pas
turage was good, and all the conditions
including ''boom" prices at the stock
yards, were favorable. The men who
did Che best pushed into new territory
as fast as the Indians were crowded off,
and kept finding new grass and plenty
of it. But the risks soon came, and
multiplied. If one man was careful
not to overstock a range, he could not
be sure that another COW outfit would
not do SO precisely where he had put
his cattle. Prices fell, fences cut up
the ranges and shut off the water, win
ter losses became heavier and heavier,
and the good old days. of this in
human, devil-may care, primitive,
and clumsy business came to an end.
The cowboys of picture and story
existed in the brilliant days. At first
they had come from Texas, but in the
zenith of their romantic glory they
came from everywhere and every class.
They included young Englishmen, eol-
lege graduates from the east, well-born
Americans-an sorts who did not
''strike luck" atanything else, and who
were full of vim and love of adventure.
They got forty dollars month and
good keep during the greater part of
each year. They rode good horses,
that had as much of the devil in them
as the "boys" themselves. They bought
hand-stamped Cheyenne saddles and
California bits that were as ornate as
jewelry, and stuck their feet in grand
tapaderos, or hooded stirrups, richly
ornamented, padded with lambs wool,
and each as big as a fre-hat. Their
spurs were fit for grandees, their
''ropes," or lariats, were selected with
more care than circus tight-rope, and
their big broad felt sombreros than the
prince of Wales ever paid for pot-hat.
And then, alas! the COW men began
to economic in men, food, wages-ev-
erything. The best of the old kind of
cow boys, who had not become owners
or foremen, saloon keepers or gamblers,
or had not been shot, drifted away.
Some Of the smartest among them be-
came ''rustlers''-those cattle thieves
whose depredations resulted in what
almost came to be war in Wyoming
last year. They insisted that they had
to do it to live.
From the cowboy standpoint it was
time for tho business to languish.
Towns were springing up every here
and there, each with it's ordinance that
cowboys must take off their side arms
before they entered the villages; wages
were low down; men had to cart hay
and dump it around for winter food,
settlers fenced in the streams, and 9TH
ers stood guard over them with guns;
it was time such q business languished.
From the standpoint of the nineteenth
century civilization the same con-
clusion was reached-the range
business was an obstruction to
civilization, bar to the development
of the state, thing only to be
tolerated in new and wild country
And now am assured that there is not
an intelligent cow-man who does not
know that the business is doomed in
Wyoming, and that the last free-roving
herds must move on. There is not one
of cattle, held in connection with agri-
culture, must take the places of the
range cattle, because better grades of
cattle can be bred, better meat can be
produced, all risks will nearly disappear,
and the expenses of the care of the cat
tie will not be 1.-THE of those of the
old plan.-Julian Ralph, in Harper's
Magazine.