The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1893-07-12
THE COWBOY
HE Is RAPIDLY PASSING AWAY IN
THE FAR WEST.
Rapid Decline of the Range Business
the Cause of His Disappearance
What He Was in His Prime.


the Cause of His Disappearance
What He Was In His Prime.
HHE rapid decline of the range
business of Wyoming began
six years ago. Before that it
6 had been of q character to
tempt even the rich. At one time men
paid two per cent. month for money,
and made 100 per cent. profits year
That was when COWS came mp from
Texas at cost of 81 each, sold in two
years for 500, and in three years for
$40 and more, when the ranges we're
not overstocked, the pasturage was
good, and all the conditions, including
''boom" prices at the stockyards, we're
favorable. The men who did the best
pushed into new territory as fast as
the Indians were crowded of, and kept
finding new grass and plenty of it.
But the risks soon came, and multi
piled. II one man was careful not to
overstock 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, winter losses
became heavier and heavier, and the
good old days" of this inhuman,
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 every
where and from every class They in
cluded young Englishmen, college
graduates from the East, well-born
Americans-all sorts who did not
''strike luck" at anything else,' and
who were full of vim and love of ad-
venture. They got $40 month and
good keep during the greater part of
each year. They rode good horses,
that had rs much of the devil in them
as the ''boys" themselves. They bought
hand-stamped Cheyenne saddles and
California bits that we're 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 fire-hat. Their
spurs were fit for grandees, their
big broad felt sombreros cost more than
Oho LIiuCc VI NdlcS ever pdlu lOr u
pot-hat.
And then, alas the cow-men began
to economize in men, food, wages
everything. The best of the old kind
of cowboys, who had not become own
ers or foreman, saloon-keepers or
gamblers, or had not been shot, drifted
away. Some of the smartest among
them became "rustlers" s"-those cattle
thieves whose depredations resulted in
what almost came to be war in Wy
oming last year. They insisted that
they had to do it to live.
From the cowboy standpoint it was
time for the 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
others stood guard over them with
guns; it was time such a business
languished From the standpoint of
Nineteenth Century civilization the
same conclusion was reached - the
range business was an obstruction to
civilization, bar to the development
of the State, thing only to be toler-
ated in a 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
who does not know that small punches
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 disap-
pear, and the expenses of the csre-of
the cattle will not be tithe of those
of the old plan.-Julian Ralph, in
Harper's Magazine.