The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-10-12
IN THE FLORIDA PINES.
A Country Where Legal Restraint Ia Not
Very Irksome.

A Country Where Legal Restraint Ia Not
Very Irksome.
The courts in that locality were but
the faint and sickly fame of taper
offered at the shrine of a justice which
was traditional only, it seemed. Moral
forces having ceased to operate, the
large owners began to brand every
thing in sight, never realizing that
they were sowing the wind. This
action naturally demoralized the cow
boys, who shortly began to brand
little on their own account-and then
the deluge. The rights of property
having been destroyed, the large own
ers put strong outfits in the field, COM
posed of desperate men armed to the
teeth, and what happens in the lonely
pine woods no one knows but the
desperadoes themselves, albeit some
of them never come back to the little
fringe of settlements. The wint
visitor from the north kicks up the
jacksnipe along the beach or tarpon-
ICES in the estuaries of the gulf, and
when he comes to the hotel for dinner
he eats Chicago dressed beef, but out
in the wilderness low-browed cow
folks shoot and stab each other for the
possession of scrawny creatures not fit
for pointer dog to mess on. One can
not but feel the force of Buckles law
of ''the physical aspects of nature" in
this sad country. Flat and sandy,
with miles on miles of straight pine
timber, each tree an exact duplicate
of its neighbor tree, and underneath
the scrub palmettoes, the twisted
brakes and hammocks, and the gnarled
water oaks festooned with the sad
gray Spanish moss-truly not a coun-
try for a high-spirited race or moral
giants.
. The land gives only tough wiregrass,
grass, and the poor cattle, no bigger
than the donkey, wander half starved
and horribly emaciated in search of it.
There used to be a trade with Cuba,
but now that has gone; and beyond
the supplying of Key West and the
email fringe of settlements they have
no market. How we'll the cowboys
serve their masters, can only guess,
since the big owners do not dare go
into the woods, or even to their own
doors at night, and they do not keep a
light burning in the houses. One, in
deed, attempted to assert his rights,
but some one pumped sixteen bucksho'
| into him as he bent over q spring to
drink, and he left the country. They
do tell of late encounter between
| two rival foremen, who rode on to each
other in the woods, and, drawing
fred. and both were found stretched
| dying under the palmettoes, one call
ing deliriously the name of his boss
The unknown reaches of the Ever
| glades lie just below, and with half
hours start man who knew the coun
|, try would be safe from pursuit, ever
if it were attempted, and. as one mar
cheerfully coufided to me: "A boa
don't leave no trail, stranger.
OF course each man has adjusted
himself to this lawless rustling, ant
only calculates that he can steal a
| much as his opponent. It is rarel,
that their affairs are brought to court
but when they are the men come Ell
masse to the room. armed with knives
and rifles, SO that any decision is bouns
to be compromise, or It will bring OF
general engagement Rem
| ington, in Harper's Magazine.