The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1896-01-02

man Who Rode at a Trot-Finally His
Spirit Was Conquered by Mild Man
nered Soldier With n Winchester.
Now and then "bad man" tries to
cultivate something which he mistakes
for humor. One of these devotees of lev
ity used to haunt the cattle range OF
western Kansas, and every fall and
spring he appeared in Dodge City at the
general roundup" Every time he
came to town he left some proof of a
facetious mind, and was very sure of be-
ing talked about by every idle man and
most of the busy ones who remained
when the rush was over.
His name was Eek Turner, though
Dodge City will best remember him by
the title "Double-L Eek, = the duplicated
capital being Leonard & Loughrain's s
brand, and he being one of their best
riders. In fact, Turner might have been
foreman if he had cared for the position,
for he could ride well, and there were
few more expert with the rope and prob
ably none who could bear fatigue and
hardship moro patiently than he.
But the trouble was he wanted recon-
pense for the dull life of a cowboy. He
didn't care for money. Any wages going
were acceptable to him. But when the
cattle got rounded up and there was half
a days escape from the tedium of labor
Eek Turner wanted his fling. And he al
ways went into town and had it.
Now, a foreman cannot do these
things. He must stay by the herd all the
time, preserve clear head and firm
place in the saddle He is the represent
ative of the owner-the custodian Of
much wealth-and dissipation is not to
be thought of.
One of Eek Turner's pet bits of hu-
NOR was to pick out people whose ap-
pearance displeased him and shoot just
near enough to them to express his SEN
timents. He particularly dislil1ed TO see
| horsemen go by ON the trot. 1t was in a
cowboy country, and cowboys galloped,
whether or not they were i'll hurry.
And if the rider had habit of iris
ing'' in the stirrups, as conventional
trotters often do, Eek Turner hated him
violently. So that when he came down
Main street one day and saw rather
we'll dressed man go by trOtting and
] IlSluR VIII lllc 1lAOliOlA VI Ills 4lOASO
/ Eek called general attention to the spec
! tacle.
! Really the trotter was not very good
horseman. 1t was possible, as Eek OBJ
served, to "see daylight under him" ev-
cry time he rose in the saddle. And the
! glimpses of that recurring daylight"
provoked Eek to bit Of pistol practice.
81 bet said he, watching the rider
and reaching for large revolver. pretty
well back on his belt, II bet can shoot
between him and the saddle and never
touch feather.
He had been drinking in so decorous
a manner as to be dangerous, and so no
one interfered. The rider was half a
block away when Eek fired, and the
bullet must have gone true, for the rider
passed ON unconscious, while a sign di-
agonally across the street was shattered
by the shot.
He tried it again later in the day and
acknowledgement aculously-eScaped the
infiiction of injury. Dodge City talked
about Doubled Eek and his new joke
all summer, and in the autumn he came
i'll and tried it again.
The first shot he made he hit q man
in the leg and was very indignant be-
cause they would not give him another
chance, assuring the crippled victim it
was an accident, and urging him to
mount and trot past just one time more,
rising no higher than he had done, and
guaranteeing to put three shots out of
five between him and the saddle or buy
the drinks for the crowd
But it was the uncertainty about the
! other two shots that iEterfered with ne
/ gUU1auIons-that and the trotting man 8
persistent endeavor to enjoy the freedom
of his own pistol arm while Eek re-
manned in his presence
Eek thought it was funny, and that
hallucination grew on him till he got
into trouble. When the wave of "Texas
/ fever" swept over Kansas in 1880, kill
/ ing off so Dlany of tho Kansas cattle, a
state law stopped those "drives" which
had been the life of western Kansas, and
Eek Turner lost his occupation. He went
| farther west and south and tried to shoot
the top off a man s plug hat in Colorado
Springs because he insisted the fashion
was two inches shorter than the man
was wearing.
AT La Neta ne TOOK exception 20 the
sputtering sound occasionally made by
an electric lamp and went about shoot
ing the carbons in two till the city
marshal engaged in repartee and shot
off the end of Eck's thumb, alleging as
a sufficient reason the fact that no man
with two good thumbs could be real
ly bad man." Eek replied in kind, and
there were no applicants for the position
the marshal's demise left vacant until it
was known that Eek had left that region
and gone to Arizona.
At Fort Wingate he had the misfor-
tune to shoot into an ambulance driven