Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1896-07-16
THE CUB CREEK BULL-FIGHT.
ny EDISON KEMP.

Creek valley. This district was at first
the scene OF a brief mining excitement.
After that there was a blaze of disorder.
" glory. This subsidized into a tame
career Of cattle ranching, which finally
developed an unexpected resource. 1t
was found hat the light and powdery
soil Of the valley, when properly irrl-
gated, produced potatoes in great guam
tity and Of excellent quality.
From this moment the prosperity of
the Cub Creek valley was assured. Po-
tato ranches were opened in every d.
r%ection. Irrigating enterprises were
undertaken on a large scale, and land
rose rapidly in value, Cub Creek City
soon had a population of 5000 souls,
with an opera house, a daily paper anda
mayor and city council.
My father was the first mayor Of the
city. He is a very enterprising man,
and had contributed many schemes to
"boom" Cub Creek. One of his schemes
was the great potato picnic-a kind of
grand potato barbecue" which was
advertised far and wide, which attract
ed many thousands of people, and which
served to increase the fame and an
nounce the of the district.
Committees were appointed to de-
wise attractive features for the occa-
sion. l was put on the committee on
sports, Of which my friend, Tom Mar
cross, was chairman. We were told by
my father that no ordinary programme
Of sports would do, and that We must
get up something picturesque, novel
und startling"
"If it is to be picturesque" l said in
n Of the committee meetings, ii must
he borrowed from one Of the bygone
times in this valley"
We all remained silent and reflected q
moment, and then Tom Narcross
jumped up in some excitement.
81 have til" he exclaimed. We'll
give them n b~ull-fght!" We were
struck almost dumb by the b%rilliancy
Of the suggestion, ind adopted it by q
unanimous vote.
Butitwas onething to decide to have II
bull-fght and another to get one up.
My father told us that we must put 1t
through ourselves" he had no time to
superintend it. But we must guarantee
that no one should be hurt in il, and
that the animals should neither be
killed nor cruelty treated.
We gave the guarantee, and set about
organizing the fight" OF curse we
knew absolutely nothing about bull
fights. We had come to the valley dur
ing the potato period, and knew nothing,
except from books and hearsay, of the
wild life in the mountains and the
pains.
Nor could we find anyone who had
had experience in bu%ll-fghts. So much
time passed while we were vainly cor
responding with various people in the
territory, hoping to find some n who
could direct a bull-6ght, that when weat
last gave up searching and resolved to
trust to our own resources, we had but
three weeks left in which to prepare for
the event.
We read all we could find in the books
in the Cub Creek public library about
bull-fghting, and then | went down to
Cheyenne and studied up the subject
in the public library there.
My first proceeding on reaching home
was to organize all the boys ! knew
into a corps Of t%orcadores, %picadores,
chulos, banderillos and matadores.
Most of the boys wanted to be torea-
dores or m%atadores, but Tom and | ex-
ercised our authority, seconded By that
of my father, to such an extent that we
finally filled up the ranks.
Then we appointed a subcommittee
on costumes, and called in the assist
ance of my sister Blanche and Of Toms
mother, who had a gift for getting up
all sorts of fancy dresses. ] gave them
my notes on the subject of bull-ighters'
costumes, and they set at work.
Everything seemed TO be going on
swimming now. One further i'm ,
portant requirement in a bull-fight
had yet, however, to be met. We must :
have some bulls! This was the most
difficult task of the whole enterprise. |
But at last we borrowed five handsome
Texas steers belonging to a ranchman |
at the head of the creek. !
For our arena, we proposed to have :
inclosure of barbed wire at one side !
of the grounds where the potato picnic !
was to be held, in such y situation that !
the grandstand, put up for other spec !
tacles, would command an excellent
view Of it. An entrance way from out {
side the grounds, through a gate at one q
side of the grandstand, and fanked on 9
one side by that structure and on the Il
by m ordinary board fence, was
to be constructed. I
1t seemed to us that q barbed wire in Il
was much better than the y
ordinary arena of the Spanish and '
Mexican bull-fights, because IL would I
every one to see plainly what
was going on, at the same time 1t pro-
'lded security for the audience. We ?
brought the Texas steers TO the town, a
and put them OF short rations to make t
hem ferocious. We did not intend TO =
burt them. Neither did we mean they
should hurt us, Il