Arizona republican., 1900-10-04

place. does his own cooking. makes his own bed, cleans house, washes dishes and acts as general maid of all work for himself.
 Despite the fact that Abner Robbins has unlimited credit all over Eastern Oregon, his friends claim that he never owed a dollar in his life. never signed a mortgage or a note, never bought a cents worth of goods on credit, even out of his own stores.
 Another almost incredible thing they tell of Abner Robbins is that he never took a drink of liquor in his life. To have lived so long among cowboys. to have been so fond of their rough life. and yet not having acquired a cowboy s liking for the flowing bowl is a re- markable commentary on the mans independence of taste and strength of will.
 Once a year he goes home to visit his pretty wife, who is always glad to see him. She writes him pleading letters to come and stay with her, to give up his cowboy life, to settle down to a life of ease. But Abner shakes his nend. Once year is enough, he says, and once a year regularly he makes her a visit until he can't stand it any longer and must stalk back to his prairie.
 "A man can live there,'' he tells her. expanding his chest and striking it soundly, as if there wasn't enough air in the city to fill 1t. We are strong men out on the prairie. Let me go-I must return to look after our cattle"
 It is an alkali desert, this cattle range of his, and about as cheerless a region as one might choose for outdoor life. Robbins doesn't consider the scenic element. It is mainly the activ- ity of his barren career that satisfies him. His tremendous energy calls for a tremendous field of movement and physical labor, of the kind that thrills the nerves. bronzes the cheek. invigor- ates the lungs. hardens the frame-the kind that only the great outdoors af- fords. He is never so full of life as when racing at breakneck speed after refractory steer, or taking part in a ground shaking rodeo, lassoing wild ca tie for the branding iron, or tearing over the painless wild after stock that has strayed away and got lost.
 And most remarkable of all, AbIer Robbins is 76 years oldi He was bern III AlpSbpll, 1IdSS, III loOO. lie was a shoemaker by trade. He sailed from Boston and came to Sacramento, Cal. in 1853. He mined in California and was steamboat captain and followed the mercantile business. He moved to Jacksonville. Ore, in 1S5S and drifted to his present location in 1877. The Robbinses had two children. The son died and the daughter married James Lucky, with whom she is now living in Portland, Ore.
 Besides being a daring and powerful rider even at his present age. Abner Robbins is a musician of much popu- larity among his husky associates. He plays the violin while they daaca and by way of varying the programme he warns up to the spirit of the com pany and dances himself-a jig gener- ally, for that is his favorite step and one in which he is surprisingly profi- clent He can sing, too, and when the boys drop into his cabin of an evening and the violin is brought out the stlr- dy old dean of the band joins in as lustily as any of them and the cabin roof all but lifts with the volume of it all. Cranks don't sing and dance for the pure joy of it as Abner Robbins doss.-San Francisco Examiner