The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-03-04
HIS PETITION.


tive ruggedness one gets an impression
of along with cutting prairie winds. buck
ing broncos, the crack Of 3 -revolver, the
whiZ of bullet
The fellows name was Thompson. and
he could handle bunch OF steers with the
best OF them, but there was an air of met
ropolitanism about him that assorted i'll
with his surroundings. And although he
drank harder, swore better, and went
rougher than any man of them. he had
never been able to live down his nickname
of East Side Thompson. Under the in
fluence of rolling prairies the boundiess
sweep of cloud and shy, an intimacy with
the elements and reliance upon nothing but
his own wit and courage a man grows
TO be a strong sagacious, vital creature,
so different from our circumscribed ideas
of man that for want of better term We
call him a Cow puncher.'
The Three-X outfit of COW purchers had
been on the trail more than a month. and
according to all precedent and reason the
rains should have set in weeks before but
they had not. The grass that had sprung
up with the first early showers had scared
and died before the next rain came to keep
it alive. The shallow, sluggish little
streams of brackish water that crawled
along the bottom of their beds, which the
year before had been swollen beyond their
banks. finally gave gave out utterly In
every direction the white alkal plains
glistened away TO the meeting line of the
sky IN an infnitude of isolation. The
oldest inhabitant in all that country round
could not recall a winter that equaled this
in dryness.
Howbeit, Nevada was then new State.
and the population migratory Wilson, the
boss of the outfit, had hoped to get out of
the sagebrush country and strike the Cali
fornia line somewhere above Bodie by the
end of the first month out, but there was
no rain, no water, and the plains lay in
open cracks. Day after day the sun arose,
smiled down upon the parched little bunch
of men and cattle fourteen long hours as
he sailed across the eloudless sky, Sc
renely unconscious of the maledictions
hurled against him, while the bare, burn
ing prairie stared back in unblinking def
ance. There were gorgeous sunsets every
evening-moments when the great fiery
ball seemed almost to stand still, to give
long backward glance before dropping
out OF sight. and with Midas touch turn
all the world to molten gold. But to the
played out COW Duncher sunset means
nothing but bedtime-bedtime after hard.
parched, hopeless day. There were clear,
chaste moonlight nights of wondrous ra-
dance, too, but the moon was seen only
in the early morning, wheE they rose to
another day, more hard, more parched.
hopeless. The cattle-mere anatomical
charts by this time-went staggering about
in crazy circles. too weak to need watching,
the three KS on their TANKS reduced to
half the original size by the shriveling OF
the hide, or fell heavily 10 the earth, TO
rise again, after many seasons of sun and
shower. as prairie flowers and salt grass.
Their believing was reduced to a moan
almost human in its misery. for the one
voice common to all created things, animal
or human, is the voice of suffering
The Missourian, a great hulking young
fellow. was first of the men to show signs
OF weakening. That is the most terrible
moment in all like experiences. when the
men who have held on grimly and endure
together see one of their number losing his
grip. This had been an ill-assorted outfit
when they started out with the cattle
across the plains, but standing together.
shoulder to shoulder, defying death against
fearful odds, knits a man deeply into the
life Of his fellow. Among these men there
was no spoken sympathy no overt act CT
kindness, but in their very sullenness was
that grimmest of all sacrifices. each man
enduring in stole silence in order that he
might not intrude his own sufferings upon
his already overcrowded neighbor. The
clinching OF the lips to suppress groan
when one is thirst maddened may require
more heroism than facing cannon with
flags flying and drums beating, inasmuch
as "he that ruleth his own spirit is great
er than he that taketh a city
AT last one, day the Nissourian gave out
utterly. He was not of the cowboy build
in the first place. but his splendid horse
| manship and enthusiasm had induced Will
son. the boss, or Yankee Bill" as he
was called, to take him on. In his delir-
um he lay and cried for water, day and
| night. He blubbered and begged for wa
ter and called upon the names of those
| he had known in his childhood. Every man
went about his own business, which was
| largely the formulating of fervent and elo-
| quent oaths anent the heat the drouth
and the delay and apparently no one heard
| his cries. Water was the one thing he
| wanted, and the one thing they could not
get, So after they had put his boots under
| his head to make him comfortable, they
| let him alone Under ordinary circum-
stances Missourian more or less was OF
| no great consequence to Yankee Bill, " but
| this break in the ranks shattered the last
| vestige OF hope. Whatever may have been
| done after that in the effort to keep VI
their pirits was mere bravado, for each
| man fcresaw the end.
The Missourian had been a quiet sort in
| talk much but now he talked necessarily
| in the soft thick drawl of the South. And
| always of home scenes, of the memories
| of boyhood that whetted the edge of their
| torture till it was beyond all enduring.
Now he was fishing along some stream and
| swearing in round terms at some 'fathead
| niger" for soaring the fish; now he was
| in school struggling with some problem
| he could never solve beyond carry sew
| en-. Always coherent enough to call up
| memories in their own minds of youth
misspent for the most part. They would
| not move further away because they were
| camped under the only shade in sight.
| They thought of dragging him off beyond
| earshot, but while everyone would have
| been glad to have Ii done. no man could
| do it himself. Their horny hands had
| grown gentle in their mnisterng touches.
Escape was long since out of the ques-
| tion. for the horses were worse off than
| the men; not one of them could carry a
saddle. much less a rider. Each man i,..,.
| saved last charge in his revolver. know
! ing that that perhaps would be their only
! deliverance from a death too horrible to
| name. All but East Side who, when a
| decision had to be made between himself
| and his horse had led her out behind a
| little ACTIVITY and put his last charge
| through her game little heart Now he
must make his exit in some other way. il
] he would let his disemboded spirit pass
on unencumbered by a sunparched frame.
! The knife he carried in his boot was a
miserable hack of thing. fit only for
| shaving tobacco or churking bacon. He
felt momentary regret as he ran his fin
! gers along its jagged edges that a man
| with his record should be obliged to make
| his end with so mean a weapon. The big
! Swede, =. a moment of madness, had rails
! I'd his ristnl g IL IL had hnen a ing SAY