Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1900-04-12
EARREO WIRE IN The WEST.
What the Introduction of Wire Fences
Has Meant to Man and Beast.


In the Century magazine Mr.. e.
Hough, author of ''The Story of the
Cowboy" tells of the introduction of
that ''fourfold abomination" which
marked out the path of civilization in
the far West
A few years ago villager down in
Illinois bent bit of iron about q
strand of fence wire, and noticed that
his cattle avoided if. Out of this
idea grew a system of fencing which
has preserved our pine forests a few
decades longer, but which brought to-
an end many decades earlier the
glorious free days of the open and un |
fenced West. Tho great cattle
ranges. over which roamed one of the
most independent populations even
seen on earth, could never have been
fenced by rails, or stone walls, or
boards of pine. T. was difficult
enough for the spider-like genius of
advancing civilization to keep them
fenced with the ever-renewed web of
the fatal wire against which the wild
men of the early days rebelled so
strenuously. Yet mile by mile,
thousands of miles after thousands of
miles, the cheap and easily spun web
crawled out across the West and held
it hard and firm. You can never un.
coil the deadly web, neither can you
replace the victim which it strangled
Little more than dozen years ago
the writer was with party hunting
for buffalo calves in the upper part of
the Panhandle of Texas, where we
knew of little herd still remaining
of those great animals, even then con-
sidered virtually extinct. 1t was a
weary and desolate land, where be-
tween water hole and water-hole lay
sixty or seventy miles of absolute
desert. Not tree broke the endless
monotony of the plains. The soil
was like flint. The sky had for
months been guiltless of drop of
rain. 1t was a region SO utterly un-
suited for the habitation of mankind
that these last few representative of
passing race of great American ami
mails had chosen it as their final place
of refuge, thinking that perhaps there
they would never again hear the
sound. of rifeshot or see again the
face of man. Yet one morning, as we
faced the sun Of another waterless
day, we came upon line of strong
wire fence. coming from where no
man could tell, and running in one
unbroken line to the uttermost limits
of our visionl 1t was no delusion, no
miracle, no wonder of the wild
mirage. 1t was an accursed fact. 1t
had no right there, on that free land,
where even the wind had swept for
ages unfettered by so much as u leaf
or stem of struggling tree. AS we
marveled and muttered at this thing,
we saw, in the red light of the east,
little moving band of great forms
which we knew to be those of the
buffalo. They saw us also, and with
the instinct of generation of perse-
cution swept away at once in flight.
Across their line lay this fourfold
abomination, this corded barrier, this
new thing, this infamy never before
dreamed of on these free plains.
Close punched, the buffalo struck it
with the force of a heavy locomotive,
and crushed through and over it as
though they passed SO many straws.
All, there was thing dramatic, ad-
mirable, out there on that faraway
desert! 1t was the old West rending
the net of the retiarius, casting aside
the strands set for its undoing, and
standing on unhindered, freel See
ing the beauty of this spectacle, our
best roper, q ow-puncher born on the
old range, rose i'll his stirrups and
took off his hat to cheer the buffalo as
they numbered on. For twenty panels
the fence lay flat, and we rode across
it. Along its inner side was path
worn inches deep by the feet of count
less antelope, cut off by this fence
from their ancient way to some un.
known water-hole. No man of our
party felt glad at this evidence of ap.
preaching civilization, this fence
thrusting out into the wild land.
Every man was partisan for the buff
falo and the antelope, and exulted at
this prostration of their enemy,
though knowing with sorrow how
brief must be their little victory.