Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-10-17
When theTenderfoOt
"Made Good"

- old threadbare aphorism about
man being known by the company he
keeps, when the reserved man with
the gray hair about his temples spoke
up:
''That reminds me of a little expert
ence had in the callow days of my
youth" he said. 81 say YOUTH al
though I was in my early manhood
and quite old enough to know better,
and that brings me to that rather old
saying about the exorbitant rates
charged by Experience for tuition. Ny
trouble was that I needed experience,
but didn't know it. You couldn't tell
me many things that I didn't already
claim familiarity with when I set out
on this little western trip that I am
about to tell of. I was bound from
New York to San Francisco, and, in
order to dip little into the ways of
the western border town, had con-
cluded to stop off for day or two in
Ell Paso, which, at the time speak of,
had considerable reputation in the
line of social informally.
II didn't expect to learn great deal
about border civilza ton, mind YOU,
for had long ceased taking n inter
est in this sort of thing as depicted
in the books and magazines, having
come to the conclusion that it had
been .overdone. I figured that after
the veneer of the story book had been
scraped from the average western bad
man. he would amount to about one
rough, uneducated, clustering man in
need of a shave and carrying about
gun because the laws of the far west
were still rather lax as to the carrying
of weapons.
81 made my little trip over the South
ern Pacific, and the further west got
the more imminent became the explo-
sion of the frontier myth. I talked the
matter over with a young fellow who
had got aboard the train at the little
town of Abilene, on the edge of the
COW country and he said he had lived
in the bad. lands since he was 90, and
he was then 80, and he hadn't seen any
devilishness worth speaking of.
"He explained that he came from
ST. Louis, and with a lot of money
given to him by his father, who was
in the grocery business there, he had
bought bunch of cattle and had set
tied down to roaming the Texas plains
as sort of boss cowboy.
SOS ALI this sort of rot about the cow
boy being such a tough proposition,
said he, with peculiar sort of accent
| imbibed from the plains. is just a lot
| of airy talk. ought to know, for I've
| been kicking around here in the grass
| for ten years. I've had a little trouble,
| of course, but nothing worth speaking
| of, and your talk about the bad men
| of the west being played out is right,
| all right
| Exactly replied gratified at this
| Endorsement of my views by an expert.
exactly so. There are lot of long
winded galoots hanging around here
yet, suppose, who might give a ten
| derfoot the impression that they were
| bad, but 1 dare say that they're sim
| ply a lot of imitators who want to
keep up the old traditions, and who
| pulled on them
| Exactly said my new friend,
whose name. by the way, was Will
| Iams.
| 1--WE seemed to agree on everything,
and became fast friends. I acknowl-
edged that 1 was pretty nervy Prop
| osition in the east, and showed Will
| liams a superb Smith & Wesson long
| range which I had bought on Broad
way especially for this trip. 1 told
him that always carried one, and he
| said ths.t he did also as matter of
precaut'on.
"Wel, he was going to FL Paso, and
of course two such kindred spirits ar
ranged to go over the town together
a bit. Williams said he would show
rue the sights of the place. which were
not much except for a lot Of faSo
houses along the main street and a
fandango over in Faso del Norte, across
the Rio Grande. in the evening.