Waterbury Democrat., 1902-12-11
When the Tcndcrfoot "Madc Good"

the gray hair about his temples spoke up:
 That reminds me of little experi- ence I had in the callow days of my youth" he said q 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 expriercs but didn't know it. You couldn't tell me many things that I didn't already claim familiarity~w when set out on this little western trip that I am about to tell of. I was borzd from New York to San Francisco, ard. in order to dip little into the waysNof the western border town. had con cludcd to stop off for n day or two Tn Fl Paso, which, at tlle time speak of, had a considerable reputation in the line of social infor-:ality.
 "I didn't expect to learn great deal about border civilization, mind you, for had long ceased taking an inter est ia this sort of thing as depio;ed in the books and magazines, having come to the conclusion that 1t had been ovs-done. I figured that after the veneer of the story book had been scraped from the average western bad man he would amount 10 about one rough. uneducated. blustcrine man in need of a shave and carrying about gun because the laws of tie far west were still rather lax as to the carrying of weapons.
 
 "I made my little tripover the South. ern Pacific, and the further west got the more imminent became the explo- sion of the frontier myth. talked the matter over with 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 20, and he was then 30, and he hadn't seen any deyilishness 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 buisness there- he had bought bunch of cattle and had set tied down to roaming the Texas plains as 8 sort of boss cowboy.
 ss All this sort of rot about the cow boy being such a tough proposition,' saidf he, withsa peculiar, sort of accent imbibed from. the plains, is just lot of airy, talk. ought to know, for I've been kicking around here in the grass for ten years. I've had 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, Ireplied. gratifed at this indorsement of my views by an expert. exactly so. There are lot of long winded galoots hanging around here yet, I suppose, who might give ten- derfoot tie impression that they were bad. but dare say that they're sim ply lot of imitators who want to keepsup the old traditions. and who would dodge if real loaded gun were pulled on them
 "sE1actly,' said my new friend. whose name, by the way, was Will Hams.
 s'We semed to, agree on everything, and became fast friends. acknowl- edged that'I was a pretty nervy prop osition in the east, and showed Will Hams a superb Smith & Wesson long range which I had bought on Broad way especially for this trip. I told him that I always carried one. and he said that he did also as a matter of precaution.
 s'Well, he was going to Fl Paso and of course two such kindred spirits arr ranged to go over the town together a bit. Williams said he would show me the sights of the place, which were not much except for a lot of faro houses along the main street and fandango over in Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande, in the evening.
 "Well, I found Williams first-rate fellow in every respect, quiet and inof- fensive, and yet wondered that he was not more popular than he ap- peared to be in the gambling houses, in every one of whic6 he seemed to be we'll known. Everybody nodded to him respectfully, but rather darkly, and the bartenders all seemed to be intent on keeping their eyes on him. And the way that man could hold liquor was wonderful. I had already begun to spend money very freely, and to keep up my self-described reputation of be- ing a sort of an eastern bad man, began to swagger little.
 q was somewhat astonished while standing at bar on San Antonio av- 'enuc to observe Williams draw his gun and put a bullet into a small mirror hanging just back of the bar. was equally surprised but relieved beyond words to observe the bartender smile a sickly smile as he same out from under the bar and accept ten-dollar bill from Williams in payment for the broken mirror.
 "Line mp here, you galopts, and have drink with your Uncle Dickeyp shouted my inoffensive friend to as rough a looking lot of gents as ever congregated in a saloon. Waltz up and let me introduce you to my friend and pardmer from the east, and he's not one of your old tenderfeet, eithcrl' This last referred to me, but what surprised me and lifted load off my mind at the same time was that this mob of ruffians promptly lined up and