The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1903-08-18
Calamity Jane and Her Nerve and
Endless Thirst.
WESTERN BORDER SOUBRETTE
A Brave Life Of Wild Adventure, Re-
plete With Good and Bad Features,
on the Frontier-Reminisc of
the Heroine of Many yellow Back
ed Novels.


calamity Jane was unique among
women. so far as | know. PERHAPS
that is Just as well. but she had near
ly all the rough virtues of the old
West as well as many of the vices.
A more daring and eccentric woman
| have never known. She was one
of the old frontier types. and she has
all Of their merits and most of their
faults. A civilized town was never
to her liking. As soon as a mining
camp became a town and the town
began to start to be respectable Ca
lamity would move
Her maiden name was Martha
Canary. and she was born in Mis-
sOuri in 80. few years after this
her mother died and in go the family
moved to Virginia City. New. An
Indian uprising separated her from
her father and brothers, and at the
age of ten she was thrown on the
world to make her own way alone.
Before she was twenty General Crook
appointed her scout under me.
From that time on her life was pref
ty lively all the time. She had I'M
limited nerve and entered into the
work with enthusiasm, doing good
service on a number of occasions.
Though she did not do a mans share
of the heavy work she went in
places whore old frontiersmen were
unwilling to trust themselves, and
her courage and good-fellowship made
her popular With every man in the
command.
''She had a mans will and mans
nerve always, but she had acquired
a masculine appearance and, I am
sorry to say, some of the masculine
vices How many times Calamity
has been arrested and sent out Of
town by a kind-hearted magistrate
Calamity herself does not know.
Jane has often said though, proba-
bly, in other words. that any place
she could hang up her sOmbrero. was
home, sweet home. to her. When
there was no boom Calamity began to
feel i'll at ease, and soon she was
heard from somewhere else. It was
the new camps where the money
and the liquor flowed freely that she
liked She has shot scores of In
dams. and assisted in the lynching of
many a desperate, saved numerous
lives and made her stake in the
camps and spent royalty in the sa-
looms of a dozen states She has
been a wanderer since childhood. a
homeless vagabond, yet always with
rough but big hearted friends in
every camp and town west of the
NJ ssissippi.
Her old nickname was received
in 1872 in a peculiar way. She was
at that time at Goose Creek camp
S. D.. where Captain Egan and a
small body of men were stationed
The Indians were giving lot of
trouble, and there was much fighting
One day Captain Egan was surround
ed by a large band. They We're fight
ing desperately for their lives. hui
were being steadily but surely slaugh
tered. Captain Egan was wounded
and had fallen off his horse.
said, the woman rode into the Yer!
center of the trouble dsmounted
lifted the captain in front of her OF
her saddle and dashed out They go
through untouched but every othe
man in the gallant company wa
slaughtered.
when he recovered Captain Ega1
laughingly spoke of Miss Canary a
Calamity Jane and the rame stuc
to her. 1t was from her that Bre
Harte took his famous character 9
Cherokee Sal in The Luck of Roa1
ing Camp
IN the early days of Deadwoo
Camp Calamity Jane served on tn
vigilance committee and took part i
every lynching bee. 1t WAS Away
pretty active part, too.
In 1876 Jane, by a daring fea
saved the lives of six passengers o
stage coach travelling from Dea'
wood to Wild Birch in the Blac
Hills country The stage was su
rounded by Indians and the driev
Jack McCaul. was wounded by an a
row Although the other six passe1
gers were men. not one of them ha
nerve enugh to take the reins. Sc
ing the situation, Jane mounted tn
drivers seat without a moment
hesitation, and brought the stage
safety in good time to Wild Birch.
Jack McCaul afterward recovere
and some time later while in Dea
wood, he assassinated Wild Bill, or
of Calamity James best friends TT
murder was a cold blooded one, ar
it was the general opinion that lyme
ing was only too mild for him.
Calamity Jane was in the lead
the lynching party, and it was 81
that captured the desperate. 81
had left her rifle at home, but with
butchers cleaver she held him u