Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1903-05-07
Is STILL A FEATURE.
The Cowboy Has Not Passed En-
tirely from View.
Great Changes Have Come over the
Far West, Bat the "BrOncO
BUSTER Is StiII
Deck.

One hears a deal Of the passing Of the
cowboy. The idOa grows apace that
the cowboy is extinct. Because some
parts of the west have settled up, be-
cause the 'nesters' and the sheepmen,
the big rancher and the wire fence have
come into these sections, some people
who write would have it appear that
the cowboy is a thing of the past.
AS matter of fact. says correspon-
dent of the Butte Inter Mountain, the
cowboy is very much alive and in the
present. 1t is true he is not tough
and bad individual as he used to be
pictured, but all of him was not tough
and bad even then, ho more than it is
to-day. 1t may be that greater changes
have come over the cowboy Of Colorado,
New Mexico, Arizona, and the south
west than are realized here, but the
fact is that the Montana cowboy is
much the same happy-natured, pic
turesque and reckless individual he al
ways was. Perhaps the fact that this
is still an open range country has some
thing to do with the result. Though
the open range its passing it still is
here and the chances are it will not
be gone entirely for several years to
come. The roundups are the same as
in the old days in Texas and the south
west, covering wild expanse of ter
ritory, all unfenced and belonging only
to Uncle Sam. True, the fencer, is
here, but in small numbers in COMPARE
son with the number of cattlemen.
The Montana cowboy is not long on
fancy attire, broad sombrero, silver
spurs and the other trappings that
were the heart of the southwestern
cowboy. He is businesslike individ-
ual in his manner and his appearance,
but he likes wild ride as well as any;
he can sit the toughest bronco that
ever was roped, he knows his business
down to the ground, and in his leisure
time he can make as much noise and
have as much fun as any man who ever
rode a stock saddle.
lie does not use his gun any more
than is absolutely necessary except in
play OF perfectly harmless nature.
For instance, the Montana cowboy has
a fondness for dropping into little cow
towns and shooting loosely into the
air and whopping like a Piegan Indian
with incipient appendicitis. He does
this chiefly when an overland train is
at the station, and he rides peacefully
away, happy in the thought that he has
scared trainload of pilgrims into be-
lieying they were in bad mans coun-
try.
This is about the extent of the cow
boys shooting, except for the genuine
fights that come now and then-hard-
ly more frequently than they occur in
any occupation in the east or west.
Now and then at roundup camp or
in a cow town you will meet a grizzled
old sinner who will lament the evil
ways into which the punching of cows
has fallen. He will tell you that the
genuine cowboy is hard to find and
that the boys who are riding now are
"a lot of baby-faced cow-punchers
from the east who don't know what it
is to be a real cow hand" Don't you
believe him. He fOrgets that once upon
time he was babyfaced cow-punch-
er himself; that the native heath of
most of the men who have sung to !
their herds on a stormy night is in the
effete east Because all who appear in
the roundup are not so old or tough
ened or grizzled as himself be forgets
that he once was in their class. The |
baby-faced cow-puncher is the begin
ming OF the seasoned old COW hand,
and so he ever was, and so he ever will
be.
Quite as picturesque, quite as ardu-
Gus and quite as attractive to the ad-
venture-loying youths of the land as
ever Is the business of handling cattle
on the open ranges Of Montana. There
IS a breadth and freedom about the
trade of riding the glorious, sunlit
Montana prairies that makes it lure
many a man from more lucrat tive pur-
suits. Some day, when irrigation shall
have transformed the ranges of Mon
tana into thousands of productive
farms the cowboy as we know him to-
day will pass, but for the present he is
here. Here's to him!