Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1904-01-06
Their Last
Trail
By William Buckley


IF 1T is true that cutting off the
] hands of a Baxter street clothier
deprives him of all power Of speech.
what argument can a cowboy be ex
pected to enforce if you take away his
arms? The "short, sharp bark" of his
pistol. always at hand, quick, faithful
and vicious as watchdog, is the col
league of his disputation. 1t is the
italics, the exclamation point, the con-
clusion of his syllogistic premises, and
the umpire of his debate. This, at
least, is the case with the very new
est and toughest western settlements
Rapid City (the city being the
star at which the townspeople aimed,
rather than an index of population)-
Rapid City was an extreme example OF
these picturesque but unwholesome
communities. The alarming death
rate, indeed, managed to secure the
town q certain amount of free adver-
Using, but>even this was of a sort that
tended to induce less immigration than
emieration.
The realization of this latter I'M
poetic truth compelled the local mar
shall to issue a reluctant edict forbid
ding man, woman. child or broncho
to pack a gun" in the vague linn
it's of the city. He was not blind to
the heroic poetry of stalking a life on
a tiny bullet, or the dramatic justice
of an appeal to arms: but he was there
primarily to serve the municipal adj
vantage. So he nailed up his mani
festo-with the revolutionary effect Of
Luthers thesis.
Now, the present incumbent of the
marshaisy of Rapid City had won his
exalted position solely because no one
could recall n time when he had been
either dilatory for fatal moment. or
inaccurate for an effective hairs
breadth in his manipulation of that
product of the American desire for
quick results.
So the cow-punchers took out their
revenge in oaths and threats against
the next election. and from the very
day after the edict the place of. the
pistol knew it no more.
Men had a half-clad look and a
naked, defenseless feeling without
their customary armament. Many a
hand went back to an unresponsive
belt. and Quarrels went tame and
all unsatisfactory. How was a man
to prove his ownership of an over
boiling Jackpot" with only empty
hands to verify his claim? How SET
the tenderfoot to hopping in Terp'
sichorean terror? How avenge tht
lio direct without artillery? Fol-
fists are urdignifed weapons on TIT
frontier, and for use only in unim
portaht squabbles, and as an introduc
ton to the higher court procedure o
the revolver.
Rapid City had managed to surviv
about a week of this uncomfortable
negative virtue. when Jesse Bolande
ESQ, rode into town at about four Q
the afternoon. He had been on hi
ranch all week, and as he stood at tn
dnmirrore6 bar of Keno Jim's Place
ne listened to the new state of affair
with many an oath of incredulou
amaze. At his right side. hammer t
he front, swung his far-famed "A e1
.ra-long revolver. To demand it c
aim would be calling on Hector
yield up his lance and count himsel
lamed
So Bolande stood, lounging in re
faxed might across the grimy little ba
and throwing into his unseared thros
klassfuls Of liquid fire-that uncoI
Aaled lava of western distillery-vo
10. Suddenly those at the windo
n to evince genuine excitement.
unusual in the more than 81
blase cow-punchers, whom
combat hardly galvanizes.
Il them blurted OUT smackin
Valkyrie-wise in anticipate
gnificent battle: Watch on
he marshal's comm"
shrugged his huge frame
rs indifference. Quick upC
e came the marshals 81