The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-02-03
COWBOYS NOT MUCH.
Expert Opinions On the Ropers,
With q. Story.

/: Expert opinions On the kOperS,
/: With a. Story. 5:
.......s.....,.. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.
notice an awful smear of talk GO
ing on as regards the nerve, bravery
and romance of COW puncher, says
writer in the New York Telegraph
see they're writing books and plays
and poetry to show and set forth the
nobility of his character. But he can't
come to me for recommendation.
This kind of guff might go with some
town-bred Fasteners, or it might be
fed like arrow-root to members of the
Floorwalkers' union, but for me, no!
Also not, together with nay, and then,
again on the other hand, nit!
know what he was when Wyoming
was a babe.
Why, IL one of those old-time cow
punchers gets within a half block of
me smell him out like a beadle
hound does rabbit. You see those :
fellows lived with horse day and
night and took on smell like
sweaty old horse blanket, and as for
jumping into a purling brook for
bath, why you couldn't get one of them
to do that except at the point of a
bayonet. And you'a nave to ram 1t
into him half inch or so at that.
The only time their horse got
wash was when it rained.
They insisted on wearing heavy
flannel shirts and leather panties sum-
mer and winter. Never changed them.
Only had enc suit, and it gets pretty
dern hot in summer where l was, in a
place called Palouse, on the Powder
river, about sixty miles west from
Deadwood, but in Wyoming.
used to circulate between Chey-
enne and Palouse, as had part of q
faro bank running in each place and
used to deal, plug. toll or spin the
marble and try and earn my share. We
stuck it out for year, then quit be-
cause we couldn't make it pay.
You guys in the East get 1t titled
into you from infanthood about the
heavy gambling out West l want to
tell you there's bigger gambling in
New York or any Eastern town to the
square inch than there ever was way
out in the Golden West. Golden West?
Ha! ha!
Why, the only people that had any
money worth while were what we
called "Jukes." They were high
class of young Englishmen who came
out there so as to avoid croaking with
the ICON" or to buy ranch, but after
arriving and looking things over de-
cided that If it's either stay or go and
die, they would go, believe. But we
had them there long enough to get
play, and they kept coming and going
swift enough to be of some little use
to us.
But the cow puncher-excuse me till
blow my nose moment-he made
about twenty bucks month, besides
what the greasy cook of an outfit flung
at him at meal times. And every
mothers son of them carried six
shooter big as brass cannon. 1 never
knew what this was done for, because
there was nothing to shoot unless it
would be a steer or their horses or
themselves. didn't see a ghost the
whole time I was out there. 1t was
foolish to weigh themselves down that
way. @~
But they were lot of freaks, any
way. Their saddle was bigger than
their horse and looked like one of
those summer houses you see on the
elephants backs for kids to take an
outing in at Coney, and their hats re-
semble side of leather with a hole
in 1t.
Their bravery went as far as If
about fifty of them got into Palouse
they'd load up with about three drinks
of skee apiece and ride up and down
the main boulevard shooting their
irons and making faces and yelling.
They scared couple of women that
had just got there once in awhile, but
no old. residenter paid any more at
tention to them than you do here in
New York to the noise on July 4.
We used to get lots of them into our
place, but they were all pikers and
hard losers. The most were only
chair-warmers, and as we gave all
drinks gratis at our sideboard it was
well patronized by them. When we
first opened up on the Powder river
they didn't know us, and one guy
starts rough house, so old John o.
Brien takes his gun away from him
and ticks the knob off him in the back
yard. That was enough to hold them
forever, and we had to put up no more
badgering.
The biggest puncher around Palouse
was called Pimply Pete. He would
manage to get five-dollar gold piece
together once in awhile that he didn't
owe, and usually got playing our bank.
He was a rank grown lout. The big
gest protection he had was his odor.
He always carried a six pill-pumper
in his waistband and Colonel Bowie
carver in his bootleg. To one not
knowing him he looked like a cross
between blood-sweating behemoth
and a bull pup. But what little wasn't
bluff about him was ignorance, and,
there was no more harm in him than
in katydid.
Well, I'm dealing one night, and
Pete jams me away up to the table like
he's going to buy all my checks, and
then throws over his usual five speck.
/ rolls two red checks over to him, for
L wants to clean him out quick and
get him away from the place before we
all gets nausea.
This Pete's got the bad habit of lay
ing for sleepers and getting cramp