Los Angeles herald., 1906-05-13

T@7OAfE men will not stand dictation. Lake
the historic mule Of Barney Meggs
they may be coaxed but they cannon
be coerced. The men at Cayote were
Of this variety and therefore, when
Webster Calhoun Forshaw tried to force from
Cayote recognition of the revised laws OF tne
State Of Oregon, his success was not marked "
tailed because the camp was unwilling to permit
legal interference They feared the unknown.
One by one the other camps had succumbed to
the Entertainments of civilization and been drawn
within the boundaries Of statutory jurisdiction
but Cayotc still remained a practically independ
ent state, with right Of vent and venison, lord
of the high Justice, the middle and the low, and
exceeding jeaor. of these privileges. For six
happy years it had maintained its rights a
free city, and prospered, but not grown.
The camp nestled in a gut between the hills
and was 120 long miles from civilization as rep
resented by an opera house, bank, county
court house, railroad station and 900 persons.
The railroad eventually came to Cayote and de.
stroyed the erstwhile freedom by bringing the
camp within three hours ride of the sheriff
and his posse.
Forshaw was welmannered young man
from New Hampshire, who had gone through
both college and law school with honors He
was three and twenty, and came to Oregon with
an Informed notion of growing up with the
country, but how or why he selected Cayote as a
good place to grow up in passes understanding,
for Cayote as man once said, was "a hundred
miles from Nowhere, and nothing when you got
there" After Forshaw endured that unspeak-
able stage ride and investigated Cayote he ap-
preciated the other mans remark. He knew
that Cayote was a small place, but he had no
idea Of its surprising smallness; he also knew
in vague way that society there rather
mixed, and that that society had little love for
strangers-he had been told these things at Jack
sonville-but he was totally unprepared for the
extreme he found. He found eighty men, the
offscum of Oregon, and two women-who were
worse than the men.
Forshaw landed in Cayote with two trunks,
FIVE hundred pounds of law books and a large
leatherbound volume marked DIARY" He kept
diary because he thought that when the grow
ing-up process completed and he had at
tanned the honor of Governor or Senator some
other office, his early experiences might prove
of interest and a personal record would then
come in handy. Two hours after his arrival he
opened that diary and made the following entry:
"Cayote, Ore, Aug 1S, 1887 This, my first
day in Cayote and | am staying at thing they
call hotel, saloon downstairs and disreputa
bic lodging house upstairs. The town depends
for existence the placer mines on Twisted
Creek and the cattle, or rather on the money the
cattlemen spend when they come in for supplies.
The men are"
Here he was interrupted by knock at the
DOOR and before he could speak, his visitors
marched in and distributed themselves over the
bed and the two Saratogas, The callers number.
ed four, all big, dirty and armed. After intro
ducing themselves under the names of Whisper
ing Johnson Bert Whalen, Elephant Kenny and
"the" Mulligan, they asked solicitousy after
the state Of his health, and desired his impress
sions of Cayote "as far as he'd got" incident
ally announcing that they committee to
size him up and report on his desirability as
citizen. Forshaw was a trihe uneasy.
Some one had said that a polite yet firm man.
ner was best with such men, Forshaw remem-
bered that remark and rose to the occasion gal
lanty.