Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1907-01-17


tianS out of them before we got {
through and they are the peaceablest
Indians in the west today. We E;
fought 'em all the way from the
Cimarron to the Rio Grarde,
through the sagcbrush and the chap
arral till they quit stealing ponies
and quit burning towns. The pic
ture books don't give us any credit
for this. They Just tell about the
times when we got off the range on
bulge hunt. Yet we wer c the long
arm of the law in this western
country up to the time the 'Nestors'
began to get thick some twelve or
fifteen years ago. Time was when
you could go five hundred miles on
a stretch and never strike a cons
table. 1t was the cowboy who
kept out the cattle thief, who kept
out the train robbers and the muir
derers and the rest of the bunch
who go out principally in the night
time.
''Of course it hurts. When a fell
the mirages, when the shadows of
) the mountains take on the gold and
! silver in the evenings, when the
gray of the sage brush gets into the
blood, a fellow kind of hates to
: leave it. It's been home to us from
r the time we could throw our legs
] across pony's back. The great
| winking stars at night and the
D great staring sun in the daytime
they have burned their way into
: the marrow of our bones. We have
! been brother to the desert loneli-
ness, to the gray wolf and the
D sinking coyote, companions of the
t dumb brutes who feed on the roll
ing prairies. And it's hard to quit.
4 It's hard to think we have reached
Lands End, that the old free life
n has gone forever and that from this
t time en- we must adopt domestic
D habits or go to where there are no
: wire fences, no railroads, and no
i 'Nestors. Think of me with a
h bunch of kids
: And he laughed way down in the
It cavernous recesses of his sum
Drowned chest.
IL "Wouldn't l make pretty faith
e er? Why the first time tried TO
s hold baby l would let him drop
: and break his head. It's Mexico OF
S the Philippines or dinky old Argen-
is tina or me. -
y The pinto pony grazed around al
his feet and he pulled at the pipe
for minute.
| ''Now wouldn't it ia you tC
think that the Indian has outlivec
tne cowboy after all That's tn,
- hell of it. We must go alone. We
re are the last of what the literary fel
t lers call a type. But the old pain
s. faced Indians remain and the GOV
xe eminent feeds 'em. That's wha
ne makes me want to go out and turf
loose this old gun of mine six time
ne more for luck. Still it's all in tn
game and when a man calls tn
IS. turn wrong he's got no right to hol
e. Ter when the dealer rakes in the TIL
he chips. It's just a case of betting
8. on the wrong card. We thought
ip was going to last forever. w
sh thought there. was room enough i
rs other parts of the country for tn
ul fool farmers without their trying t
he cut up the big ranches. That
re where we got off wrong. And tn
zee damned Indian who didn't think
his who didn't have no think, is here
nd and we are the ones to go. And tn
ng first son of gun of an Indian VIII
rs. laughs at me is going to get what
as coming to him. He's going to G,
it so the doctors won't be of niue
a use to him.
eat ''Some fellers have been tellir
id. me TO give it up and settle down,
vas acquire section of land and raj:
we family. Now, that sounds goo
ed, to man who has always had
no. policeman to see that he got hon
ons all right every night and who wea
or slippers when he goes out on II
ry. porch to get his morning paper, b
ere none of il for Willie. The O
ms. saddle for pillow the ground f
'es. bed and the long wall of 4
ties coyote to sing me to sleep. I'd ju
got as soon be in Jail as cooped up
ore a cottage. The stampede, the To-
ned long days on the Montana trail t
to night rides the thirst and t
the hunger and the good old win
ranges are what call to me. A m
ngs who has had his feet frozen to
axe stirrups, who has had snow-blir
nts. ness and sand-blindness, who /
IAN thrown wild steers with his max