The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1907-01-23
MOST PATHETIC FIGURE OF
THE FAR WESTERN PLAINS
The 81 asst COWBOY" Mourns the Passing of His Wild
and Picturesqe Calling, Which Has Been Swept
AWAY by the Advance of Detested Nestors.

The Last Cowboy looked at the
caravan or prairie schooners waiting
for the opening of the big pastures
out in Oklahoma Far away the
wisp of smoke from a 1ourish.ng mill
blurred the horizon. Mexico for
me-" was all he said
The Passing of the Cowboy.
There are no more big pastures.
There was all of Oklahoma once.
Then the government cut down the
range by the great opening of 1888.
Then there was the Cherokee strip,
and this went out in the great rush
of 1898. Then there was No Man
Land, and this is now a peaceful
county in Oklahoma, settled by the
despised "nestors.' Then there was
the |. X. L., with it's 100000 acres
in solid body. This has been cut
I'D in small farms, and Amarillo, the
old cattle Quitting point, has be-
come a city of farmers. And last of
all was the big pasture. Now that is
going.
The Last Cowboy was too good
loser to whimper. 1t was a great
day for us while it lasted he said.
''All of this western country was
ours. We could ride where we
pleased, shoot where we pleased,
when we pleased, and almost who
ever we pleased and no questions
asked We made this country, or at
least this part of the country. We
cot here when the Indians were here.
We drove out the Indians. Then
we drove out the wolves. Then we
exterminated the coyotes and the
prairie dogs. Now we have got to
follow the long trail. No more United
States for US. The nestor has made
us hard to catch. It's home and kids
and the quiet life for US after this.
But we have done some things
besides shoot up towns and make
tenderfeet dance in booze joints.
First of all we tanned the Comanches.
We had a hard tussle with them red
skins, but we made Christians out Of
them before we got through, and
they are the peaceablest Indians in
the west today We fought EN- all
the way from the Cimarron to the
Rio Grande, through the sage brush
and the chaparral till they quit steal
ing ponies and quit burning towns
The picture books don't give us any
credit for this. They just tell about
the times when we got off the range
on a bulge hunt. Yet we were the
long arm Of the law in this western
country up to the time the 'nesSors
began to get thick, some II or Is
years ago Time was when you
could go $50 miles on stretch and
never strike a constable. It was the
cowboy who kept out the cattle thief,
who kept out the train robbers and
the murderers and the rest of the
bunch who go out principally in the
night time
The Lure of the West.
"Of course it hurts. When a fell
low has got used to 'gyp' water and
the mirages, when the shadows and
the mountains take on the gold and
silver in the evenings, when the gray
Of the sage brush gets into the blood,
fellow kind of hates to leave it.
1t has been home to us from the time
we could throw our legs across a !
pony's back, the great winking stars
at night and the great staring sun
in the day time. They have burned
their way into the marrow of our
bones. We have been brother to the
desert loneliness, to the gray wolf
and the sinking coyote, companions
of the dumb brutes who feed on the
rolling prairies. And it's hard to !
quit. It's hard to think we have
reached Lands End, that the old
free life has gone forever and that
from this time on we must adopt do
nestle habits or go to where there
are no wire fences, no railroads and
no 'nestors. Think OF me with a
bunch of kids.
And he laughed way down in the