Omaha daily bee., 1909-03-20
LIFE HARDLY WORTH LIVING
Humiliation Of Coyote Pete by a
Booky Tenderfoot
RELIC OF OTHER DAYS Punched

RELIC OF OTHER DAYS PUNCHED
The Last StREEer OF n Prise had Nan
Into the welcoming Arms
of n Town Peace
maker.
He was a typical bad man, a modernized
edition Of the Terror Of Bitter Creek
half horse. half alligator a survival OF
the period from 40 to the early '7os, when
It was good form to at least claim a mar
for breakfast every morning. This par
ticular bad man was an initiative relic, to
be sure, of his predecessors i'm the days Of
prairie schooners and pioneer railroad
building in the west, and his name was
Coyote Pete for want of a better.
Pete's early education. as well as his later
knowledge acquiring, had been neglected.
He did not read the newspapers. and he
still called parsons gospel sharps.' He
usually herded by himself. The average
cowboy of today has little use for men
of Pete's stamp. The cowboy of the pres
ent is intelligent, sober and Woodworking,
Pete was not.
From his alkali retirement Pete had envi-
ously contemplated the rise of Creole,
when there was mo night at Creede," be-
sides being day all day in the day time"
as the engineer poet has correctly and
felicitously expressed It. The faint and ex-
aggerated rumors that reached him of the
exploits of Bob Ford. who shot Jesse James
from the rear, filled him with Jealous de-
light, and when Bob himself was filled
with unceremoniDus buckshot and ~relegated
to the new but well-filled cemetery, to
which the enterprising citizens of Creole
pointed with just pride, Pete felt that the
mantle of the late unlamented ought by
right to fall on his own narrow shoulders.
Now Pete was by nature and custom a
rank coward who seldom reached the
falsely dignified grade of bully. In fact,
the whisky had to be unusually vile and
the victim unusually meek in order to allow
him to play the bully at all, and those
who knew him generally kicked him about
the time he reached the bullying stage.
Pete on the Wing.
But Pete's opportunity had come at last,
His purse was full and so was he. Hard
riding on his bucking cayuse had brought
him to Routt county-or Wyoming-to VOL
colt, where the Denver & Rio Grande rail-
road stretched toward the peach orchards
of Grand Junction on the one hand and
toward Denver on the other. But Pete was
not going to Denver. The capital city had
got to be altogether too slow and orderly.
There a gentleman was not allowed to ex-
plode his gun nor to yell on the streets in
token of good feeling and an excessive flow
Of spiIdts. Cripple Creek was the only
place, in the opinion of Coyote Pete. Den
yer was not to be thought of in connection
with a cowboys vacation. 1t did not occur
to Pete, who did not or could not read the
Newspapers, that he held a mistaken con.
ception regarding Cripple Creek. All he
knew or cared about it was that it was a
mining camp where things were supposed
to be wide open, and where a man got his
own kind of IN inning for his money.
So now behold Coyote Pete In all his
dirty and drunken glory primed and
cinched for an evening of enjoyment on
Bennett avenue in Cripple Greek. He was
a little the worse for wear. Several sturdy
and unappreciative brakemen had effectu-
ally demonstrated with him for insisting
upon yelling at the top of his voice all the
way from Wolcott to Colorado Springs, as
a black eye and a sprained nose bore evil
dence. But Pete cared little for these
drawbacks now. His spree was in the bull.
lying stage and he meant business. II
was in the days before the big fires; still
Cripple Creek had several saloons which
the local papers called "palatial." Into on,
OF these reeled Coyote Pete, and wabbling
up to the bar he began his glorious career
after the fashion, as he fondly imagined
OF Bob Ford in the palmy days of nightles'
Creole.
"Whoopee! waugh! Look at me! In
Coyote Pete from Routt county, and
was never licked in my life! Thirteer
notches on my gun an achin' ter insert
more. Les ticker. No gent'll refuse tel
drink with me, Coyote Pete!"
Working on "A Scare.
Every saloon has its loaflng contingent
and half a dozen men ranged themselves
promptly in front of the bar. Pete though
| thay nnght to look scared hut they an