The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1922-02-02
THE CALL OF THE
DESERT IS STRONG
Former Nevada Vacquero, Now .
Chicago Broker, Dropped Into
This City to Take Note of
Changed Conditions

on his way to California cities on
business. The urge of the desert
ran strong in his veins when he
reached Salt Lake City, Utah, and
he made up his mind instanter to
transfer at Winnemucca from the
Southern Pacific to the Western
Pacific and view the Feather River
Canyon route, utilizing the hours
between trains to see the transfer
nation wrought here in the twenty
years that separate his buckaroo-
ing experiences from the present
period.
In the last two decades Mr.. Whit
ney was given a fair measure OF
financial success as a result of his
business effort in eastern cities and
now wants to retire. To his mind
a competence is exactly what the
term implies, and quoting his words
of yesterday: "I'm through; l know
when I've got enough. l am not
rich, but l have ample means and
that's all any man should want. Let
the younger men proceed to get
theirs"
Walking into this office yester-
day morning Mr.. Whitney asked
to see the files of The Silver State.
After reading them for awhile he
requested copies for all issues since
January 1st of this year. As he
paid for them he remarked, "I'll
take these down to the hotel and
enjoy the reading while l await the
belated Western Pacific train"
The visitor grew reminiscent
with slight urging and told how
he rode over the west in the early
nineties, buckarooing in all of the
"cow states" At one time he left
Cheyenne, Wyo., riding overland
to Mexico City. He invoked the
same method of travel to take him
from there to San Francisco. At
another time he worked for the
Tom Hickey outfit in Mono county,
California, and recounted unique
experience as result of three
months work there. In those days,
he said, Hickey maintained a store,
and booze and gambling joint at
his stock headquarters and it was
never the rule to allow any of the
vacqueros to have any money owing
to them if careful bookkeeping and
rotten booze and sharp card play
ing could prevent. Whitney was
especially thrifty and left the outfit
with check for $500. Part of the
sum represented beginners luck
at Rickey's poker table. Drawing
his paycheck, he went to Carson
City by stage and was forced to
wait ten days before he could cash
the paper. Hickey was president
of the paying bank, and his credit
was excellent, but his cashier with
held payment because, as he ex-
planned the matter, ''that's the first
paycheck / have seen come out of
the Hickey stock headquarters in
| years."
The cowboy-broker never lost
his love for the desert in the years
that have passed since he discarded
the saddle and bride and although
success perched upon his business
banner he always wanted, after the
fashion of those who have beer
inoculated with the deserts subtle
narcotics, to return and fill his
lungs to their uttermost depths
with the aromas that abound where
the homely sage cumbers the ground
and the landscape purples at even
tide. So he shut up shop few
days ago, bade his wife and chill
/ dren goodbye and took train fol
the outofdoors land where men ant
women grow big in heart and mine
to conform to the bigness of tht
country. 81 just want more elbow
room," he said, "and want, too
that my wife, and boys and girl,
shall share the joys that ! knew
when l was young. l want t.
spend year with them in northern
Nevada and northern California.
want that their muscles shall b
hard, their blood virile, their re
sources of character as boundles
as vicissitude can make them.
want my kids to be able to make |
batch Of biscuits on the corner O.
flour sack and when the famil.
makes the sally into the wilds th'
impedimenti will be slight indeed
Somehow, just want to return t.
the primordial days and / want tina
my closest of kin shall close th'
| book on the existence out of whicl