THE COWBOY.
Closely associated with the Indians in the minds of many people,
especially in the east, are the cowboys. The prevalent idea in the
eastern states about the far west is much the same today as it was
fifty years ago--an illusion that the moving pictures help to keep
alive. And yet, prosaic as it may be compared with the stirring times
of yore, there is still a charm and freedom in western life unequalled
in any other part of the United States. That western people are fully
alive to the romance and adventure connected with the settlement of
the west, is shown by the fact that moving picture representations of
western life are popular to an equal extent in no other portion of the
Union.
The mouth of the Portneuf canyon was a favorite wintering place for
cattle men and freighters because of the feeding ground to be found on
the bottoms, the shelter afforded by the surrounding hills, and the
water supplied by the Portneuf river. For similar reasons the Indians
used the present site of Pocatello for their winter quarters. Just
west of Pocatello, along the banks of the Snake river, lay a rich and
fertile grazing ground, where was situated the headquarters of the old
War Bonnet Cattle company, a big outfit that operated in this country
for several years.
Until the old ranges were broken up into ranches, which practically
ended the old cowboy life, the Portneuf canyon remained a winter haven
for cattle men, and many wild and thrilling exploits were enacted here.
The cutting up and fencing of the ranges has been inevitable in the
course of progress and development, but from the cowboy standpoint it
has not been altogether desirable. Cattle driven by a storm will run
before the wind, and when they meet an obstacle will halt rather than
turn in the face of the gale. As a result, many cattle, stopped in
their course, have perished from cold and exposure in recent years.
Cowboys and sheepherders are still seen daily on the streets of
Pocatello. Many of the latter are Mexicans and they are looked down
upon by the cowboys as being less hardy and daring.
The two classes have never lived peaceably together because the
sheep clip the grass so close to the ground that cattle can find no
nourishment, after the sheep have gone. For this reason fights were so
common between the sheep and cattle men that the government finally
alloted to each grazing grounds of their own.
The sheep men go out with their charges in the early spring and are on
the range for several months at a stretch. So many of them went insane
from monotony and loneliness that a law has been passed, requiring
owners to send two men with every outfit.
Like most men living an open and free life, these men are for the most
part generous and careless of money, taking little thought for the
future and oftimes going to excess for the present.
Some years ago, says a resident of Pocatello, an Italian, with infinite
patience and trouble, succeeded in catching a mountain lion in the
hills and brought him safely to town in a large cage. A band of
cowboys, bent on merry-making, surrounded the cage and danced about it,
letting out their blood-curdling yells and shooting their guns. The
lion, unaccustomed to such antics, at first snarled savagely. Later he
became quiet. The cowboys began to thrust at him through the cage, and
then to dare one another to enter it. At length one of the men took
up the dare. Armed with a knife and a gun, he cautiously entered the
cage. The lion crouching in a corner, watched the intruder but made
no movement. The cowboy grew bolder and began to probe and kick the
beast. His companions encouraged him with more hoots and yells, but
still the lion lay quiet. Finally the adventurer withdrew in despair of
stirring up a fight. The savage animal had been so completely cowed and
terrified by the noise that it was literally paralyzed and unable to
move.
* * * * *
Mr. Herman Goldsmith, now in the employ of the Oregon Short Line, but
formerly a cattle man, tells of a town that boasted but one bathtub,
owned by the barber. To this shop repaired the soiled and weary of
the community for ablution and refreshment. One fine night a band of
cowboys shot up the town and the next day the bath-tub was gone. Search
was made high and low, but no tub could be found. The loss was serious,
as there was no railway in those days and another tub could not be
purchased in a radius of many miles. The town had little godliness, and
now even its cleanliness was gone! One fine day the disconsolate barber
was given a tip that his bath-tub was secreted in a cowboy’s shack some
miles distant. A warrant was sworn out, the tub recovered, and the
culprit hied into court. Came also the barber.
“How many baths do you sell a week?” asked the judge.
“About seventy,” said the barber.
“At how much per bath?” continued the judge.
“Fifty cents,” answered the barber.
“How many weeks has your tub been gone?” the court asked.
“Three,” the barber said.
Then the court summarized: “Seventy baths at fifty cents each equals
thirty-five dollars per week. Three weeks at thirty-five dollars is
$105.”
So he fined the cowboy $105 and costs, and reimbursed the barber for
his lost business.
The same frontier conditions that produced the cowboy have served
also to make the westerner a more rugged and ever-ready man than the
easterner. The westerner may lack some of the culture and finish of his
New England cousin, but he is better equipped to fight the battle of
life both in his training and in his inherent qualities. The west is
developing a fine and unique type of manhood. Its vast distances, its
noble hills and far-stretching plains make an atmosphere of bigness
that alone must influence, even inspire the race that is native to
them. It is said that a little girl, fresh from the western plains, was
asked how she liked the east. “I don’t like it,” she said. “I can not
see anything because of the trees.” And the same cramped conditions
that oppressed the child have perhaps done their part in narrowing the
easterner. However that may be, the easterner is usually a man of more
narrow ideas and of stronger prejudices than the westerner.
We have one other inhabitant in Bannock county who deserves notice
before he vanishes in the face of civilization--the coyote. No one
who has not heard the yell of a coyote on a still night knows what
the phrase, “blood-curdling” means. These animals are often crossed
with dogs and make cowardly curs, until they are taught to fight.
Having once learned the noble art, it is hard to make them keep the
peace. Their pelts have a market value today, and in time to come will
probably be highly prized.
Another class of men who made a winter rendezvous of the present
site of Pocatello were the freighters--men who drove the old freight
stages from Salt Lake to Butte. These men were true pioneers, camping
along the old trails until they knew them blindfold for hundreds
of miles, and encountering great risk from exposure and from the
Indians. Sometimes an impoverished traveler worked his way with these
freighters. He was called a swamper, and to his lot fell all the
chores of the camp--chopping wood, carrying water and building fires.
He usually paid well for his passage.
There was always bad blood between the Indians and freighters, the
former resenting the intrusion of the teamsters as they passed through
the reservation along the old trail. The freighters prepared for
trouble as they neared the reservation limits, and frequently met it.
In August, 1878, two men, Orson James, and another named James, but not
related to the former, were taking a load of merchandise from Salt Lake
to Butte, and were attacked by a hostile Indian on the road between
Pocatello and Fort Hall. The red man opened fire unexpectedly and shot
James in the back. The freighters returned the fire from behind their
wagons, but in time the Indian succeeded in hitting Orson James in the
neck. Then he rode off into the sagebrush, but was later captured and
taken to Malad City, at that time the county seat, for trial. He was
sentenced to four months’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Boise,
where he died before his term expired. Both men recovered but Orson
James was lame during the rest of his life.
When the Indian just mentioned was taken to Malad City, he was
accompanied by a brother. This man heard Alec Roden, a cow-puncher,
remark that the Indian on trial should be hung. He attached undue
importance to these words, thinking, in his ignorance of the white
man’s methods of justice, that they would affect the verdict
unfavorably for his brother. Roden was later sent to the Fort Hall
reservation to attend to a hay contract. In talking over the trial, Joe
Rainey said to Roden, “You should not have let that Indian’s brother
hear you advise hanging. He is likely to seek revenge.”
Roden laughed the fear away, but that same evening, while he was
working at the barn, the imprisoned Indian’s brother shot him dead.
Such attacks served to keep the white men on the alert. They were
usually unprovoked, so far as the people who were attacked knew, but an
investigation generally showed that the red man, after his fashion, was
visiting a real or supposed wrong on the first member of the offending
race he encountered.
Few features of the far west are more widely known, or more
characteristic than the prairie schooner. In parts of South Africa the
same pioneer conditions exist that prevailed in our western states
until a few years ago. The climate and nature of the country are much
the same. It is interesting to notice that the same conditions, ten
thousand miles away, and untouched by American western influence,
have produced the same prairie schooner that we see winding the dusty
trails of Bannock county today. It is probably safe to say that were
two bodies of men sent from Paris--one five thousand miles east and the
other five thousand miles west--to new countries of like conditions,
the two parties would be found after several generations to have
evolved the same habits of dress, custom and life. Yet not the men, but
Nature, the great mother of us all, would have decided these things for
them.