plan. Two Colt revolvers with handles exactly alike, one loaded, the
other unloaded, were placed under a blanket with handles protruding. A
silver dollar was tossed into the air, heads to win, tails to lose. The
winner was to have the choice of the revolvers. If he drew the loaded
one, he had the right to shoot the loser, who was to stand ten paces
away with the unloaded weapon in his hand. Rawlins won the choice of
revolvers and drew the empty one.
Anderson then spent a month’s wages buying drinks for the boys, and
kindly gave Rawlins until sunrise the next morning to live. Rawlins
accepted his fate with stoicism and returned to camp, rolled in his
blankets and slept soundly. Inured to danger for years, he knew sooner
or later the end would come, and so gave himself but little concern
about it.
It was the spring round up and there were fifteen outfits in camp within
two miles of North Platte, and the round up would begin as soon as two
more outfits arrived.
The news of the plan and chance of fate by which Rawlins was to lose his
life had spread from one camp-fire to another during the night, and
created an intense excitement.
Rawlins was standing by the fire, when I. P. Olive, one of the largest
owners on the range, rode up.
“Look here, Rawlins, suppose you had won, would you shoot Anderson down
like a dog this morning?”
“Certainly I would,” he replied, “and he would not be the first dog I
have killed, either.”
“This thing cannot go on,” said Olive, decisively. “If you men have got
to kill each other you must do it in a civilized fashion. Your plan is
too cold-blooded; it has given the shivers to the entire camp.” He then
rode over to the “Double Bar” camp, where Anderson lay sleeping.
“Get up from there, you wild ass of the plains,” he shouted. “Rawlins is
waiting to be killed. Are you going to do it?”
Anderson was on his feet in an instant, facing Olive in the dim light of
the camp-fire.
“It is none of your business what I intend to do!” and his yellow eyes
gleamed dangerously as his hand stole to the handle of his sixshooter.
Olive was a dangerous man himself and had a record of killing four men
in Texas. He saw danger in the manner he had approached Anderson, and
using a more conciliatory tone, said:
“Give Rawlins a show for his life and we will all think the more of you
for it.”
Finding the sentiment of others who joined in with Olive strong against
him, Anderson yielded to a change. This time the principals were to meet
upon the plain a mile from camp, mounted and armed with revolvers. They
were to fight within a circle of one hundred yards, outside of which
they might retreat, reload and return to the combat.
It was a beautiful morning, all balm and bloom and verdure. The face of
the sky was placid and benignant. The sun rose like a great golden disc
on the purple and pearl of the distant sky line and clouds, airy and
gossamer, floated away to the west.
The men stole away from camp in twos and threes, and were gathering on a
knoll that overlooked the battle ground, while Rawlins and Anderson were
selecting their horses from the remudas. Rawlins chose a Texas mustang,
fleet of foot and supple as an Arab. Anderson chose a stocky built
animal and appeared altogether indifferent as to any of his qualities.
The two men were stationed at the edge of the circle formed of lariats
with their backs toward each other.
Olive gave the word, “Ready!” The men grasped their bridle reins tightly
and settled themselves in their stirrups.
“Wheel!” The trained horses turned as if upon pivots.
“Fire!” rang out Olive’s clear voice of command.
Anderson rode forward a few paces and stopped. Rawlins dug his spurs
into his animal’s side, and came on with a rush, firing his revolver as
he came. Four shots sped harmlessly over the plain.
The men were within a few feet of each other when Anderson fired his
first shot. Rawlins reeled in his saddle a second, grasped the pommel,
and bringing down his revolver sent a bullet through the brain of
Anderson.
Both men fell from their horses, and there were two dead faces in the
grass.
The horses dashed wildly away, with blood upon their trappings and sleek
hides.
Two graves were dug, and the funeral was over before the sun had dried
the dew upon the grass.
There was a girl in Nebraska without a lover, and a widowed mother in
Texas without a son.
VIII.
PLEASANT HALFACRE’S REVENGE.
I was with a party of cowboys twenty-five miles west of Ogallala,
Nebraska, in 1878, when a huge iron box was found in the sands of the
Platte River by one of our party, which recalled a tradition of tragedy
and revenge, unequaled in the annals of the west.
In one of those great bends of the Ohio River, opposite Three Mile
Island and below the town of Newburgh, in Southern Indiana, there lived
some forty years ago, a man who furnished cause for which his neighbors
with one accord, joined in deporting him.
Pleasant Halfacre occupied a cabin in a small clearing, which opened on
the south, facing the bayou which separated the island from the mainland
on the Indiana side. On all other sides for a mile or more was a dense
forest, where great hickory, pecan and beech trees furnished the winter
provender for the grey squirrels, raccoons and opossums. In some places
the woodland was low and swampy; there were great ponds where the water
lilies grew and in winter the wild duck and brant paused long in their
southern flight to feed. The bayou abounded in catfish and silvery
perch.
In this little oasis in a desert of toilers, Halfacre had lived for
nearly a quarter of a century. His wife, a big buxom woman, was the
mother of eight tow-headed children who, when anyone chanced to come,
acted like scared squirrels. They would scamper away into the woods and
coyly peep at the stranger from behind big trees, while the dogs kept up
an incessant barking.
In summer, the woman and children would cultivate the small clearing
with hoes, while Plez would catch catfish and sometimes work in the
harvest field a few days for some neighbor. This he did only when dire
necessity compelled. The very sight of an agricultural implement, he
declared, would make him sweat. The man loved nature and in his
simplicity, would go into raptures over the coloring of the gorgeous
sunset, or wade about the ponds for hours for water lilies, or the
great blue, bell-shaped flowers which grew upon the wild flag and
calimus stalks.
He would bedeck his ragged garments with these flowers and, with a
string of catfish, would emerge, a gorgeous spectacle, from the forest
on his way to the Evansville market.
In winter his children would gather pecans and hickory nuts, while he
would take the dogs and hunt raccoons and opossums, the meat of which
furnished the family food, while the pelts brought a small price at the
market.
In all the forty years of his life, Halfacre had not been twenty miles
away from his home. He could neither read nor write and the world to him
ended at the blue rim of the northern horizon beyond the cypress hills.
The man was totally devoid of any sense of responsibility, either to his
Creator, his neighbors or himself. Once when the good preacher, who held
services at the “Epworth meeting house” twice a month, reproved him for
some misdemeanor by threatening him with the hereafter, he replied, “The
devil can’t inflict any more punishment on me than I can stand, if he
does, he will kill me.” With this logic to soothe his conscience, and
his love of idleness thoroughly gratified, Halfacre was very well
contented.
For a long time the neighbors, for many miles around, had been missing
articles of small value, the loss of which caused much delay in their
work as well as vexation and annoyance.
A farmer would be all ready to go to market and when he came to hitch
up, he would find the coupling bolt to his wagon gone, or perhaps the
singletree would be missing; or if ploughing in the field he would take
the horses out to where he had left the plow the night before and find
that the clevis or some bolts had been stolen. The good matrons would
have their dinner horns or bells taken away at night. Nothing of any
considerable value was stolen and no organized search was made until one
day, Farmer Beasley was floating down the bayou in a dinkey boat when he
came upon one of Plez Halfacre’s children sitting on the bank eating
mush and milk out of the blue flowered shaving mug which old Tippecanoe
Harrison had presented to his grandfather, while another one of the
Halfacre children sat upon a log, making a paw-paw whistle with his
ancestor’s razor.
This was too much for Farmer Beasley. He turned the dinkey boat around,
paddled back to Newburgh and swore out a search warrant for the Halfacre
cabin.
In the loft they found a collection of articles which was a wonder to
behold. There were grindstones, iron wedges for splitting rails, harrow
teeth and a miscellaneous lot of plunder, enough to start a second hand
store.
The word was passed and the next day the farmers began to assemble. They
came by the score; some in wagons bringing the entire family and their
dinners, and the day was spent identifying stolen articles.
Meantime, while all this was going on Pleasant Halfacre sat to one side,
looking the very picture of dejection. A council was held and it was
decided that if they sent Plez to jail, the county would have to support
his family, and as taxes were already high, it was decided to deport
him, his family and chattels.
Nearby, a house boat was found, which the owner offered to sell for
twenty dollars. It was purchased and Halfacre, his family and effects
were placed aboard and warned never to return, whereupon the boat was
shoved out into the stream.
It was a sad blow and one the least expected. “To leave the cabin and go
away where he should never again see the water lilies, out into the
world where he just didn’t know nobody.” This was the burden of his
lamentations as he sat upon the bow of the boat and wept.
Some of the women cried softly when they saw such evidence of his grief
and love of home, humble and poverty stricken as it was, and they rode
home in silence, wishing to forget the scene of the grief stricken man,
who had said the birds would never sing so sweetly to him again.
When the word went around a day or two later, that Plez and his family
were again living in the cabin, there was a general sigh of relief, and
when the preacher spoke of forgiving “Those who trespass against us,”
there were some heartfelt Amens that went up from the holy corner of the
“Epworth Church.”
Winter had come and the Halfacres were discussed by the good dames who
gathered at each others homes at quilting parties, and many were the
articles of outgrown clothing that were sent to the destitute cabin.
There was a January thaw and the ice in the river was breaking up, when
one morning in the grey dawn a barge came drifting down the stream amid
the cakes of ice that were piling high upon the head of the island. A
man was standing upon the deck, frantically calling for help, for it was
certain the barge would be crushed in the great pack of ice when it
struck the head of the island.
A crowd had followed along the shore, but none seemed to know what to do
or to have the courage to venture to the man’s rescue.
Suddenly Plez Halfacre was seen to launch a skiff from among a clump of
willows and standing on the bow, fought his way through the ice floes
with an oar, rescued the man from his perilous position and landed
safely below the head of the island.
The barge was lost and Plez became the hero of the hour.
The rescued man proved to be a wealthy coal mine owner from the
neighborhood of Cannelton, and in his gratitude some days later he
presented Halfacre with a cheque for $5,000.
Again a pressure of the neighborhood was brought to bear, and Halfacre
emigrated to the west. He started alone with his family from Omaha in a
prairie schooner, intending to settle in the neighborhood of Denver.
When twenty-five miles west of Ogallala he left his family in camp one
afternoon and wandered some miles away over the plain in search of
antelope.
When he returned some hours later he found his wife and children slain
by the Indians and their mutilated bodies lying about the smoldering
ruins of his wagon. The horses had been driven away.
Wild with grief and rage, he did the best he could in burying his dead,
and then made his way back to Omaha. He met with much sympathy from the
pioneers along the route, but for this he seemed to care but little. He
went about in a gloomy, abstracted way that caused people to say he was
losing his mind.
One day he appeared at a blacksmith shop in Omaha, and ordered a big
wagon box made of plow steel, which he paid for in advance. When it was
completed he loaded it upon a wagon and covered it with a white cover,
until it looked like an ordinary prairie schooner. Into this he loaded
a barrel for water and provisions enough to last for six months. He also
stored in the iron box, a large quantity of ammunition, with two or
three rifles and revolvers. The sides, bottom and top of the box were
loopholed, protected with iron slides.
When all was ready he purchased horses and drove to the place near the
Platte river, where his family had been slain. Here he picketed his
horses and deliberately built a camp-fire. He did not have long to wait
for results. The Indians saw the smoke, and seeing only one man, they
swept down upon his camp. He waited until they were reasonably near and
went inside his iron box. When they came to within a few yards, he
opened fire from the loop-holes, killing a number of them before they
retreated. The Indians could not make out the situation, and that night
they crept through the grass and tried to kindle a fire beneath his
wagon. Halfacre was alert, and shot them from the bottom loop holes.
After two or three assaults, in which they lost many of their number,
the Indians went away and ever afterwards avoided the place, as they
believed it protected by evil spirits.
Halfacre lived in his wagon for more than a year, making incursions into
the Indian camps at night, where his rifle dealt death.
To the Indians, he was an avenging spirit and they spoke of him in
whispers. His remains were found some miles away, long afterwards by
soldiers, who believed he had frozen to death in a blizzard. The rusted
relic on the banks of the Platte River, slowly disappearing beneath the
quicksands, was the only memento left of the tragedies there enacted.
IX.
CAPTURING WILD HORSES.
Lying upon the plain with his shoulder dislocated and his foot tangled
up in a lariat, O. E. Kimsey held the head of his fallen horse close to
the ground, in No Man’s Land, for four hours, to prevent him from rising
and dragging him to certain death.
We had gone to No Man’s Land, now Beaver county, Oklahoma, in 1887, to
capture wild mustangs, to be sold to the ranchmen of Kansas and
Colorado. We had become separated in our search for them. Kimsey was far
out on the plain when his horse stumbled into a coyote hole and as he
fell beneath the horse his shoulder was dislocated. In a moment he
realized that his foot was tangled in his lariat, which hung from the
pommel of his saddle, with one end tightly fastened there. The horse
attempted to rise, but to allow him to do so would mean being dragged to
death.
Kimsey threw his uninjured arm over the horse’s head and held him down.
To call for help was useless in that barren and uninhabited plain, and
he could do nothing else but hold the horse’s head close to the ground.
Night was coming on and he saw the hungry coyotes gathering. His
strength was failing as the hours dragged by. He had almost lost all
hope when he thought he heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs, and he
shouted loud and long. He was right. I was in search of him and came to
his rescue.
Our trip lasted five months, and in capturing the wild mustangs we
followed a different plan from the Texas hunters. The latter pursued the
horses night and day, using relays of mounts, until the horses were
exhausted, when they were driven into a corral.
We had started early in the spring, in time to reach the wild horse
country just as the first grass was covering the plains with green.
The mustangs were then gaunt and thin from the hardships of winter and
the new grass was not nutritious enough to strengthen them quickly.
A boy kept camp for us while Kimsey and I followed the horses. A spring
wagon, under which we could sleep at night, was filled with provisions
and grain. A dozen of the best saddle horses that could be found, that
were selected for fleetness and endurance, were a part of the outfit.
There was no hurrah and wild pursuit when the horses first came in
sight. We rode toward them leisurely and took precautions to alarm them
as little as possible. At first it was difficult to approach closer than
three or four miles. Each band was led by a stallion that circled round
and round. Sometimes there were three or four stallions with a band of
twenty or thirty mares and their foals. Generally, however, each band
consisted of five to a dozen mares and a stallion. The moment we
appeared the horses would begin to move. If they were followed close
they would break into a gallop, keeping on the ridges from which they
could view the surrounding country.
I know of nothing more fascinating than a band of moving wild horses.
Their manes and tails are quite long and add grace to their movements as
they sweep along in the wind. At a distance a tenderfoot imagines a wild
horse to be a majestic animal, large in size, beautiful in color, clean
of limb and fleet of foot. At close range they are a disappointment,
especially in the spring when their coats are rough. They have great
endurance, some of them being able to carry a man 70 miles between suns,
and their recuperative power is wonderful.
We pursued the largest band we could find, but, use the best precaution
we could, the horses would take fright at first and run for ten or
twelve miles before stopping. We tried to keep in sight of them if
possible, and always made it a point to be close to them at sundown, as
they sought water, and if not disturbed would remain near the spot all
night. If startled they would move, and before morning would be many
miles away. They were on the move at the first streak of dawn. After we
followed them two or three days the mustangs grew less wary, and we
began teaching them to drive.
A characteristic of the wild horse is that if an attempt is made to ride
to the right of them, for the purpose of turning them to the left, they
will invariably bolt to the right, and run directly across the path of
their pursuers.
It requires much time and patience to teach them to run in the opposite
direction. We won our first point when we taught the horses to be
driven. We then began driving them in a circle, which at first had a
large circumference. As the horses grew weaker from want of rest and
food, the circle grew smaller until its diameter did not exceed a
quarter of a mile. Meantime, we were using relays of fresh horses. Then
they were taught another lesson. A long lariat was stretched on the
ground, and in the path of the horses. Wild mustangs are very sagacious
and quick to suspect a trap. The rope always frightened them greatly at
first, but in time they grew accustomed to it, and could be driven
across it. We were now ready for business. The lariat was strongly
anchored in the ground by tying it to a buried log. The best horses were
now brought out and saddled. Riding as swiftly as possible, we started
the wild horses moving in a circle and kept after them until our own
horses were exhausted. The boy then took our place and maintained the
swift pace, while we saddled fresh horses. Before a great while a colt
would give out and drift, toward the center of the circle where it
would be joined by its mother.
A band of wild horses will not desert one another and there was no
longer any fear that the running horses would bolt from the circle in
which they were moving. In the free end of the lariat a big running
noose had been tied. As the circle grew smaller the horses would begin
running over the noose. The boy kept close watch and gave a strong pull
on the lariat when he saw that a horse had stepped into the noose. The
horse would fall, snared by the foot. A heavy log chain about three feet
long was fastened to one of its forelegs with a leather and the horse
turned loose. The animal would spring to its feet and start away at a
breakneck speed, only to turn a somersault, caught by the swinging chain
encircling its forelegs.
When half a dozen horses had been caught in this manner the others would
begin shying away from the noose, which was then abandoned for the time
being. Then we would coil our lariats and ride straight into the midst
of the band and rope them until the band was scattered.
The captured horses were then rounded up, and the lesson of teaching the
others to pass over the rope was resumed. After a time, when their fear
had abated, they would again pass over the rope without hesitancy. In
this manner we caught one hundred and nine the first season. The work
grew more difficult as the summer advanced; the grass was better, giving
greater strength to the wild mustangs, while our own had become worn and
thin with hard service. The captured horses soon became accustomed to
being driven and herded and it was not difficult to move them across the
plains to Kansas and Colorado, where they were sold. Kimsey usually
selected the best ones and broke them to the saddle, an exciting and
dangerous business.
Wild horses gave much trouble to ranchmen in those days. Tame horses are
quick to follow wild ones away, but a wild horse never voluntarily
forsakes the freedom of the plains for the corn fodder of the corral.
The wild stallions are constantly seeking to increase their harem of
mares. On the plains they do it through their ability as fighters and
their superior generalship over weaker stallions. They resort to extreme
violence in adding tame mares to their bands. I have seen a wild
stallion gallop up to a herd of domestic horses, select a mare, and then
begin maneuvering to drive her away. Sometimes the mare is lying down
and refuses to get up. The stallion throws back his ears and breaks for
her at full speed. If she does not move he seizes her with his teeth and
bites her so violently that she is glad to spring to her feet. Once
moving, she is lost, as the stallion keeps close behind, biting and
pawing at her until she is driven into his band, when all of them gallop
away. In time they drive away many horses, and in the old days ranchmen
often united and killed wild stallions as they killed wolves. The
stallions are constantly fighting among themselves, but as a rule
without great injury to each other. Domestic stallions fight to the
death, but the wild ones seem to know when they are worsted and the
weaker ones run away. There were usually about as many wild stallions as
mares, and as each successful stallion had from six to a dozen mares,
there were necessarily a number of stallions who were freebooters on the
plains. These were mostly old stallions, grown weak with age, and young
ones not old enough to win their fights. I have seen as many as
seventy-five such stallions in a band.
It was November when Kimsey and I sat in the Albany Hotel in Denver and
divided almost $3,000 as the profits of our season’s work.
“Where to now, Kimsey?” I asked. “I go to San Antonio for the winter;
and you?” “To the C. C. Ranch, on the Cimarron,” I replied.
X.
AN EXPEDITION THAT FAILED.
Five men sat about a table in an upper room of the Coates House in
Kansas City. The names of several of them I omit, as they will sleep
easier. Upon the table was a plate of shining gold nuggets of a value of
$1,600. Charley Cole, the owner, was a miner from the northwest.
He had met the party the day before, and offered to show them where the
nuggets came from for $2,000, saying his reason for so doing was that he
wanted to clean up and go to the Transvaal, then the Mecca of the
gold-seeker.
This incident was in June, 188--. Around that table a party was
organized, but with the understanding that no money should be paid
until the gold was found to our satisfaction, and with the further
understanding that if Cole was deceiving us with the idea of leading us
into a bandit trap to secure our money, he should be the first man shot.