OUR ARRIVAL IN CHEYENNE.
We arrived in Cheyenne, and after reporting to the dispatcher what time
our special stock train would arrive, we exposed Jackdo to the gentle
breeze, which is always on tap in Cheyenne, and it blew all the cactus
slivers out of his anatomy that he had accumulated in his nine miles
slide in just thirteen seconds. We then started out to see the town. We
asked an expressman on the corner of Main Street--he was the only live
human being in sight--what was the main features of Cheyenne. He said
Tom Horn and Senator Warren. We asked him what they was noted for, and
he said that Tom Horn was noted for killing people that took things that
didn't belong to them and then blowing his horn about it afterwards, and
Senator Warren was noted for building wire fences on government Land and
taking everything in sight.
Not seeing anyone on the streets, we asked him if it was Sunday, and he
said every day was Sunday in Cheyenne except when they had a political
rally, and then it was a durn Democratic funeral from sun to sun,
burying the Democratic party over and over again, they rehearsed them
same old services. Whenever people saw the politicians on the streets
with clean shirts on they knew the Democratic party was going to have
another funeral. The folks in Cheyenne was always going to church, or
else burying the Democratic party. We asked him what the prevailing
religion of the town was, and he said, "High-priced wool."
Just then Senator W---- came along, and hearing of the disappearance of
two sheepmen, and it being near election time, he immediately had all
the troops called out, got together a vast army of United States deputy
marshals and wired the president of the Overland, who immediately
chartered a special train loaded with detectives, and two cars loaded
with blood-hounds in charge of a lawyer by the name of Ashby from
Lincoln; one car loaded with automobiles, two cars loaded with bottled
goods and other useful supplies and two pianos with pianola attachments,
seven trunks full of mechanical music in air-tight bottles, and one
steam calliope near the engine on a flat car. The Governor of Wyoming
met the special train at Cheyenne, and after issuing a proclamation
offering a large reward for the sheepmen dead or alive, joined the U. P.
president in his car. They now started the steam calliope, and the
Governor playing one of the pianola-attachment pianos, the U. P.
president playing the other. The state chairman of the Republican party
sang the old familiar hymn, "Ninety and Nine Were Safely Laid in the
Shelter of the Fold," and Senator W---- made a speech something like
this:
He said: "Fellow sheepmen and what few other citizens there are in
Wyoming: What's the matter with the sheep business? Have we deteriorated
in the eyes of the world in the last two thousand years? Who writes
poetry of the sheep and sheepherder of the present time? What artist
puts priceless paintings on canvass of the sheep business to-day? Why,
fellow sheepmen, in ancient times all the poetry that was written was of
the shepherd and his flock, and in every palace, in the most conspicuous
place, was a picture of a tall shepherd with venerable beard and flowing
locks, with his serape thrown carelessly over his shoulder, a long
shepherd's crook in his hand, leading his sheep over the hill into some
fresher pasture. And when the people saw the original of this painting
in ye ancient time appearing over the hill in the sunset glow, they
cried: 'Lo, behold the shepherd cometh.' Now what do they say? This is
what you hear: 'Well, look at that lousy sheepherding scoundrel coming
over the divide with his sheep. Boys, get your black masks and the wagon
spokes.'
"Now," he says, "wouldn't that Ram you? What would our party have
amounted to in Wyoming if I hadn't Bucked everything in sight? I've
Lambed the stuffing out of the Democrats and Pulled Wool over the eyes
of the would-be party leaders till we have Pretty Good Grazing and Fair
We(a)thers.
"In a few days we will be called on to decide a great question at the
polls, whether Billy Bryan will build your house out of cold, clammy,
frosty silver bricks, or whether we will have houses built out of all
wool. You must make a choice between the two. If you vote for me, it
means a good, warm woolen house, good woolen underclothes, good woolen
overclothes."
Judge Carey tried to say something about a gold plank, but everybody
frowned at him so that he slunk off in the crowd and shortly afterwards
was seen in a back alley having a heart-to-heart talk with two
bow-legged cowpunchers who, while they did not know much about any kind
of gold, let alone a big gold standard, knew anything was better than
all this talk about sheep and wool.
Senator W---- kept talking as long as he could keep the Governor and the
U. P. president making music. He said everybody who voted right could
sit on his right hand with the sheep, otherwise they would have to
associate with the goats on his left that was herded by Billy Bryan.
Some of the crowd grumbled about associating with either one, but the
Senator said there was no choice if they stayed in Wyoming.
A carriage now dashed up, all emblazoned with a coat-of-arms, which
consisted of a panel of barbed wire fence with a rampant sheep leaning
against it. The Senator entered this carriage, rolled away and the crowd
followed him.
Although there had been no effort made to find the sheepmen, yet
apparently the object of the railroad expedition had been accomplished,
and they were about to return when they discovered that three of the
highest-priced detectives were missing. They were found almost
immediately on the trail of the man who could tell why a life-long
Democrat in Wyoming, as soon as he starts in the sheep business, gets a
public office in place of a life-long Republican who didn't own any
sheep. The detectives were called off the trail and the president of
the great Overland began his return. We heard afterwards that Captain
Ashby claimed that two of the most valuable blood-hounds escaped from
the hound car and he demanded that the U. P. pay him $700 for the dogs.
He claimed that if they struck the trail of anything they would follow
it to the death. A couple of mangy fox-hounds were found dead in an
alley back of one of the Cheyenne hotels the next morning after the
president's train left, and as it was known that one of the hotel cooks
had been down to the train, these were supposed to be the dogs, and the
claim was allowed. What caused their death was a matter of conjecture.
There was quite a pile of hotel grub laying near the dogs. The hotel
boarders differed in opinion. Some said the dogs died of indigestion and
some said of starvation.