BILL BLANK CATTLE-STEALING CASE--CHRISTMAS DINNER AND A DANCE ON THE
L X CATTLE RANCH IN TEXAS--LEFT AFOOT ON A NEW MEXICO DESERT WITHOUT
WATER.
My next operation out of the city was of a “Frenzied Finance” order,
wherein a man whom we will call Bill Blank, a cattleman whom I had
known by reputation all my life, had swindled Kansas City money brokers
out of large sums of money through shady transactions.
This William Blank had come from a noted family of Texas cattle
raisers, and in a cattle deal Bill was “foxy” and could out-fox a fox.
It was also said that he had nine lives like a cat. During the ’80s, in
New Mexico, Curly Bill’s outlaw gang shot him seven times through the
body and left him out on the desert for dead, so the story goes. But he
wasn’t dead by a jugful, as a couple of days later he crawled into his
camp and soon after began figuring on a big cattle deal in Montana.
Some Kansas City money brokers had furnished cash to buy steers in San
Antonio, Texas, the Spring previous to my being detailed on the case,
taking a mortgage on the steers for security. The steers were to be
driven to the Indian Territory and there fattened for the fall market
on buffalo grass.
As a precaution against loss, and so the money brokers could identify
their property in case of trouble, the tip of one horn of each steer
was cut off.
The cattle were taken to the Comanche Indian Reservation in the western
part of the Indian Territory, and there turned loose to fatten. They
were kept within a certain range by Blank’s cowboys riding lines. Late
in the Fall Bill concluded he didn’t want to ship the steers east for
“feeders.” Therefore he turned them over to the brokers to get their
money if they could, he himself withdrawing from the scene. When the
brokers sent cowboys to gather up all steers with the tip of one horn
cut off, they failed to find any but a few of the original number. They
were not in the country, and Blank said he couldn’t account for them
being gone unless the Indians had killed them. Then I was detailed to
unravel the mystery.
From Denver I started on the Denver & Ft. Worth Ry. for Amarillo,
Texas, there to buy a horse and saddle and ride to the range where the
Blank steers had been kept during the summer.
I arrived in Amarillo, Texas, at three o’clock Christmas morning. A
blizzard was raging and the weather was very cold. Knowing that my old
cowboy friend of early days, Jack Ryan, kept a saloon in this town, I
concluded to go there and warm up. On entering Ryan’s place I found
Jack behind the bar.
After shaking hands, Jack asked if I could recognize any of my old
friends among the drunken men sleeping on the floor, chairs and tables.
Casting my eyes over the bunch I picked out my friend Burkley Howe
sleeping in a chair and dead to the world from over-indulgence in
“firewater.” In looking at him my mind drifted back to 1878, when he,
then a fine-looking, sober young man of high education and wealthy
parents, came to the Panhandle of Texas, then a wild, unsettled
country, to learn the cattle business. He came from Massachusetts, the
former home of David T. Beals, Erskine Clement and Mr. Bates, for whom
I was then employed. As I was then boss of an outfit on the staked
plains where the little city of Amarillo now stands, Howe was turned
over to me to be taught the cattle business.
Now, here sat that same Burkley Howe on this Christmas morning, over 20
years later, a total wreck and aged beyond his years from that greatest
of all evils, liquor.
Slapping him on the shoulder I said: “Hello there, Burkley Howe, old
boy!”
Before opening his eyes he yelled: “Well, I’ll be d----d if there
isn’t Charlie Siringo!” He had recognized my voice. He then jumped up
and began hugging me and declaring to the other drunken men who had
awakened when he yelled that I used to be the best wild-horse rider
in the United States. He had seen me ride some “bad” horses and he
couldn’t brag on me enough. In order to choke him off, I called the
crowd up to take a Christmas drink with me.
Ryan then informed me that my old friend, John Hollicott, the manager
of the L X ranch, which I had helped establish, was at a saloon across
the street celebrating Christmas. Running across the street I found
Hollicott dancing a jig and having a rattling good time, as he called
it. He almost choked me as he dragged me up to the bar to take a
Christmas drink “on him.” The whole crowd of a dozen men were called up
to drink. I was the hero of the moment with Hollicott. Finally we went
across to Jack Ryan’s place and Howe joined in the celebration.
At daylight Hollicott’s coachman hitched up the spirited team of mules
and we started for the L X ranch on the Canadian river 20 miles north,
to take Christmas dinner with the “boys” and girls there.
I left poor Howe laid out on the floor and I haven’t seen him since,
but I was informed through friends that he died a year or two later
which proves what liquor can do in a twenty years’ tussle with robust
manhood.
We had a cold ride against the raging blizzard with the thermometer ten
degrees below zero, hence the cork was pulled from the five-gallon jug
several times before reaching the ranch.
It was about 10 A.M. when we reached the roaring fire in the large
stone fireplace which I had helped to build over twenty years before.
There was the identical hearthstone put in place by W. C. Moore, the
outlaw murderer whom I met in Juneau, Alaska, and me.
Thoughts of bygone days flew thick and fast, and the flames from the
log fire seemed to be playing hide and seek with other bright blazes of
long ago. Possibly my familiarity with the jug en route from Amarillo
had something to do with my imagination.
Hollicott introduced me to the Lee family who lived on the ranch. The
head of the household was Mr. Garnett Lee, then came his good-looking,
black-eyed wife and their two beautiful young lady daughters. The
younger, a girl of 18, had just come from a college in middle Texas to
spend the holidays. She was indeed a little “peach,” and it was all I
could do to keep from falling in love with her, even though I was old
enough to be her father.
Several of Hollicott’s cowboys from outside camps were on hand to
sample the Christmas dinner. Two of them, Charlie Sprague and Johnny
Bell, were former chums of mine and had worked under me when I was a
“boss” on this ranch. The others I had never met before.
About 2 P.M. the fat gobbler and cranberry sauce, with the side
“fixens” were set on the same old table from which the noted outlaw
“Billy the Kid” and I ate meals together twenty years previous. It was
a dinner fit for kings and queens, and we all did justice to it. When
we got through Mr. Turkey-gobbler looked as though he had been to a
bone-picking match.
The afternoon was spent “harking back” and sampling the contents of the
jug.
At night, after supper, one of the boys got out his violin and the
dance started. There being only three ladies present we had to make a
girl out of one of the “boys” by tying a handkerchief around his arm,
in order to fill out the set.
Towards morning the jug began to work on Hollicott and he wouldn’t let
me dance. He insisted on “harking back” to the early days of our cowboy
lives. He and I first met in 1876 in Kiowa, Kansas, at which time he
was a cowboy for the Hunter & Evans cattle outfit, and I was drifting
around to give my mustache a chance to grow.
John Hollicott was a high-bred gentleman, born in bonnie Scotland. He
was a fine-looking six-footer, with a heart like an ox. Being born
tired was his only fault, especially when it came to getting up in the
morning. At one time he had worked under me on a big round-up on the
South Paloduro, and getting him up for the peep o’day breakfasts was
my hardest work. That same year, 1883, Mr. Hollicott took a jump from
a common cowboy to the manager of this big L X ranch, with its 50,000
head of cattle and the hundreds of fine horses. Hence the fact of his
being born tired didn’t seem to work to his disadvantage.
I had been considered as one of the candidates for this fat position,
but was told that some of the stockholders in the company objected to
me as not being tame enough for such a responsible position. Therefore,
Mr. Hollicott won out, and years later, I was his honored guest.
Towards daylight the dance broke up and the coachman drove Hollicott
and me and our Christmas “jag” up to the mouth of Pitcher Creek, a
couple of miles, where Hollicott had his private home.
We retired together in the same bed, and Hollicott was soon fast
asleep. But not so with me--I couldn’t sleep for “harking back” in my
own mind to the day when Mr. Bates and I slept at this very spot, and
chose this as the headquarters camp of the future L X ranch. That was
in the early fall of 1877, and “Deacon” Bates, Mr. David T. Beals’
partner, had brought me along into this wild unsettled country to help
him select a cattle range for a new company which Mr. Beals had formed.
The country was then alive with buffalo and Indians. Across the river
from the mouth of Pitcher Creek, only a mile, three hundred half naked
and painted Apache Indians were then camped. Hence Mr. Bates and I
didn’t know what moment our scalps might be lifted. We selected a range
forty miles square. The grass was fine and not a single cow-brute to
eat it, until after the first L X herds arrived from the north.
Now, as I lay by the side of my old cowboy companion, the thoughts
of those good old free and easy days came back. But finally my brain
felt like scrambled eggs--a jumbled-up mess of woolly buffalo, painted
Indians, yelling cowboys, bucking broncos, long horn cattle, fat turkey
gobbler, two pretty girls and a big brown jug; then I fell asleep.
About 10 A.M. I was awakened by Hollicott, who was up and holding the
jug and a glass, ready to give me a morning “bracer.”
After a hearty breakfast I asked Hollicott to take me back to Amarillo
so that I could buy a horse and saddle for my journey to the Indian
Territory. He replied that I had to lay over another night and “hark
back,” this being a favorite expression of his. When I insisted that it
would take me at least a day or two to buy a horse and saddle and that
I was in a hurry to reach my destination, he said: “Now, Charlie, don’t
mention horse and saddle to me again, when you get ready to go the best
horse on this ranch will be brought up to the door, saddled and ready
to mount, and if that don’t suit you, I’ll send my team and coachman to
take you wherever you want to go.”
I remained, and in the afternoon we followed the pack of hounds in
lively chases after wolves and jack rabbits. After breakfast next
morning, a five-year-old brown horse, sixteen hands high, and in every
respect a model piece of horseflesh, was brought to the door of the
stone house at the headquarters ranch, where lived the Garnett Lee
family. On his back was Johnny Bell’s saddle.
This horse had just lately been broken, he having run wild on the range
all his life. I had known his sire and his grandsire on his dam’s side,
and they were of the best blood. The sire was Glen Alpine, a four-mile
running horse, and the grandsire on the dam’s side was a high-priced
trotting stallion which Mr. Beals had shipped from Boston, Mass., when
the L X ranch was first established. Mr. Beals had once presented me
with one of old Glen Alpine’s colts, the pick of about fifty head,
but like many other fool cowboys I got short of cash in a poker game
and sold him for $200. Hence this big snorting brown was the second
gift-horse from the same blood.
On mounting Glen Alpine, Jr., after bidding everybody, including the
two pretty Lee girls, goodby, Hollicott told me never to sell this
horse, but to shoot him when I had no further use for his horseship. I
promised that he would never be sold.
Some of the “boys” rode a few miles with me and they said that
Hollicott and the girls were no doubt disappointed at my horse not
bucking, as they expected a free show, with me as the star actor. They
said this horse was a hard bucker and was always ready to show his
skill. They couldn’t account for him not bucking that morning. But he
made up for it the next morning and on many occasions afterwards.
Two days later Glen Alpine, Jr., was left in a livery stable
at Panhandle City, and I boarded an A. T. & S. F. Ry. train for
Woodward, Oklahoma, one of the new boom towns in the recently
opened-to-settlement “Cherokee strip.”
In Woodward several former cowboy friends were met, among them being
two cowboys who had worked under me on the range. One, Billy Bell, was
a brother to Johnny Bell who gave me the saddle. The other was Jim
Goeber, late sheriff of Potter County, Texas, in which county the L X
ranch and Amarillo are situated. Here I also met Temple Houston, a son
of the Lone Star State hero, Sam Houston. He was a bright lawyer, and
through liquor, had become a man-killer, so I was told. But whiskey
soon put him under the sod, judging from later newspaper accounts.
After investigating matters connected with my operation, I returned to
Panhandle City, where Glen Alpine, Jr., was mounted, and a start made
south.
One night was spent at the Charlie Goodnight ranch, where next day I
rode out in the pasture to see the Goodnight herd of buffalo and some
half-breeds.
Mr. and Mrs. Goodnight were not at home, therefore I didn’t get to
see them. In the early days I had eaten meals with them both in cow
camps, and on one occasion, Mrs. Goodnight, a good-hearted little lady,
divided the wild berries which she had gathered, with me. For this I
have always held her in high esteem, as in those days women in the
Panhandle country were scarce and far between.
My work lay mostly in Greer County, Oklahoma, Mangum being the county
seat, and across the north fork of Red River, on the Comanche
Reservation in the Indian Territory. This brought me onto ground gone
over by Tim W. in the Tuscarora, Nevada, operation.
Finally I rode to Vernon, Texas, on the Fort Worth Railroad, to work
on Mr. C. T. Merrick, a big cattle king, now a banker in that town.
From him I gained much valuable information about the Bill Blank
cattle, without his knowing my object. I visited at his home and became
acquainted with his lovely wife. He is a Prince and she a Queen, of the
American kind.
In Vernon, Glen Alpine, Jr., was left in a livery stable and I boarded
a train for the cities of Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.
In Austin, the capital city, I made the acquaintance of the noted
Robert G. Ingersoll and his good wife. We rode in the same car to San
Antonio, and I had the pleasure of a private talk with this great man.
In and around San Antonio I found out all about the steers purchased by
Bill Blank. Trips were made out on the range where the steers had been
purchased, and the end of one horn cut off, and I also found where a
man whom we will call Capt. Dash had bought a herd of steers with the
same ranch brands as the ones bought by Blank, and the tips of both
horns of these were cut off, and thereby hangs the tale of this plot.
In the course of time I got back to Vernon and found Glen Alpine, Jr.,
seal-fat, so that he bucked like the old Harry when I mounted him.
Finally I bade goodby to my friends in Vernon and started on a six
hundred mile ride for New Mexico on trail of a herd of cattle driven to
New Mexico by Bill Blank the previous summer.
On reaching the staked plains my road was as level as a floor for about
two hundred miles. It was indeed a revelation to me how these plains
had settled up with a hardy race of small ranchmen, with windmills to
furnish water. In former days I had scouted all over these plains in
search of L X cattle which were in the habit of following the buffalo
south, and at that time there were no settlers at all. Now, windmills
could be counted by the hundreds in a day’s ride.
West of Plainview, near the eastern line of New Mexico, I stopped with
a gentlemanly young nephew of Bill Blank’s so as to work on him and
find out on the sly about the herd of cattle driven to Arizona by his
wide-awake uncle.
Before reaching the Pecos River my good name saved me from losing
supper and sleeping out in the cold without bedding. The ranches here
were far between.
Night had almost overtaken me when I rode up to a Mr. Taylor’s ranch.
Tying Glen Alpine, Jr., to the gatepost I knocked on the door. It
required several knocks to bring results. Finally the door opened just
a little and a nice-looking young woman who proved to be Mrs. Taylor,
asked what was wanted. I requested to stay all night. She was sorry
but had to refuse on account of her husband being absent, and she and
Miss Alice Littlefield being alone. I asked if Miss Littlefield was
related to Jim and Geo. Littlefield, and to my friends, Phelps and Tom
White. She answered yes, that Alice was a daughter of Jim’s. Then I
gave my true name and Miss Alice opened the door wide and gave me a
hearty welcome, after introducing me to Mrs. Taylor. Miss Alice and I
had never met, but knew each other by reputation. I had worked on the
cattle trail between Texas and Kansas for her uncle and father before
she was born.
The two ladies had a big laugh over their plans to fight me to a finish
in case I insisted on stopping. Their guns were primed and cocked for
my benefit, as they supposed I was a desperado, from the fact of my
having a Winchester rifle on my saddle and a pistol strapped around my
waist, for people in this country had become civilized and quit loading
themselves down with firearms.
I spent a pleasant night and found Mrs. Taylor to be a jolly good
little woman, and Miss Littlefield was a lovely and highly educated
young woman who seemed out of place in this desolate country.
Two days later I put up for the night at the Lewis ranch on the Pecos
river, forty-five miles above the lively town of Roswell, New Mexico.
I got an early start from the Lewis ranch next morning, as the distance
to the next water was about 90 miles across a desert country, without
roads or habitation.
A lunch was put up for me by Mrs. Lewis, and with a full canteen of
water I started. I had made a trip over this desert country once
before in 1881, with Lon Chambers, when we rode from the L X ranch
in Texas, to Lincoln, New Mexico, there to meet Deputy United States
Marshal John W. Poe, and act as witnesses in the noted “Billy the Kid”
cattle-stealing case. On the trip we came very near perishing for want
of water, as our horses played out.
Recalling my past experience in crossing this desert, I couldn’t help
feeling a little shaky, starting out alone, though I had great faith in
my horse not playing out this time, for I had come to the conclusion
that there was no getting tired with this son of that great horse, Glen
Alpine. With faith in one’s horse the battle is half won.
We headed for the Capitan mountains, which were in sight. There being
no road and the ground being rough and soft, we made slow headway.
Often “Glen” would go up to his knees in the soft gypsum soil, which
is full of caves. At noon I stopped an hour to let “Glen” graze and
to eat my lunch. I had water, but poor “Glen” had none. By sundown we
had traveled about fifty miles, which was equal to seventy-five over
a good road. “Glen” was beginning to act tired, though I think it was
more from the lack of water, as the day had been very hot There was one
small drink left in the canteen and I had been saving it for the past
couple of hours as a life-preserver.
Just at dusk I dismounted to fix the saddle tightly on “Glen’s” back
for the thirty-mile night ride to water. The front cinch was tightened
and I was pulling up the flank one, when “Glen” went to bawling and
pitching. He bucked ’round and ’round, taking me with him. I hung
onto the bridle reins for dear life. Finally I had to turn loose, and
“Glen” was soon only a streak of brown in the twilight. At last the
streak disappeared entirely. He had gone back the way we had come, at a
clip which did credit to his ancestors. I swore a blue streak for not
drinking the last water in the canteen while I had the opportunity.
I stood still for a few moments, wondering what to do. There to the
southwest lay the dim outlines of the Capitan mountains, a walk of
thirty miles to the first water. And towards the east, nothing but
a desolate-looking stretch of darkness. I could still see “Glen’s”
tracks, and my mind was finally settled on following them so long
as they could be seen. Therefore I struck out in a trot “all same”
Comanche Indian on trail of his supper when following a wounded deer.
A run of about one mile brought me to where I could no longer see
the tracks. There I stopped to go back, rather than risk the sixty
mile walk to the Pecos River without water. I began to wish that I
had given up the detective business before starting into it, for the
future looked a little scaly to me then. My tongue was already swollen
slightly, and there was no guessing how it would be by morning.
I could see a dark object which looked like a clump of bushes, off to
the east about a quarter of a mile. A faint hope sprung up in my heart
that this might be “Glen” who had gotten his foot in the bridle reins
and had to stop. Finally I concluded to investigate this dark object
and when within a hundred yards of it a loud snort reached my ears
and away he flew. My heart beat with joy at being so near water, even
though it was out of reach. “Glen” was soon out of sight again, but I
ran in the direction he had gone. In a few moments the dark object hove
in sight again. Here I concluded to use my brain against common horse
sense. I walked leisurely around the dark spot until I was east of it.
Then I began to whistle favorite tunes, now and then sitting down to
give “Glen” a chance to get used to me. When within a few yards of him
he began to snort. I sat down and pulled grass, speaking to him all the
while. On getting hold of the broken bridle rein I felt just like I did
when the soldiers arrived in Wallace, Idaho,--like shouting hurrah for
America.
The canteen and rifle were still on the saddle. The water was gone--out
of sight, just as soon as the canteen could be put to my parched lips.
On mounting “Glen” I gave him to understand, by tickling him with the
spurs, that he couldn’t lag back and pretend that he was tired, as he
did an hour earlier.
About midnight we reached the slope of the Capitan mountains. Then
“Glen” was unsaddled and staked out to a bush, and I lay down on the
saddle blanket with the saddle for a pillow, and went to sleep.
Next morning at 8 o’clock we filled up with water out of a large
reservoir on the wagon road between White Oaks and Roswell, and at
10:30 A.M. we ate a square meal in the town of White Oaks.
As this town had been my headquarters during the winter of 1880 and
’81, when in charge of a squad of cowboys on trail of the noted “Billy
the Kid” and his desperate gang of outlaws, I was soon shaking hands
with old friends. Among them were Attorney John Y. Hewett and his
partner, Wm. Watson, then the well-to-do owners of the rich Old Abe
gold mine, of White Oaks.
Of course, Judge John Y. Hewett and I “harked back” to the winter of
1880 when I gave him his first law case. He had drifted into this new
mining camp and had put out a shingle as a lawyer.
During the winter one of my “rangers” as they were called by
the natives, got into a shooting scrape with Sheldon, the town
schoolmaster, and I hired Lawyer Hewett to defend my man, “Big-foot
Wallace,” whose right name was Frank Clifford.
The trial came off before Judge Frank Lea, Justice of the Peace, and
Hewett won his first case by freeing “Big-foot Wallace.”
But poor big-hearted “Big-foot Wallace” became an outlaw after quitting
my outfit in Texas the following summer. I still retain the tintype
photo of him sent to me from Old Mexico after he had shaken the dust of
Uncle Sam’s domain from his number ten boots. In his letter he bade me
goodby, saying that in all likelihood we would never meet again.
He and Ethan Allen, of White Oaks, had just held up a store and
secured money and jewelry, at Los Lunas, New Mexico, on the Rio Grande
River. At Socorro a posse of officers surrounded them. Young Allen was
captured, but “Big-foot Wallace” made his getaway by swimming his horse
across the raging Rio Grande. The officers dare not follow as the river
was up and dangerous for man and beast.
Young Allen was held at Socorro, the scene of the robbery, and placed
in the town jail along with a negro criminal, and the same White Oaks
schoolmaster, Sheldon, whom “Big-foot Wallace” had the shooting scrape
with. Mr. Sheldon had been on a drunk that day and was put in jail to
sober up.
That night a mob of Mexicans broke open the jail, liberating the
negro and hanging Mr. Sheldon and Ethan Allen. They did this to
spite the white “gringos” for hanging the Baca brothers in Socorro a
short time previous. Of course, this was tough on the well-educated
eastern schoolmaster, whose worst sin was a love for “firewater.” Had
“Big-foot” been captured, he too would have met the same fate, and he
and Sheldon could have buried their hatchet of bitter hatred while
the ropes were being adjusted about their necks. Such was life in the
untamed west.
[Illustration: BIG-FOOT WALLACE.]
In White Oaks I also met other old friends, among them being Jones
Taliaferro and his wife. Also Dr. M. G. Paden and Paul Mayer. The
latter owned the livery stable of the town and his brother was the
“City” Marshal.
Marshal Mayer had a complicated case on his hands, and knowing me to be
a Dickenson detective, he asked that I solve it for him.
A miner with a sauerkraut brogue had been paid off the day before, and
put the $300 in a trunk in his cabin, and while he was up town that
night, some one with an axe broke in the door, then broke the trunk
open and skipped with the money. I told Mayer that I was too tired to
do my best as a sleuth, but that if he would bring “Dutchy’s” partner,
Williams, of Irish extraction, to my room at the Hotel Ozane and leave
him locked up with me, I would do my best to recover the money.
Williams stood on his dignity for awhile, then first on one foot, then
the other, until he became tired and broke down. The $300 was turned
over to poor “Dutchy,” who took the first stage for the railroad. He
wanted to pay me for my trouble, but I refused it, something out of the
ordinary for a detective.
This gave me a local standing as a sleuth, and quieted my nerves after
that hard ride, by swelling my head, thus giving the blood more room
for circulation.
Two days later I started north, continuing on trail of a young Texan
whom I will call “Cunny” for short. He had been a cowboy for Bill Blank
at his White Mountain ranch in Arizona, and had helped drive the cattle
which I thought might be some of the stolen steers from the Indian
Territory to Arizona.
One hundred miles north of White Oaks I found “Cunny” in the mining
camp of San Pedro. We soon became warm friends and I worked him for
all he knew, without his knowing who I was. But later I told him my
business, and our friendship continued.
My investigation showed that none of the steers had been driven to the
Arizona ranch. They had been stolen in a more honorable way, a way that
few old-time Texas cattlemen would call stealing. It was on the order
of horse trading in Texas,--to the sharpest trader belong the spoils.
In fact, many Texans would have patted Bill Blank on the back with
“well done, Bill old boy.”
The scheme was well carried out from start to finish, as follows:
Bill Blank and Capt. Dash had laid the plot together, so I was
informed, and my whole work indicated that it was true.
In the early Spring both went to San Antonio, Texas, and bought each a
herd of steers from the same ranchmen, so that the cattle would have
the same brands on them. The herds were put up at the same time. Capt.
Dash cut the tip of both horns off, while Bill Blank cut the tip of
one off. This was done supposedly, to tell them apart, should they
ever become mixed together, as both herds were bound for the Indian
Territory. On the Comanche reservation both men had secured leases
of a certain stretch of range, adjoining each other. Bill Blank had
borrowed the money with which to buy his steers, giving a mortgage on
a certain number of cattle with designated ranch brands, and the end
of one horn cut off. Being on adjoining ranges the two herds naturally
became mixed, and the summer and fall was spent by the Blank and Dash
cowboys in cutting the remaining horn off the Bill Blank steers, thus
transferring them from Blank to Dash.
As the steers waxed fat in the Fall Capt. Dash had many feeders to sell
on the eastern market, and the cowboys were kept busy gathering to
ship. When Capt. Dash was through shipping, Bill Blank concluded to let
the brokers in Kansas City, who had loaned him the money, foreclose the
mortgage, but they couldn’t find anything to foreclose on. Bill Blank
had taken a back seat from whence he could, with a broad smile, view
the windup. And then your humble servant came onto the scene and took a
front seat, playing one of the last acts in the drama.
In order to keep in touch with “Cunny” in case we needed him as a
witness, I hired him to take charge of my Sunny Slope ranch, a couple
of miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico, which I was fixing up for a
“hobby-horse” to ride in my old age. I really needed a man to run the
place, and by hiring “Cunny” I could kill two birds with one stone.
It required two days of my valuable time to get “Cunny” pulled away
from his Mexican sweetheart in San Pedro.
Santa Fe is only forty miles north of San Pedro, therefore we didn’t
have far to go. “Glen” was left on my ranch in “Cunny’s” care, while I
returned to Denver and discontinued the operation, after being on it
about four months.
I have never heard what action our clients took against Bill Blank.
They may have exposed the scheme to Blank and got a partial settlement,
and again, they may have concluded to pocket their losses and in
future lock their stable door before the horse is stolen, especially
if old-time Texas cowmen of the tricky horse-trading kind are prowling
around.
“Cunny” was never called on as a witness against Bill Blank. He had
charge of my ranch for two years and then went to mining on a prospect
in which I was interested. Thus he swore off being a wild and wooly
cowboy, and is now a prosperous mine expert in the booming gold
districts of Nevada.
Glen Alpine, Jr., lived a retired easy life on my Sunny Slope
“hobby-horse” and died at the age of fifteen, though he never quit the
habit of bucking, even in his old age.
On one occasion he gave a “bloody” Scotchman a “touch of high life,”
which was bloody in fact, at the windup.
John Hart, a friend of mine from Denver, but now living in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, wanted the satisfaction of riding a good horse once in his
life, so I let him ride “Glen.”
We started from the Sunny Slope ranch to take a forty-mile ride to
Bland. I was on my pet mare, Lula.
Now, Hart was an expert as a carpenter and contractor, but as a bronco
buster he proved a total failure before we had gone ten miles on our
journey. Saying, “Come on Hart,” I started Lula off in a swift gallop.
In a moment I looked back just in time to see poor Hart in the air and
“Glen” running towards me. Hart swore he didn’t do a thing but dig the
“bloody hold ’orse” in the side with his heels, after I had started.
Having some sticking plaster in my pocket, Hart’s face, hand and elbow
were patched up. He said the hard stony ground had come up and struck
him before he was ready, for he figured that one-half of a somersault
more would have saved his face by landing him on the fleshy part of his
pants.
Hart rode Lula the balance of the trip.