American neglect of natural history--Prairie-dogs again; their
courtesy and colouring--Their indifference to science--A hard
crowd--Chuckers out--Makeshift Colorado.
"HAVE we struck another city?" I asked on awaking, and finding the
train at a standstill.
"No, sir," said the conductor, "only a water-tank."
"You see," I explained, "there are so many 'cities' on the Railway
Companies' maps that one hardly dares to turn one's head from the
window, lest one should let slip a few--so I thought it best to ask."
No, it didn't look like a country of many cities. It was Texas. And the
grazing land stretched on either side of us to the horizon, without
even a cow to break the dead level of the surface. It was patched,
however, with wildflowers. Yellow verbena and purple grew in acres
together. And then the breakfasting station suddenly overtook us. It
was called Coya, and we ate refuse. When we complained, the man and his
wife--knock-kneed folk--deplored almost with tears their distance from
any food supply, and vowed they had done their best. And while they
vowed, we starved on damaged tomatoes; and on paying the man I gave him
advice to go and buy some potter's field with the proceeds, and to act
accordingly.
What I hate about being starved is, that you can't smoke afterwards.
The best part of a good meal is the pipe afterwards, and the more ample
the meal the better the subsequent weed. But on a pint of bad tomatoes
no man can smoke with comfort to his stomach. But I ate bananas till
I thought I had qualified for tobacco, and with my pipe came more
kindly thoughts. Outside the cars the country was doing all it could to
soothe me, for the meadows were fairly ablaze with flowers. They were
in distracting profusion and of beautiful kinds. I knew most of them
as garden and hothouse flowers in England, but not their names; the
verbenas, however, were unmistakable, and so was the "painted daisy."
It suffices, however, that the country seemed a wild garden as far as
the eye could reach, yellow and orange being as usual the prevailing
colours.
This determination of wild flowers to these colours is a point worth
the notice of science. And why are the very great majority of Spring
flowers yellow?
One of my companions called this distraction of colour a
"weed-prairie," which reminds me to say that it is perfectly amazing
how indifferent the present generation of Western Americans are to the
natural history of their country. They cannot easily mistake a crow or
a rose. But all other birds, except "snipe" and "prairie chickens,"
seem to be divided into "robins" and "sparrows;" and all flowers, the
sunflower and the violet, into lilies and primroses. They have not had
time yet, they say, to notice the weeds and bugs that are about. But,
in the meantime, a most appalling confusion of nomenclature is taking
root. As with eatables and other things, the emigrants to the States
have taken with them from Europe the names of the most familiar flowers
and birds, and anything that takes their fancy is at once christened
with their names.
As the sun rose the population of these painted meadows came abroad,
multitudes of rabbits, a few "chapparal hens," and myriads--literally
myriads--of brilliant butterflies.
And so on for a hundred miles. And then Texas gets a little tired of
so much level land and begins to undulate. Dry river-beds are passed,
and then a muskeet "chapparal" commences, and with it a prodigious
city of prairie-dogs. But the inhabitants are partially civilized. The
train does not alarm them in the least. It does not even arouse their
curiosity. They sit a few feet off the rails, with their backs to the
passing trains. Perhaps they may look over their shoulders at it. But
they do not interrupt their gambols nor their work for such a trifle
as a train. They eat and squabble and flirt--do anything, in fact, but
run away. Now and then, as if out of good taste and not to appear too
affected, they make a show of moving a little out of the way. But the
motive is so transparent that the trivial change of position counts for
nothing. The jack-rabbit imitates the prairie-dog, just as the Indian
imitates the white man, and pretends that it too does not care about
the train. But there is an expression on its ears that betrays its
nervousness; and why, too, does it always manage to get under the shady
side of the nearest bush?
One thing more about the prairie-dog, and I have done with him. The
soil east of Colorado city changes for a while in colour, being
reddish. Before this it had been sandy. And the prairie-dog alters its
colour to suit its soil. You might say of course that the dust round
its burrows tinged its fur, just as dust will tinge anything it settles
on. But it is a fact that the fur itself is redder where the soil is
redder, and that in the two tracts the little animal assimilates itself
to the ground it sits upon. And the advantage is obvious. Dozens of
prairie-dogs sitting motionless on the soil harmonized so exactly with
their surroundings that for a time I did not observe them. Detecting
one I soon learned to detect all. Now one of the grey prairie dogs on
the red soil would have been very conspicuous, just as conspicuous in
fact as a red one would have been trying to pass unobserved on the
lighter soil.
The undulations now increase into valleys, and splendid they are, with
their rich crops of wild hay and abundant life. The train stops at
a "station" (I am not sure that it has earned a name yet), and some
cowboys, and dreadful of their kind, get on to the train. But it is
only for an hour or so. But during that hour the prairie-dogs had much
excitement given them by the perpetual discharging of revolvers into
the middle of their family parties. It is impossible to say whether any
of them were hit, for the prairie-dog tumbles into his hole with equal
rapidity, whether he is alive or dead. But I hope they escaped. For I
have a great tenderness for all the small ministers of Nature, in fur
and in feathers.
"Their task in silence perfecting, Still working, blaming still our
vain turmoil, Labours that shall not fail, when man is gone."
And yet I would be reluctant to say that their indifference to express
trains should be encouraged. I don't like to see prairie-dogs thus
regardless of the latest triumphs of science. And so if the cowboys'
revolvers frightened them a little, let it pass.
The train stopped again at another "station," and our cowboy passengers
got out, being greeted by two evil-looking vagabonds lying in the shade
of a shrub. The meeting of these worthies looked unmistakably like that
of thieves re-assembling after some criminal expedition. All alike
seemed eager to converse, but they evidently had to wait till the train
was gone. One man had a bundle which he held very tight (so it seemed
to us) between his legs. A few muttered sentences were exchanged, the
speakers turning their heads away from the train while they talked,
and the rest assuming a most ludicrous affectation of indifference
to what was being said. We started off, and looking out at them from
the rear platform of the car, I saw they were already in full talk.
Their animated gestures were almost as significant as words. Had I
referred to the conductor I might have saved myself all conjecture. For
mentioning my suspicions to him, he said, "Oh, yes! Those Rangers who
got off at Coya are after that crowd: and they're a hard crowd too."
They were, without doubt, a terribly "hard crowd" to look at, these
cowboy-men. In England they would probably have followed "chucking out"
as a profession. I remember in a police court, during election time,
seeing some hulking victims of the police charged with "rioting." But
they pleaded, in justification of turbulence, that they were "chuckers
out of meetings!" They had been captured when expelling the supporters
of a rival candidate from a public hall with the fag ends of furniture,
and made no attempt at concealment of their misdemeanour. They were
paid, they said, to chuck out, and chucked out accordingly, to the best
of their intelligence and ability, and when overpowered by the police
attempted no subterfuge. Their stock-in-trade were broad shoulders and
prodigious muscle. For any odd job of fancy work they would perhaps
provide themselves with a few old eggs or put a dead cat or two into
their pockets. But, as a rule, when they went out to business they took
only their fists and their hob-nailed boots with them, relying upon
the meeting room to provide them with table legs and chairs. As soon
as the signal for the disturbance was given, the chuckers-out "went
for" the furniture, and, armed with a convenient fragment, looked about
for people whom they ought to chuck. There were plenty to choose from,
for a meeting consists, as a rule, of several or more persons, and the
chuckers-out having marked down a knot of the enemy, would proceed
to eject them, individually if refractory, in a body if docile, and
would thus, if unopposed by police, gradually empty the room. There is
something very humorous in this method of invalidating an obnoxious
orator's arguments, for nothing weakens the force of a speech so much
as the total absence of the audience. Nevertheless, the chucker-out
sees no humour in his job. It is all serious business to him, and so he
goes through his chucking with uncompromising severity. Now and then,
perhaps, he expels the wrong man, or visits the political offences
of an enemy upon the innocent head of one of his own party; but in
political discussions with the legs of tables and brickbats, such
mistakes can hardly help occurring.
And the beautiful undulating meadows continue, sprinkled over with
shrub-like trees, and populous with rabbits and prairie-dogs and
chapparal hens. Here and there we come upon small companies of cattle
and horses, most contented with their pastures; but what an utter
desolation this vast tract seems to be! The "stations" are, as yet,
mere single houses, and we hardly see a human being in an hour. And
then comes Colorado, a queer makeshift-looking town, with apparently
only one permanent place of habitation in it--the jail.
Beyond the town we passed some Mexicans supposed to be working, but
apparently passing time by pelting stones at the snakes in the water,
and soon after stopped to take up some Texan Rangers for the protection
of our train during the night. These Rangers reminded me very much of a
Boer patrol, and there is no doubt that both cowboys and Indians find
them far too efficient for comfort. They are, as a rule, good shots,
and all are of course good riders. The pay is good, and, "for a spell"
as one of them said, the work was "well enough." And as the evening
closed in, and we began to enter a country of dark jungle-looking land,
the scene seemed as appropriate as possible for a Texan adventure. But
nothing more exciting than cicadas disturbed our sleep. Somebody said
they were "katydids," but they were not--they were much katydider.