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WAS-IN-FLOWER

G • SMITH • STAN TON

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1936

"When the Wildwood Was in Flower."

A NARRATIVE

COVERING THE FIFTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCES OF
A NEW YORKER ON THE WESTERN PLAINS.

BY

G. SMITH STANTON, .,
Author of "Where the Sportsman Loves tg .Linger," efcial.

i»ROPEtRTT OF
C«terado free Imvdmg Ubrati

New York:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 Rose Street.

Copyright, 1910, by
G. SMITH STANTON

To those men and women who endured the hardships and
braved the dangers of the frontier that their descend
ants might enjoy the comforts and benefits of
civilization, this volume is dedicated.

PREFACE.
The object of this little volume is two-fold. First, the
author was one of the pioneers of the great West, and he
thought his reminiscences would be of some value from
a historical standpoint, and, secondly, the recounting of
his experience with one of the gigantic trusts might help
to arouse public opinion to the necessity of crushing those
great combinations ere they become the absolute dictators
of our government.

c

CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.
New York to "the End of the Line"  11
CHAPTER II.
Following the Trail  ,  19
CHAPTER III.
Life on the Frontier  28
CHAPTER IV.
Reminders of By-gone Days  37
CHAPTER V.
Winter on the Prairie  51
CHAPTER VI.
Running a Stock Ranch  61
CHAPTER VII.
Shipping Stock to Chicago  74
CHAPTER VIII.
Atmospheric Disturbances  86

8 contents.
CHAPTER IX. PAOB
Up Against the Red Man  94
CHAPTER X.
The Plains and the Rockies  103
CHAPTER XI.
The Passing of the Stockman  117

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE
West Point  12
Where Fort Dearborn Once Stooid  13
On the Grade  17
The Alkali Overland Coach  19"
"Hands Up !"  22
The Valley of the Boyer, Woodbine  23
This is "By"  29
A Prairie Wolf  31
The Valley of the Pigeon— "Stanton's Ranch"  34
"Joe" Smith  42
Where the Burglars Tried to Work Pusey and His
Combination  44
Braden in His Younger Days  48
When the Wildwood Was in Flower  49
The Author, When Mayor of Woodbine, Iowa  52
The Author's Residence, Great Neck, Long Island, N. Y. 54
First Touch of Winter on the Northwestern  57
Would I Were on the Plains Again  60
A Self-binder  62
The Beef Trust Will Get the Profit  64
The Author  71
"Johnny" Wells.  76
Moingona Bridge, Scene of Kate Shelly's Heroic Act 79
The Home of the Stockman and His Herd  82
The Mother Watching the Branding of Its Offspring. . 85
The Author's Wife and Her Indian Pony  88

10 list of illustrations.

PAGE

"Texas," Our Mainstay  91
Little Wolf's Double  95
The Original American  98
Dinner Is Now Ready in the Dining Car  101
Omaha  104
Denver and the Ever Snow-capped Rockies  Ill
Fryer's Hill in the Long Ago  113
The Little Pittsburg in the Good Old Days  115
My Last Bunch of Stock  119
Union Stock Yards, Chicago  121

When the Wildwood was in Flower

CHAPTER I.

Back in the early sixties, as the announcer of the arrival
and departure of trains at the old Thirtieth Street Depot,
New York City, over the Hudson River Railroad, was call
ing "Chicago express now ready," the author of this little
volume, grip in hand, was about to follow the admonition
of the greatest editor the New York Tribune ever had —
"Go West, young man !" This particular young man had
recently graduated from the Columbia College Law School,
and on account of his health had decided to start a stock
ranch on a large tract of land in western Iowa left to him
in the will of his grandfather, Judge Daniel Cady. Think
of the transformation from a law office in Nassau Street
to an isolated stock ranch on the Missouri River! While
the train was passing West Point we were performing the
disrobing act prior to our taking advantage of the invent
ive genius of one Mr. Wagner. For eight hours of re
freshing sleep we returned thanks to mine host Wagner.
As we passed through the metropolis of the West, situated
on the western shore of Lake Michigan in that one-time
11

12

when the wildwood was in flower

bog-hole where Fort Dearborn once stood, little did I know
what an important part in my future the Union stock
yards of that great city were to play.

West Point.
Upon my arrival at Chicago I got my first glimpse of the
breezy West. How different was the metropolis of the
West at that time from that of the East! How different
the citizenship of State Street from that of Broadway!
Men predominated on State Street. Instead of the fashion
ably dressed lady of Fifth Avenue, you met her Western
sister plainly garbed. How great the contrast between
the men of the "wild and woolly West" and those of the
East! The slouch hat instead of the English tile. Ill-
fitting clothes and an unkempt appearance instead of the
well groomed. The citizens of the great and mighty
West beyond mingled with the throng. Mountaineers

NEW YORK TO "THE END OF THE LINE/

13

from the Rockies, cowboys from the plains, stockmen
from the grazing country and wheat kings from the Da-
kotas rubbed shoulders as they bustled along the thorough
fares of the great city by the lake, the supply depot for the
vast country to the West, the recipient of the products of
the States between the lakes and the Great Divide, the

Where Fort Dearborn Once Stood.
greatest railroad center in America and the receiver of
more grain and stock than any city of our Union. Fortu
nate for me it was that at the Sherman House — at that
time the leading hostelry of Chicago — I met a gentleman
whose acquaintance I formed in New York, Mr. Dalrymple,
the wheat king of the world. With him I visited the
great elevators through which the grain raised over

14 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
the prairie States passed into vessels and in them over the
lakes and across the sea. We also visited the packing
houses from which the world drew its supplies.
-. I thought I had seen at Castle Garden in New York a
motley crowd of immigrants, but the sight I beheld at the
depot of the Northwestern Railroad capped anything I
ever saw at the Battery, and the worst of it was that the
immigrant cars were being hitched onto the train I was
taking, and for some unaccountable reason they were
coupled on between the sleeper and the regular pas
senger coaches. What a mixture of humanity was on
that train. The regular day coaches were occupied
solely by men, the majority of them recruits from New
York City and Chicago, for some special work in the West.
The effluvia from the immigrant cars so permeated the
sleeper that I spent most of the time in the day coaches.
In my young days I circulated along the Bowery and
thought I had seen a tough element, but the boys who occu
pied the smoker and day coaches of that train had the
Bowery left at the post. Every one of them had anywhere
from a pint to a quart of whiskey and were playing cards,
swearing and fighting the length of the cars. It was a
choice between the American citizen in the front cars and
the effluvia of the newly arrived in the immigrant portion.
I wondered what those immigrants thought of the natives
of the country of which they were about to become citizens.
After leaving Chicago as we crossed the level prairies of
the State of Illinois I recalled the great debate of those two
sons of the Sucker State, Lincoln and Douglas. What an
example the greatest President since Washington set of
honesty both in and out of politics. Has the greed for the
almighty dollar so warped us all that we care not to emu
late his noble example? If Lincoln were alive to-day does

15
any one doubt where he would stand in the contest being
waged between the rights of the individual and the wrongs
of the combination? How long is the great and mighty
West to be dominated by Wall Street? But the awakening
will come, and by the people and through the people.
Though legislative halls and courts fail, still it will come.
I saw an uprising once, but God forbid that I ever witness
another. I refer to what was known as the July riots of
1863 in New York City. For three days the great City of
New York was at the mercy of the mob. The police dared
not leave their precincts, the militia kept to their armories,
everybody was cowed, there was no government. I was a
deputy for a time, sworn in to protect Mayor Opdyke in his
palatial residence on Fifth Avenue. I there saw how help
less was government when the mob arose. During one of
those awful days I was the custodian of Horace Greeley at
the home of my uncle, Dr. Bayard, at 6 West Fourteenth
Street. Mr. Greeley was taken away from his own home to
save his life from an infuriated mob. Notwithstanding that
Mr. Greeley was always a defender of the right, yet they
sought his life. From that circumstance I learned that no
prominent person is safe when revolution breaks forth.
What is now known as the Chicago and Northwest
ern Railroad was the first railway across Iowa, and it
had rails laid at that time to the town of Montana, now
Boone, about 200 miles west of the Mississippi River. Not
withstanding it is over forty years since I first saw that
frontier town, still I can see it to-day as vividly as when
I stepped from the train just as the sun was showing
its head over the prairies of the Hawk eye State. Daily
stages started for the West, but I thought I would tarry
a day or two and look around. When I was attending
Columbia College Law School in Lafayette Place, New

16 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
York City, we were living on West Forty-fifth Street. I
always walked to and from the school. My course lay down
Fifth Avenue to Broadway, and down Broadway to Astor
Place. There was nothing about Boone that reminded me
of Fifth Avenue or Broadway.
Imagine about two hundred one-story, detached, frame
buildings, about every other one a saloon, gambling-house
or dance-hall, strung along a street — simply a stretch of
prairie about 60 feet in width — with not a tree in sight,
crowded with a sample of every brand of citizen from
border to border, and you can pretty nearly size up a town
at "the end of the line." The buildings were thrown to
gether, as it was only a question of thirty days before they
would be again moved to "the end of the line." There was
plenty of music and whiskey. Occasional fights added to
the excitement. Tall, black-mustached, rough-looking men,
with wide sombreros, their pants in their boots, armed
cap-a-pie, jostled their way through the street looking for
trouble and generally finding it. Young officers from the
government forts, dressed in the uniform of the United
States army, were sipping wine with straw-haired girls.
Indians decked out with feathers, moccasins and a blan
ket, were on the still hunt for firewater to drink and dogs
to eat. One of the Indians, more successful than the oth
ers, got too much firewater. He had shed his blanket, and,
in the garb of Adam, with the exception of feathers on his
head and moccasins on his feet, with a war-whoop, knife
in hand, undertook to carve a way up the street. Above
the heads of the retreating crowd circled a lariat, and as
it settled over the red man's shoulders if tightened, and Mr.
Indian bounced behind a cowboy's pony to the cooler.
Leaning against the bars were young men from the
East, each a mother's hope and pride^ who had left their

NEW YORK TO "THE END OF THE LINE.

17

happy homes to seek their fortunes in the new Eldorado.
The men behind the bar, those in front of it, and the fellow
waiting to be asked, were trying to express their views at
one and the same time. Capitalists from New York and
England, with mining engineers, were on their way to

On the Grade.
the Rockies. Unhaltered mules wandered around the town,
and every now and then some vicious cuss with his ears
back would kick a swath down the thoroughfare. Lumber
ing oxen were slowly moving through the street yoked to
wagons marked "U. S.," loaded with grain and provisions
for the forts and reservations. Long lines of mule teams
were constantly going down the grade carting scrapers,
grain and grub.

18 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
It is astonishing the profanity it requires to build a rail
road. If profanity were of intrinsic value and could be
put in cold storage, I heard enough of it the two days I
passed in Boone to pay the dividends on the stock of the
Northwestern for generations to come. Prairie schooners
loaded with the families and household effects of sons of
toil from Indiana and Illinois were winding their way
through the outskirts of the town to accept Uncle Sam's
hospitality and settle on the plains to the westward. Herds
of grass-fed cattle, smooth and fat, were arriving from
the luscious grasses of the Missouri River plateau to be
shipped to the Eastern markets, and paid-off cowboys
would ride on bucking ponies through the dance-houses
shooting daylight through the roofs. All night long ties
and rails were being unloaded from gondola and box cars.
There was one great satisfaction in it all, everybody was
an American, and English the only language heard. The
immigrant from the other side had not yet driven the
American from the labor market. The sense of fair play
pervaded the community, and there was a body of citizens
always standing around who took particular pains to see
that everybody, no matter who or what he was, got a square
deal.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL.

19

CHAPTER II.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL.

The second morning after my arrival I took the stage
for the West. The outfit was similar to the now historic
Deadwood Coach. With seven passengers besides myself,

The Alkali Overland Coach.

it started down the road for the bridge over the Des Moines
River, and the limitless prairies beyond. Sitting bolt up
right for thirty-six hours, with only short intervals to

20 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
stretch your legs and supply the inner man, was quite a
change from the lower berth of a Pullman and "dinner is
now ready in the dining-car." Think of the forty-niners;
they had sixteen days and nights of it ! They deserved the
gold they got. Following one of the old stage routes across
the plains would have been a bonanza for the "old hats"
man of the city, as the road was strewn with hats jostled
off from dozing passengers. Frequently passing us, both
day and night, were horsemen going like the wind, whom
I learned were special government and express messengers.
During the night a feeling of lonesomeness came over me.
At every turn of the wheels I felt myself going farther and
farther from the Bowery. It seemed as if I were cutting
loose from everything. I commenced for the first time to
realize the situation, and was fast getting a case of "cold
feet." Think of leaving behind the gay Fashion Course and Hi
ram Woodruff, as we often saw him, holding the ribbons
over some fast trotter ! What a delight after the day's work
was done to stroll down Broadway to Niblo's Garden, and
after the show to drop into John Morrissey's for a mid
night lunch, and to play the ace to win. What a pleasure
it was to look across the footlights at old John Gilbert and
Lester Wallack, or to feel your blood tingle as Edwin
Booth in Hamlet would repeat the lines "Do you see noth
ing there?" What! never to see Dan Bryant and Dave
Reed dance "Shoefly" again? The idea! What a recrea
tion it was to go over to the Elysian Fields in Hoboken
in the afternoon and see the Mutuals play the great Ameri
can game, and in the evening see old Mike Phelan and
Dudley Kavanaugh toy with the ivories ! We often passed
the time of day with Commodore Vanderbilt while driving
through Central Park. How that gifted speaker, James T.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL. 21
Brady, during the war, used to enthuse our patriotism!
What a treat it was to drop into some forum and hear the
learned Charles O'Conor lay down the law. Often have
we gone to the large hall of Cooper Institute and listened
to that graceful elocutionist, Wendell Phillips, deliver one
of his famous lectures, and on Sunday morning to Brook
lyn and heard Brother Beecher tell us what we had to do
to reach the promised land, and in the afternoon to Coney
Island, to eat clams on the half shell at the old Pavilion,
see the three-card monte men fleece the unsophisticated,
and try to wash our sins away among the great combers of
the deep.
I was leaving all this, and more, and what for? My
health. Can health come to the body with the mind in
gloom? Why couldn't we all have health all, the time?
God help the one who has the money and the health ques
tion to contend with at the same time. One is always being
neglected for the other, and, under the pressure of the com
bination, frail humanity soon gives way.
What a sweep there is to the imagination and what
timidity comes with the stilly night! I felt as if I
Avanted to jump from the stage and bolt back to
Boone, and very likely would if I hadn't suddenly
been brought to my senses by a sharp command — -
"Halt, throw up your hands!" two shots almost simulta
neously, a crack of the whip, and the sudden lunge of the
stage forward. I soon learned that a lone bandit had
attempted to hold us up, and had been shot by the Wells-
Fargo express messenger who sat beside the driver. I
was satisfied to sit still. Instead of meditating, I was
congratulating myself that I was alive and my money safe.
It is an old but true saying that we never know when we

22

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

are well off. That little episode dispelled the gloom, and
"Richard is himself again."
At dusk on the second day we had covered the one hun
dred miles between Boone and a little hamlet forty miles
east of Council Bluffs, consisting of a store, a post-office, a
tavern, two houses and a mill, known as Woodbine, my des
tination. Not very exhilarating surroundings to a youth
fresh from Broadway. Little did I know that years after-

" Hands Up!"
ward a flourishing municipality by the same name would
be built near by on the Northwestern Railroad, and I
would have the honor of being its mayor.
The last twenty-five miles were down the far-famed val
ley of the Boyer River, afterward to prove to be one of
the most productive valleys of one of the best agricultural
States of the Union. It was a lovely spring day. In the
early morn the soft, melodious crowing of the prairie chick
ens greeted us. The prairies were decked out in the flowers

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL.

23

of the wild, and as we bowled along it seemed as if Nature
was doing all she could to make us welcome. Everything
was quiet, peaceful and content. A few years ago I passed
down the same valley. What a change in forty years ! , It
was gashed by two railroads, and where the prairie flower
once bloomed and the wild game flourished, and the Indian,
the only contented individual who ever inhabited America,

The Valley of the Boyer, Woodbine.
roamed at will, were hard-working toilers trying to eke
out an existence. Little hamlets were scattered here and
there, with the daily life similar in all communities, con
taining more shadow than sunshine, and the question was
forced upon me, would it not have been better if the trans
formation had never been made?
Twenty miles from Woodbine, in the isolated valley of
the Pigeon River, I was to live for the next fifteen years.
Near Woodbine on a stock ranch lived the man with whom

24 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
I had become acquainted through correspondence, the one
whom I sought and who willingly assisted me in the enter
prise in which I was about to embark. A man made after
God's own image, no more upright, honorable human being
was ever born than the one whom I was afterward to be
associated with in the great cattle industry of the plains,
Byron C. Adams, better known all over the West and to
every shipper of live stock to Chicago as "By" Adams, and
I hope there is a hereafter, that I may meet my dear friend
again. Upon my arrival at Woodbine, I learnt that my friend
"By" Adams had gone to Shelby County, to bring back
with him one Bill Cuppy who had been drafted, and would
not return for a couple of days. "By" was a deputy provost
marshal during the war, his duties consisting of rounding
up the drafted men. And thereby hangs a tale.
From a map of Iowa I purchased in Chicago, and from
my experiences thereafter, I -found that the word "exagger
ation" was in the Iowa lexicon. I expected to find creeks
called rivers, ponds lakes, but I did not expect to find a
"city" a house and a barn. According to the map, "Jeddo
City" was about two hours' drive away, and I decided that
the two days "By" was after Cuppy I would spend in the
gay resorts of Jeddo City. The tavern-keeper supplied a
driver and the necessary rig, and the next morning after
my arrival, over the prairies we went to Jeddo City. How
gay and happy I felt as we trotted along for Jeddo ! How
I longed for a taste of city life again ! I could see myself
entering one of the leading hotels of the city and writing
my "John Hancock" on its register and taking the elevator
for my room. I did not expect to find a New York, but
certainly "Jeddo City" would have similar earmarks. I
could see myself strolling along the main thoroughfare of

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL. 25
the city with the gay crowd by day, and at night admiring
the chorus as they swung along the footlights. I could see
myself in the crowded restaurants ordering the choice of
the menu. In fact, I was picturing to myself a coun
terpart of the big city on the Hudson.
There was one thing about the driver that I could not
quite fathom. Every time I asked him anything about
Jeddo City, he would look at me and smile. I attributed
the smile to a reminder of some of his experiences in the
great city of Jeddo. It was ten miles from Woodbine to
Jeddo City. After we had traveled what I thought was the
ten miles, I inquired of the driver how much further it was
to Jeddo. Instead of a smile, he said two miles. At every
rise of the road thereafter I expected to see the spires and
hear the roar of the town. At times I thought I could de
tect the chimes of cathedral bells. I commenced to get so
excited with the pleasant anticipation that I felt like jump
ing from the buggy and taking it on the run.
As I began to think those two miles were the longest I
ever experienced the driver brought his horse to a stop in
front of a house which had for its companion a solitary
barn. I asked him what he stopped for. He replied:
"This is Jeddo City." I used to "buck the tiger" at the
resorts along Broadway and there learned the art of being
a good loser. That acquirement stood me in good stead.
In a moment I smothered my surprise and disappointment
and tried to play my part. I got out of the buggy, telling
the driver to wait a moment, and started for the house. I
saw "Post Office" on a board on the side of the house. I
took the cue and inquired if there was any mail for me,
and returned to the buggy, telling the driver that the man
that I wanted to see had died the night before and we would
return to Woodbine.

26 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
If I had kept my mouth shut regarding my trip to
Jeddo, nobody would have been any the wiser, but I told
my friend Adams of the object of my visit to Jeddo, and
"By," ever after, used my Jeddo City experience as one of
his stock stories, and the boys had many a "drive" at me.
But when Bill Cuppy came back from Missouri, he told me
the story of when "By" went to Shelby County to gather
him in, and whenever "By" would forget himself, and start
that Jeddo City story, all I had to say was "Bill Cuppy,"
and "By" would change the subject.
Before Adams started for Cuppy, friends told "By" he
would never bring Cuppy back, and that he should be
mighty careful not to let Cuppy get the drop on him, for
Bill was a bad man. The story Bill told me was as follows :
He knew he had been drafted and was expecting "By" any
day. It was in the fall of the year and Cuppy had a corn
field he was trying to husk out and expected to take a little
trip thereafter, and was hoping that "By" would not show
up until the work was done and he had gotten away. One
afternoon while Cuppy was working might and main rip
ping husks and throwing corn against the extra sideboard,
he saw the smiling countenance of the deputy provost mar
shal coming clown between two rows of corn. The two men
were acquainted, so the greeting was mutual.
Cuppy explained the situation to "By," stating that he
was perfectly willing to go back with him, but he was aw
fully anxious to get that field of corn in the crib, and that
it would take only another day's work. From what they
told "By" about Cuppy, the deputy provost marshal con
cluded that was an easy way out of it. For company's sake
and to help matters along, "By," who was a good corn husk-
er, took one row and Cuppy another. The next morning
"By" was up bright and early ready to finish the job and

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL. 27
start with his prisoner for Council Bluffs. The afternoon
wras nearly gone as the last ear of corn was shoveled into
the crib. "By" agreed with a suggestion of Cuppy's, that
they had better not start over the dreary waste between the
Nishnabotna and Boyer rivers at that time of day. "By"
and Cuppy played cards until about midnight. As "By"
came down to breakfast the next morning, instead of meet
ing Cuppy, he found the following note at his plate :
" 'By' — When we meet again, I shall insist on paying
you for helping me husk out that field of corn. In haste,
"Bill."
It seems that while the deputy provost marshal was
sweetly snoring the night away, Cuppy was behind his best
span of horses heading for Missouri to make an old friend a
long visit.
"By's" story of the event didn't agree with Cuppy's, and
I always thought that Cuppy's version of the circumstances
of his arrest was told as a joke on the deputy provost mar
shal, as Bill Cuppy never ran away from anything, but
there seemed to be enough in it to silence "By" when he
opened up the Jeddo City story.

28 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

CHAPTER III.
LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.
The spring, summer and fall were passed constructing
the necessary buildings, getting together provender, and
scouring with "By" the western part of the State for stock
as a starter. The fellow who made the statement that
horseback riding was the best outdoor exercise of all, hit
the bull's-eye plumb in the center. The pale, sickly law
student from 49 Nassau Street, commenced to put on color.
"By" was constantly giving me pointers on the stock busi
ness. Gathering up steers here and there, and then trying
to drive the bunch with every one of them wanting to bolt
back home, keeps a fellow sliding on the saddle. For my
health while in New York City I attended John Wood's
gymnasium on Twenty-eighth Street, and rode horseback
through Central Park; but trying to head a steer on the
prairies of the West, for healthful exercise, takes the blue
ribbon over all the gymnasiums and bridle paths in the
universe. I will never forget the day that "By" and I were driving
a bunch of stock, and he called my attention to a particular
steer who kept craning his neck and looking back. "By"
told me that fellow would bolt before long, and when he
did he would take after him and wind him, and I was to
try and hold the rest of the herd. Shortly, with tail in

LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.

29

the air, the animal whirled and bolted back over the prairie
and disappeared over a hill with "By" after him with his
stock whip circling in the air. I had little difficulty hold-

This is "By."
ing the herd, as they were hungry and commenced feeding.
I rode to the top of the nearest hill to get a view of
the process of winding a st&er. Every once in a while
among the hills I would catch a sight of "By" and the

30 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
steer and could hear the stock whip as it snapped pieces of
hide from the animal's back. In about half an hour I saw
the animal coming back with "By" riding leisurely in the
rear. The animal's tongue was hanging out about a foot.
As Ave started the herd along, "By's" friend took the lead,
and seemed willing to admit that the man on horseback is
a dangerous proposition.
One of the first acquaintances I formed in the West, of
the animal kingdom, was the prairie wolf or coyote. The
wolf has a feAv ideas worth taking note of. His den is a
hole in the ground, but dug in such a way that neither the
elements nor his enemies can get at him. He usually
selects a side hill and digs a hole down about eight feet
at an angle of forty-five degrees and then goes up about
two feet and excavates the den. Here the little wolves
are born, but there is no "little window wrhere the sun
comes peeping in at morn." When the rain comes it runs
down the incline and at the bottom soaks away, but the
den is high and dry, showing the wolf had a great head.
If anything crawled down the hole, when it struck the
angle the wolf would be above it, and it is generally the
case in this world that the fellow who is on top when the
row begins has the advantage, and the wolf family seem
to be aware of that fact and build their habitations accord
ingly. My dog Texas and the wolves were great friends. Often
about daybreak we would see the dog playing with the
wolves along the Pigeon. One old wolf, in particular, and
Texas seemed to be the best of friends; the wolf would
chase the dog down the river bottom, and then "Old Tex,"
in turn, Avould chase the wolf, and then they would rear
up and clinch. Thus Avould the wild and the tame meet
on the level and act on the square. All "nature fakirs"

LIFE ON THE FRONTIER.

31

agree that animals of similar species communicate Avith
each other. I often Avondered, as I saw "Tex" and the Avolf
momentarily resting from the fatigue of the play, with their
noses together, Avhat they were saying. That is beyond the

A Prairie Wolf.

imagination to fathom, and Avhat would I not have given
to have had my curiosity satisfied !
The saying "keep the wolf from the door" does not
refer to the prairie species, for if there was ever a coward
it is the prairie wolf. He never had sand enough to go

32 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
near anybody's house, let alone the door, so if the bank
account of any reader of this little \Tolume is nearing the
zero mark and he sees a wolf heave in sight, he need not
worry if it is of the prairie species.
Every animal has a means of defense, and the Supreme
Being when he made a prairie wolf knew he was making
a quitter, so he gave him the most unearthly yell of all the
four-footed animals. If you didn't know there was a cow
ard back of that yell you might feel a little nervous.
Shakespeare must have had the prairie wolf in vieAv when
he coined the phrase, "Sound and fury signify nothing."
If any college could get on to that yell, the others would
certainly throw up the sponge. The prairie wrolves gen
erally travel in pairs. They have the habit at night of
sitting on different hills and yelling Avireless messages to
each other, and, as the unearthly noise echoes and re
echoes among the hills, it is anything but a pleasant lullaby.
The only time they show any grit is Avhen they are in a
pack and half famished. I never knew of their killing
a human being, but I don't know what might have hap
pened to a mail-carrier on one occasion if some of my men
and I had not dropped around at an opportune time.
Before the days of the railroads the mail was carried
across IoAva by relays. A relay was from one county seat
to that of an adjoining one. The mail route betAveen
Harlan in Shelby County and Magnolia in Harrison Coun
ty, a distance of fifty miles, passed through my land. I
was a little out of the direct line, but on account of a shal
low ford across the Pigeon River, which ran through my
place, the mail route made a slight detour. My place was
about half way between Harlan and Magnolia, and the
mail-carriers generally stopped Avith me for dinner, and
I was glad they did, as they brought "the latest news

LIFE ON THE FRONTIER. 33
from the front." The mail-carrier's outfit consisted of a
horse and a buckboard. They generally carried a half
dozen pouches. Everybody in those days went armed, as
bands of Indians occasionally circled around, and horse
and cattle thieves were on the lookout to catch you nap
ping. Colt's revolvers Avere the means of defense.
One day when the carrier Avas due from the East, I was
out Avith some of the boys in search of a couple of two-year-
olds we hadn't seen with the herd for several days. We
were leisurely loping along when off to the east on a divide
about a mile aAvay we saw the mail-carrier with his horse
on the jump followed by a pack of wolves. We saw him
throw something overboard, which stopped the pack for
a minute or two. It was a mail bag. We started in full
gallop for the ford, and as we came up the bank we saw
the mail-carrier coming at breakneck speed down a long
hollow leading to the ford, with the pack at his heels. It
was lucky for him that his horse had good wind and was
sure-footed, or it might have been a case for the coroner,
although I believe if the felloAv had stood his ground he
might have scared them off. Where he made a mistake
was that all he carried as a means of defense was an old
horse-pistol. We fired our revolvers as we rode up the
hollow, hoping to attract the attention of the wolves, which
it seemed we did, for they slackened their pace and as we
came up they slunk away.
The horse was all foam and the carrier as white as a
sheet. I helped him to the ranch, sending the boys back
on the trail to gather up the scattered mail. That night
the carrier told us he wouldn't cross that prairie again for
the proceeds of all the star routes in the State. And, sure
enough, that was his last trip. I didn't blame him, as it
was a lonely twenty-five miles, without a habitation. He

The Valley of the Pigeon — "Stanton's Ranch."

LIFE ON THE FRONTIER. 35
must have told the man Avho took his job of his experience,
for when the new mail-carrier arrived his outfit looked
like a battleship. He had guns and ammunition enough to
kill all the wolves in the State.
The fellow the wolves took after, told us the only thing
that saved his life was that about a mile back from where
we saw him he shot one of the Avolves and the pack stopped
to eat it up. It does seem that the saying "dog eat dog"
is ever being enacted. One would think that kind would
protect kind, but it is not always so with Avild animals, or
domestic, for that matter. Take even the poultry yard.
Any breeder of poultry knows that if one of the birds gets
sick or injured, the others pounce upon him. How care
fully the cow. moose has to secrete the neAV-born from the
murderous bull. The peacock who struts as the beautiful
personified not only breaks up the nest and destroys the
eggs but kills the little ones. Humanity for the moment
stands aghast at such horrors, but hoAv about this same
humanity? Does the husband always rejoice at the embryo
and welcome the helpless one as it starts on the journey
of life? Hoav does the society lady treat her fallen sister?
What do the men do to their former business associate as
he starts down the toboggan? Yet we pose as teachers of
the heathen !
Every good story having a Western brand was during
the war repeated by the friends and enemies of President
Lincoln as "Old Abe's last." One of the stories appropri
ated as one of Abe's actually originated in the court house
at Harlan, Shelby county, IoAAa, and a laAvyer by the name
of Joe Smith was the originator. As already stated, my
place on the Pigeon Avas about half way betAveen the county
seats of Shelby and Harrison Counties. I often enter
tained the court and bar as they passed from one county

36 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
seat to the other. They were a witty and bright lot of fel
lows, but poor in purse. Their clothes had seen long
service and represented all the styles before the war. Joe
was a great wit, and, unfortunately, always broke. Once
while attending court at Harlan and Avhile waiting for
his own case to be called, he got quite interested in the
case which was being tried. The seat of the trousers of
one of the attorneys who was trying the case was worn
through, and as he wore a sack coat and while addressing
the jury would lean forward, one could see through the
hole in the trousers the white shirt within. A philanthropic
brother attorney had drawn up a subscription paper and
passed it around among the laAvyers for signature, the
purport of which was to buy the brother attorney a new
pair of trousers. Seventy-five cents in those days would
haAre accomplished the mission. When it came Smith's turn
to sign, he, being broke as usual, wrote the following en
dorsement on the subscription paper : "On account of my
financial condition I am unable to contribute anything
toward the object in view."

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 37

CHAPTER IV
REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS
The government surveyors laid out the prairie States
like a checker board. One could haA7e a good game of
checkers on a map of the State of lOAva. Each square was
six miles each way and contained thirty-six sections of
land, and numbered from one to thirty-six, with six hun
dred and forty acres to a section. The squares running
North and South were called townships, and those running-
East and West were called ranges, both being numbered.
Consequently, there was little difficulty locating a section
of land. That is, the engineers, in laying it out, thought
there would be none. The corner of each section and half
section of land was marked by a surveyor's stake driven
into the ground with the number of the section cut thereon.
Before driving the stake, a mound was thrown up and a
stake driven into the center of it, and to distinguish a half
section from a section corner, excavations were made either
to the east or south of the mound as the case might be. The
surveyors overlooked the fact that prairie fires would burn
off the stakes. They also forgot the existence of a little
animal who passed under the name of a "prairie gopher."
The prairie gopher would throw up mounds galore similar
to those of the surveyors. The result Avas, with the wooden
stakes burnt off and mounds everywhere, hunting for a

38 WHEN THE WILDWOOD AVAS IN FLOWER
section or half section corner in that bare uninhabited re
gion was like hunting for the proverbial needle in the hay
stack. There was only one way out of the difficulty, and
that was to find some established corner somewhere as a
starter. It was the custom to go to the nearest settlement
and commence operations from a known corner. Often
the stakes were entirely rotted and the mounds washed
away and the pits filled. Under these conditions, corners
had to be established. Copies of the minutes of the gov
ernment survey, made years before, were in the hands of
the county surveyor, and with patience and lots of stalk
ing, the desired corner was finally located. •
The surveyors as they laid out many of the Western
States were not aware that they were creating a timepiece
for the settler ever after. The sections were laid off ac
cording to the compass and as the Sun crossed the section
lines running North and South the settler gauged the noon
day hour. Many farmers were too poor to own a watch and
were thus able to tell the time of day Avith the section
lines as a basis to wrork from. The width of the average
human hand covers a passing hour. Extended about
eighteen inches in front of the face and toAATards the Sun
the space it occupies takes the golden orb an hour to pass.
With the edge of the width of the human hand resting on a
North and South section line, the number of widths until
it cuts the Sun indicates the time of day. With the edge
of the width of the hand resting on the horizon, the number
of hours high of the Sun is easily ascertained. The old
settler having been accustomed to judge the time of day
by the Sun, a glance was all that was necessary. It was
not an uncommon sight in the towns to see a farmer as he
would do his trading give an occasional glance at this time
piece, which never ran down, nor lost, nor gained. The

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 39
saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention," was likely
coined on some isolated plain. The coming of the railroad
also furnished the settler Avith a barometer. Whenever
from my ranch Ave could hear the rumbling of the freight
trains on the Northwestern, it was a sure indication of
rain; when we could not hear them it was a safe bet for
fair weather. While the weather prognosticator was rfght
half the time, the old NorthAvestern neArer slipped a cog.
What changed conditions I saw in the early settlers'
means of transportation. What a transformation from the
ox team and the solid wooden wheel to a span of horses and
the spoked wheel wagon. What a difference walking along
side of a yoke of lumbering oxen Avith "Whoa ! haw ! Buck !"
to sitting in a wagon guiding a free action team of horses
with a pair of lines. The springless lumber wagon with a
board for a seat was great for indigestion. The spring seat
for the lumber wagon Avas the first harbinger of comfort
for the early settler. The lucky farmer who had a spring
seat for his wagon was the envy of the neighborhood. I
will never forget the day that a man from Racine, Wiscon
sin, drove through the neighborhood with a top buggy so
liciting purchasers. Young blood asserted itself and the
lumber wagon with its spring seat Avas no longer "the
head of the class." Top buggies, began to make their ap
pearance, and in turn the automobile has superseded the
top buggy, and ere many years the aeroplane will be one of
the necessary auxiliaries of a Western farmer's parapher
nalia. The Schutler wagon was one of the first and best that
ever "clucked" over the Western prairies. Its manufac
turer was Peter Schutler of Chicago. It surpassed all other
wagons in durability and strength. The reason for this was
that nothing but perfectly seasoned timber entered into its

40 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
construction. The Schutler plant occupied the whole of
one of Chicago's blocks. Shed after shed contained lumber
stored until well seasoned. An employee knew that if he
was found using defective or unseasoned lumber, instant
discharge followed. How different to-day ; a standing tree
Monday morning, Saturday night a door, the following
week a carpenter to plug the cracks.
In the early settlement of the West, especially at the time
of the country being railroaded, in many of the counties
there arose the county seat question. The railroads left
many of the old county seats miles away from the track.
It seemed to be the universal opinion that a county seat
should be located on the railroad. Immediately there be
gan a fight among the towns along the railroads as
to which one should be the shire-town. In some of the
counties the railroad traversed its whole width or length,
and several railroad towns were established thereon. Har
rison County, Iowa, had its trouble with the rest. The
Northwestern Railroad traveled the whole length of the
county near its center and had four railroad towns. The
old county seat, Magnolia, was left six miles from the
railroad, so the verdict Avas unanimous that the county seat
should be relocated. On account of the rivalry between the
railroad towns, Magnolia remained the county seat long
after the railroad was constructed. The county seat ques
tion overtopped all others at issue. Even politics had to
take a back seat. We often hear the expression "fought
like cats and dogs," but a cat and dog fight was a dead
calm compared to the fights in old Harrison over the
county seat question. It was fought out in churches, stores
and bar-rooms, over the prairie and through the timber,
up hill and down, afoot and on horse-back. Children, stock
and crops were neglected, merchants fought with their cus-

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 41
tomers and ministers lost control of their flocks. Fathers
neglected to perform their marital duties, consequently the
population failed to increase, and those children Avho were
born were of a quarrelsome disposition. In fact, the ques
tion Avas demoralizing the county over.
Every year a vote was taken without a majority for any
town. Everybody commenced to realize that a state of
anarchy would prevail, martial laAv be proclaimed and the
militia called out if the question remained open. It was
finally agreed that there should be a vote cast for the two
towns that heretofore had received the most votes, and
whichever one was beaten at the poles, peace would prevail.
The election took place, but the vote was so close that both
sides alleged fraud, and claimed the election. The dispute
Avas carried to the courts for final adjudication. A lawyer
by the name of Joe Smith represented one of the towns.
The town Smith appeared for was beaten, and as is gen
erally the case, Smith's client was dissatisfied, and its in
habitants jumped onto poor Joe. He was openly charged
with selling out and branded a Benedict Arnold. They
nicknamed Logan, the successful town, "Smithville."
After the excitement had subsided it Avas proven and ad
mitted on all sides that Smith acted on the square. One
of the most amusing episodes in connection with Smith
and the county seat question occurred with a minister by
the name of Burgess, who occasionally preached through
out the county. He evidently had never met Smith but
kneAv all about the county seat fight. Joe had the reputa
tion of being the best all around joker in the county, and
never lost a chance even if on himself. Smith knew Bur
gess by sight. One awful hot day Smith was riding horse
back from Magnolia to Logan. When about half way he
caught up to Brother Burgess plodding along afoot. As

42

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER

Smith came up to Burgess he saw that the gentleman of
the cloth looked tired, hot and dusty, and getting off his
horse, offered it more as a joke than anything else to the
minister to ride. Brother Burgess accepted Joe's invita
tion and mounted the nag. Joe told Burgess he was an

"Joe" Smith.

entire stranger and inquired Iioav far it was to Smithville.
The innocent preacher told Joe there Avas no such place as
Smithville, that the town he Avanted to go to was Logan.
Joe feigned surprise and informed the minister that a short
way back a man told him the toAvn Avas Smithville. Bur-

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 43
gess told Joe that the name Smithville was simply a nick
name they had for the town. Joe asked for an explanation,
and he seemed to enjoy the story as the preacher recounted
the charges against "a lawyer by the name of Joe Smith."
Here was poor Joe walking along the hot dusty road and
hearing himself denounced by the rider of his own horse.
Burgess preached the next night in Logan and took for his
text the seventh chapter of St. Matthew, 12th verse,
and cited as an example his experience Avith Smith. The
story was too good for Joe to keep, and poor Burgess was
surprised and mortified when he learned who was the good
Samaritan of the day before.
We have all heard of bold bank robberies, but the most
daring I ever heard of occurred at the noon hour many
years ago at the banking house of Officer & Pusey, in Coun
cil Bluffs, Iowa. Throughout the West at that time, about
everybody closed up shop to enjoy the noonday meal. The
banks, as a general rule, kept open. I was a customer of
Officer & Pusey. Business called me to Council Bluffs. It
was during the noon hour that I arrived at the bank. The
only occupant of the bank at that time was Mr. Pusey. He
invited me inside of the counter. I had been sitting there
but a few moments when a stranger, at least to me, and he
seemed to be to Mr. Pusey, entered the bank and engaged
Mr. Pusey in conversation. He claimed he had some money
that he wanted to deposit, and kept on presenting all kinds
of propositions to Mr. Pusey regarding interest on the
same. As we afterwards learned, he was simply trying to
attract Mr. Pusey's attention. While Mr. Pusey and his
customer were discussing the transaction, I Avas reading a
newspaper. I heard a little noise in the direction of the
safe, and turning around, I saw a man with moccasins on
his feet in a crouching position with his ear to the dial,

44

AVHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER

turning it around while trying to catch the combination.
I understand that an expert can work out a combination if
given time. A whole lot of things happened in the next mo
ment. I called Pusey's attention to the fellow at the safe.
Pusey's customer gave a signal and started on the run for

Where the Burglars Tried to Work Pusey and His Combination.
the street. The man who was at the safe made a bolt for
the back door, where he had entered unobserved. Pusey
gave a yell, jumped the counter and rushed to the street
yelling, "Stop that man !" United States Marshal Chap
man was passing the bank at the time and also gaATe chase,

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 45
but the robbers escaped. Around the corner was a two-
horse rig, hired from one of the local livery stables, in
charge of a third partyr Before the posse headed by Mr.
Chapman could get ready, the robbers were Avell on their
Avay up Indian Creek. Just beyond Lovekmd's Mill the
posse came to the deserted livery rig and there lost the
trail. But the gang were finally caught, and it was "By" Mc-
Arthur, sheriff of Harrison County, who corraled the out
fit. He Avas in Missouri Valley when he received a dispatch
recounting what had taken place. The neAvs soon became
public property. McArthur Avas informed by a Mr. Hoover,
a stock man, that about an hour before he had seen a man
in a clump of trees southeast of old St. John guarding some
horses. McArthur at once surmised that they were the
robbers' horses. Hastily swearing in some deputies, they,
with Hoover as a guide, started on the gallop for the clump
of trees. McArthur arrested the man in charge of the
horses and waited for the Council Bluffs delegation. The
sheriff did not have long to wait; instead of the robbers
meeting their pal, McArthur and his posse were the com
mittee on reception. The man McArthur first arrested
turned State's evidence, and the other three Avere tried and
convicted at the next term of court of Pottawattamie
County. For the following five years, instead of trying to
Avork the combination of the safes in Council Bluffs, Mr.
Pusey's guests were working the stone yard at Fort Madi
son. Mr. Pusey afterward stated that at the same time the
clay before a stranger had entered the bank with similar
propositions. Mr. Pusey had no doubt whatever that at
the time a man was at the safe trying to work the combi
nation, and the customer had held Mr. Pusey's attention as
long as he dared. About two months before the Pusey epi-

46 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
sode occurred, the First National Bank had been robbed of
|20,000 in some mysterious way. Mr. Pusey and other
bankers smiled whenever the First National's loss was men
tioned; in fact, they as good as stated that the First Na
tional's loss was a defalcation, they trying to cast discredit
on that institution to their own advantage. But after the
incident occurred that I mention in connection with Officer
& Pusey's bank, the loss of the First National w7as easily
explained. Horse stealing was not an uncommon occurrence in the
West during the early sixties. It was during the time that
I Avas running my ranch that horse stealing became one of
the lost arts. The "unwritten law" for horse stealing was
hanging as soon as caught to the nearest tree. I partici
pated in the hanging of one of the first horse thieves in our
section of Iowa. The victim was caught with "the goods"
while camping in a little clump of trees near Honey Creek
in Pottawattamie County. With the placard "horse thief"
tied around his neck his body was suspended from a tree
by a Avire and hung there until his clothes rotted and the
flesh fell from the bone. For many years afterward that
clump of trees was known as "Horse Thief Grove." With
what neatness and dispatch a horse thief got his deserts.
How different from the custom of the East both in applica
tion and results. It Avas the custom where I came from,
after arresting a horse thief and while he Avas waiting for a
Grand Jury to indict, for him to partake of the viands
and recline on a comfortable bed at the expense of the
county in which he stole the horse, and continue to be its
guest until court convened. Able lawyers were either em
ployed or assigned to defend him, and after the jury had
brought in a verdict of "guilty," the case was carried to a
higher court and sent back for a neAV trial on the ground

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS. 47
that in the judge's charge to the jury the court erred in
using the word "off" instead of "from." Before the second
trial came around, the main prosecuting witness had died
of old age and the horse thief was acquitted for lack of
evidence and turned loose to continue his former vocation.
One of my neighbors Avas a man by the name of Braden.
He Avas there long before I arrived. His home was a "dug
out," a large excavation in a side hill. There, with two or
three helpers, his life was spent. His sole occupation was
raising circus horses. The handsome and peculiar marked
horses of the circuses to-day trace their blood to the Braden
breed of horses that roamed in the sixties over the prairies
of Harrison and Shelby counties, Iowa. Agents from the
great circuses constantly visited Braden to supply their
shows with fancy colored stock. Stallions, brood mares
and colts roamed at will over that vast expanse. None of
them was even halter-broken. They Avere really a band
of wild horses. Braden always kept a supply of rock salt
near his ranch Avhich brought the herd around at stated in
tervals. It was a hopeless task hunting for the herd, and
prospective buyers would stop with Braden in his hut until
the herd made its accustomed round. All the settlers
raised horses, and for the lack of yards they Avere turned
loose to roam Avith the Braden gang. They stuck together,
for horses like indiAiduals soon learn that numbers are
the source of protection. One of the peculiarities of a horse
is that night is the time he roams; what little rest he
takes is in the day. One of the grandest sights I ever saAv
Avas on a moonlight night as the Braden gang of horses on
the run passed up the valley of the Pigeon. As the moon
shone on the Abnegated colors they looked like the charge
of some ghostly cavalry.
The Braden gang of horses were constantly being dimin-

48

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOAVER

ished by the horse thief, but a fight that took place on the
head Avaters of the Pigeon in the summer of eighteen sixty-
nine in a measure blue-penciled that occupation. While I
Avas entertaining at dinner old Braden and one William
Cuppy, mentioned aforesaid, the mail-carrier from the
East came in and reported seeing some horse thieves run-

Braden in His Younger Days.

ning the Braden gang. When he saw the herd it was cross
ing the Mosquito River and heading West pursued by the
horse thieves. Braden proposed to intercept them. He
calculated that the herd would head for home and cross
the Pigeon at its head waters. As both Cuppy and my-

REMINDERS OF BY-GONE DAYS.

49

self had horses running with the Braden gang, we
readily accepted the proposition. With two of my
helpers, Braden, Cuppy and myself started on horse
back up the valley of the Pigeon. We were all armed with
Colt's revolvers. As Ave came in sight of Hall's Grove,

When the Wildwood Was in Flower.

which is near the head waters of the Pigeon, Ave saw the
herd heading Southwest towards the Braden corral. A
little curl of smoke was seen ascending from the grove.
We surmised that the horse thieves had stopped for some
thing to eat. As we started down the hollow, which led to

50 AA'HEN THE WILDAV00D WAS IN FLOWER
the grove, we could see some of Braden's horses straining
at the end of lariats. Braden was a man of powerful
physique, being over six feet tall, built in proportion and
fearing nothing. The sight fired the old man to fury. With
a revolver in each hand and his horse on the jump, down
the incline toward the grove old Braden went. Cuppy,
the helpers and myself followed. All but Braden dis
mounted and fought the horse thieves from behind horses
and trees, but the old man stayed in the saddle. About all
we could see of him was his bald head dodging around
amongst the brush. With such a target, how he ever es
caped with his life has always been a mystery to me. When
the "smoke of battle" cleared away, two of the horse thieves
lay dead on the ground, the others escaping over the
prairie. Braden was shot twice and also one of the helpers,
all flesh wounds. The uninjured helper was up in "first aid
to the injured," and he bound up Braden and the other
helper's wounds, and we headed for Doctor Cole's home, in
the Boyer valley, twenty-five miles aAvay. The fight at
Hall's Grove was passed along the line, and from that time
on horse thieves gave the Braden gang of horses a clear
course. As settlers poured in and spools of barbed wire
were unwound along the section lines cutting off the range,
the old man saw his occupation gone and retired to his hut
to die, and the "Braden gang of horses" became a memory.

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE. 51

CHAPTER V
WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE.
Those who never passed a winter on a Western prairie
have but a faint idea of the meaning of the word. One of
the coldest and severest I ever passed Avas when I was
mayor of Woodbine. The mercury sank into the bulb of
the customary thermometer, and it required a spirit ther
mometer to register the cold. One night it touched forty-
four degrees below zero. Clerks who slept in the stores
froze their ears while in bed. Wooden sidewalks lined
the streets of the town; all through the night there was
a fusilade of thuds sounding like shots from muffled guns.
It was the nails springing from the boards, caused by the
intense cold. It was that night and the thermometer at
the hotel where I stopped, which formed the foundation
of the story about the nail freezing off on which hung the
thermometer. It seems the nail shot out, the thermometer
falling to the ground. "Sun dogs" accompanied the sun
by day, and the northern lights the stars by night.
The greatest sufferers on the frontier from the winter
blasts Avere the four-footed animals, on account of the lack
of protection. It was all the newly arrived immigrants
could do to find shelter for themselves, let alone the stock.
I have had calves born in cornfields when it was twenty
beloAV zero. The little ones seemed to weather the con-

52

WHEN THE WILDWOOD AVAS IN FLOWER

The Author, When Mayor of Woodbine, Iowa.

ditions, though often losing their tails. Worse than the
clear cold Avere the blizzards. They Avere the boys that
made "Rome hoAvl." Neither Webster's nor Worcester's

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE. 53
dictionaries contain words Avhich can do justice in describ
ing a Western blizzard. The nearest building to my house
was Avithin about two hundred and fifty feet. The duration
of a blizzard is generally three days. In one particular
blizzard lasting the usual limit I never once caught sight
of that building.
I still remember a snoAv storm Avhich covered to the
depth of about three feet a hog lot in which there were
over one thousand hogs. In looking over that mantle of
snow no one Avould have surmised that thereunder were
over one thousand hogs peacefully snoring the happy hours
aAvay. The evening before Avas unusually Avarm, and the
hogs went to sleep in the open lot. During the night it
greAV cold and the snow began falling, but the hog, being
one of the laziest animals on earth, hugged the ground. In
the morning, with scoop shovels, we dug them out. In
digging doAvn, as we Avould strike a hog the felloAV would
give an angry snort, as if to say, "Why the devil can't you
let a fellow alone?" After a blizzard Avas over the first
navigators Avere men on foot, then came the man on horse
back, and then the sleigh. Sometimes during the blizzard
the herd would break from the corral and go with the
storm, often perishing in their tracks.
The fuel question to the early settler was an important
one. Those who settled in or near the groves, which were
scattered over the State, ran no risk while supplying the
wood pile. But the settler, whose earthly possessions were
out on the isolated storm-swept prairies, had a different
problem to contend Avith. It was in the winter that the iso
lated settler got up his wood for the folloAving summer.
He had no time in summer to chop it, let alone hauling it
from the grove. In winter, it was an everyday sight, no
matter what the weather conditions, to see many callous-

54 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
handed sons of toil heading for the groves. Those winter
trips for firewood were a continual nightmare to the early
settlers. It was a winter's job to supply the spring, sum
mer and fall firewood. Therefore, no matter what the
Aveather conditions, off to the timber Avas the one daily oc
cupation. Neither the intense cold of the Northwest, nor

The Author's Residence, Great Neck, Long Island, N Y.

even the blizzards, could retard us. Many a settler lost his
life while breasting the storms for his wood supply.
I had one experience that nearly cost me my life and

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE. 55
that of one of my men, and four horses. Tavo feet of snoAV
was on the ground and overhead was one of those leaden
skies that denoted an approaching storm, as I and one of
my men started for the timber. We had gotten the load
chopped and commenced loading it as the snow commenced
falling. At every moment the storm increased. By the
time we had emerged from the grove, and struck out on the
open prairie, the blizzard was on, but fortunately the wind
was at our backs. The snow fell so thick that Ave could
hardly see the leaders. I Avas driving and learned on that
trip that in a storm if you give a horse his head he Avill
generally land you at home. I thought I kneAv the road
better than the leaders, and while they were continually
pulling on one line, I Avas pulling on the other, and the
result was I pulled them off the divide which led toAvard
home and the horses got lost with the rest of us. I knew
that we had traveled fully as far as would have taken us
home, and as darkness came on, we realized that we were
lost. We unhitched the horses from the load, unharnessed
them, piled the harness on the load of Avood, turned tAvo of
the horses loose, and mounted the other tAvo. We soon lost
sight in the storm of the two horses Ave had turned loose.
Our mounts struck out, and I hoped toAvard home, but they
evidently had lost their bearings. The only thing that
saved our lives was that the storm ceased at midnight.
The clouds cleared away and left us as clear a sky as I ever
saw. The snow had frozen our clothes, the horses' hair
was covered with frost, and we looked like ghosts on horse
back. We were so cold we could not stand riding any
further and dismounted. Our hands were so cold we could
not lead the horses, so we turned them loose, but they fol
lowed us, the animal instinct telling them that in difficul
ties look to human kind for protection.

56 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
It was the practice in those days for the isolated settlers
on the prairies on the stormy nights in winter to keep a
light burning in some conspicuous window the night
through, to guide anyone who might be lost. We wallowed
our way to the highest hill and scanned the horizon like
mariners at sea looking for a beacon light. Bill Rumsey,
a conductor on one of the first freight trains that went over
the Northwestern, Avest of Boone, had presented me with
a red lantern, and that lantern Avas my beacon light. Peary
was no happier as he stood at the North Pole than I
was when I saw off to the Northwest about five miles away
a red light. We made a bee-line for it with the tAvo horses
following. We wallowed through snow drifts to our arm
pits, pitched headlong into gulleys filled with snow, waded
waist deep in slush while crossing creeks and slues, crawled
on our hands and knees up rough brakes on hill tops,
rolled over and over down inclines, and were constantly in
fear of our lives from the close proximity of the stumbling
horses. As the first streak of daylight was coming, we soon
recognized the old familiar landmarks, which led to the
Pigeon Valley, and had no difficulty the balance of the way.
The tAvo horses we first turned loose had arrived ahead of
us, and the load of wood was located the following day.
The railroads over the prairies had their experience
also with the beautiful snoAV. Before the time of snow
fences the trains Avere often stuck in the cuts. I remember
after one storm, in particular, that the Northwewstern
neArer turned a wheel for three Aveeks. I saw a freight train
of forty cars in a cut completely covered over, with nothing
in sight but the smokestack of the locomotive. The train
men had retreated to the nearest farm house. I have
heard of a span of horses coming into toAvn with the driver
sitting upright in the seat, reins in hand, frozen to death.

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE.

57

I have no doubt whatever that in the intense cold of the
Northwest a human being can freeze to death without the
least pain and not knowing he is freezing. With one of
my men I had an experience that Avould confirm that opin
ion. While operating my stock ranch the territory over
which I had absolute OAvnership consisted of two square

First Touch of Winter on the Northwestern.
miles. The buildings were on the southerly end of the
property. That particular winter several stacks of hay
were at the northern end of the ranch. On account of a
scarcity of hay at the feed yards I and one of the men
started for the other end for hay. There was two feet
of snow on the ground, the Avind was in the north, and it
was twenty-five belowr zero. A hay-rack is as well ven
tilated a conveyance as any fresh-air fiend could desire.

58 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
While going up we sat opposite each other. A white spot
would commence to show itself on my face and my man
would say, "Mr. Stanton, your left cheek is freezing." A
rubbing would restore circulation. The next minute I
would see some part of his face turn white. "Dick, your
right ear is freezing," and that was the condition over the
two miles ; but when we arrived at the hay -stack and got
alongside of it with the horses' noses to the south, you
would have thought we had gone crazy the way we jumped
into that stack. It was either work or freeze. As we trav
eled back with our circulation restored, the wind at our
backs, the sun shining down upon us as we hugged into
the hay, we could hardly realize that a feAV moments before
Ave were actually freezing and didn't know it.
Being a lover of animals, nothing disturbed my slum
bers more than Avhen one of those terrific blizzards was on,
for I would realize the suffering of those dumb animals
Avho looked to me for protection. No matter how much
lumber and nails you used, those awful Avinds would find
an opening; even a knot-hole seemed to be enough. At
last I solved the problem, and my scheme was followed
by all my neighbors. Instead of stacking my small grain
in the fields where it was cut and thrashing it there, and,
as was usually the custom, burning the straw, I had the
bulk of the unthrashed grain hauled to one of the cattle-
yards and stacked alongside of a pole-shed I erected. I
selected a level place about forty feet square and built a
shed of heavy forked poles about ten feet long, set them
in the ground about three feet, and about ten feet apart,
laid poles and brush across the top, and, with the excep
tion of a narroAV entrance in the southern exposure, board
ed the shed on the outside. When the grain was thrashed
we set the thrashing machine so that the straw-carrier

WINTER ON THE PRAIRIE. 59
was over the shed. After the grain was thrashed, the
straw covered the shed to the depth of, say, twenty feet,
and at least fifteen feet thick all around it. No wind could
penetrate fifteen feet of straw. Looking at that immense
straw pile one would little surmise that in the center of it
was a shed forty feet square and seven feet in the clear.
With the exception of the entrance I built a barbed-wire
fence around the straw pile. With the boards on the inside
and the fence on the outside, the cattle could not disturb
the straw. When the blizzard was on I knew that at least
some of my cattle were as comfortable as myself, and as
I would look out of the entrance of my straw pile shed at
the howling blizzard I could realize the protection and com
fort of the Esquimaux in his hut in the frozen north.
As one rode over the prairies of western Iowa in the
early sixties he could see the bones of Avild animals that
had become extinct. Frequently you would see the horns
of deer nearly consumed by time and the devastating
prairie fire. Up to and during the early fifties, herds of
buffalo, elk and deer roamed over Avestern Iowa and east
ern Nebraska, contiguous to the Missouri River, but the
terrific winters of the middle fifties drove the buffalo to
ward the foothills of the Rockies, and exterminated the
elk and deer. One of the winters of the middle fifties was
known for years as "the winter of the deep snow." The
snow wras so deep and fell so level that the deer were un
able to reach food or shelter, and became an easy prey to
man, but more particularly to the wolves. The wolves
could skip over the crust of snow while the poor animal,
with its sharp hoofs, would break through to its belly and
become an easy prey. The buffalo was also exterminated,
not by the elements, but by man. Thousands were killed

GO

WHEN THE WILDWOOD AVAS IN FLOWER.

simply for their skins. Man is forever hunting the Avild,
often simply for its head, skin or plumage, and where

Would I Were on the Plains Again.
there are no wild animals to kill or pelts to obtain he then
turns on his felloAV man, and tries to remove the hide from
him.

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH 61

CHAPTER VI.
RUNNING A STOCK RANCH.
It was while I was in Iowa that the transformation
came in the harvesting of small grain. I saw the trans
formation from the cradle, not to the grave, but to the self-
binder. The advent of the railroad brought us the modern
machinery. The cradle was laid aside for Avhat was known
as the dropper, a machine which cut the small grain, it
falling on to a wicker platform, and when of sufficient
quantity to make a bundle the driver would drop the
platform and the grain slid off. It required six men
to keep the grain bound up, before the next round. The
next improvement was the Marsh harvester. With that
machine three men accomplished what it took seven with
the dropper. The three men rode on the machine. The
Marsh harvester cut the grain, elevated it to a scoop re
ceptacle, alongside of Avhich stood two of the men on a
platform binding the grain. The next machine and the
most complete that any one could desire Avas the self-
binder. Think of driving into a field of grain with a ma
chine that a boy could handle, which would cut the grain,
elevate it into a receptacle, circle each bundle as; it formed
with twine, tie the twine into a knot, cut the twine and
throw the bundle, tightly bound, clear of the machine, and
immediately repeat the operation; such was the self-binder.

62

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

What a godsend to the "women folks" Avas the self-
binder ! In the days of the dropper they had to bake bread
for a week, kill all the chickens on the place, and peel a
barrel of potatoes to feed a lot of hungry harvesters. With
the self-binder there Avere only the regular household, no
transient guests. Many a bright summer's morning I have
driven into a field of yellow grain Avith my self-binder, with

A Self-binder.

the ribbons over three horses abreast, comfortably
seated in a cushioned seat with a canopy to protect me
from the hot rays of the sun, with a long straAV, I on
one end and an occasional mint julep on the other, and,
before the sun went dOAvn, Avith the aid of one of the boys,
put twenty-five acres of grain into the shock, and never
turned a hair.
As the great prairies began to settle up, and the range

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH. 63
cut off, the day of grass-fed cattle saw its finish. Corn-
fed steers came instead. Thousands of acres of prairie
were broken up, corn planted, and the cattle yarded to be
fattened and shipped to the Eastern markets. Absolutely
nothing but corn was fed. It Avas fed in the ear, broken
about twice in two and fed in a large box, similar to a table
and about as high. The droppings from the cattle Avere as
yellow as corn meal; in fact, it was ground corn, so to
speak. In all feed-yards there were twice the number of
hogs as of cattle ; the hogs were fattened from the droppings
of the steers. We calculated Avhat passed through one
steer would fatten two hogs. The cattle ate the corn,
the hogs the droppings, and Ave ate the hogs.
The feed-lot was the cause of the dehorning of cattle.
As it is with humanity, about every other steer Avanted his
share and part of the other fellow's, and some, after they
had eaten all they could, tried to keep the others aAvay.
The result Avas they were continually prodding each other,
and dehorning was a necessity for fattening purposes. It
was also a godsend to the shipper. The dehorning process
Avas simply to run the steers into a shute that narrowed
as it led on to where only one steer could stand. We Avould
then clap a clamp over his neck, and, with a common hand
saw, saw his horns off close to the head. I was not aware
of the anatomical formation, so far as the horn is con
cerned, of the head of cattle until after I had done my
first dehorning. I was riding over the range shortly before
sundown a f cav days after some dehorning, and as I glanced
at a steer I saAV the sun right through his head. It seems
the horn of cattle is holloAv ; that is, there is simply a pith
in it. Sometimes the pith dries up. In the case of this
animal the pith had fallen out, leaving a hollow through
his head. I have heard of "the wind blevv through his whis-

64

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

kers," but I never saw a case before where it blew through
his head. That steer should never get excited, as the Avind
blowing through his head Avould certainly keep his brain
cool. How much pleasanter it is to handle an intelligent ani
mal than a stupid one. What a difference there is between

The Beef Trust Will Get the Profit.

a horse and a horned animal. Though the ground is cov
ered Avith snow the horse has intelligence enough to know
that there is plenty of feed underneath, and paws to it,
but the cattle will stand and starve to death. It used to
make me so mad that I felt like grabbing them by the
horns and shoving their heads down to the grass.
In my life on the prairies, where neighbors were few
and far between, the most dangerous element to contend

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH. 65
with was the prairie fires. In my boyhood days, as a
hunter in the Adirondacks, I learned never to go into the
North Woods without a guide. In the fall of the year
never go out on the prairies of the West without a match.
Many a time while traveling afoot, horseback or in my old
Schutler wagon, I saved my life when I saw a prairie fire
coming by setting fire to the grass and driving on to the
burned portion. There is nothing more entrancing than
to watch a prairie fire, especially at night, yet it is any
thing but entrancing when it is coming Avith a high wind
toward your earthly possessions. I have lost miles of
fence and hundreds of tons of hay through prairie fires,
and have back-fired against it and fought it up hill and
doAvn twenty-four hours at a stretch.
What a dreary waste back in the early sixties was the
country west of the Mississippi River! Miles upon miles
of unoccupied land with not a tree to break the monotony
of that undulating plain. The only timber in Iowa was a
fringe along the river bank and here and there a grove.
God provided for the early settlers, where fuel was con
cerned, by allowing an occasional grove of timber to escape
the devastating fire of the prairie. The early inhabitants
of Iowa settled in or near the groves. The cold winters
necessitated this. Before the advent of the railroad the
fuel question was an important one. On the plains of
Nebraska there wras no timber. The Lord evidently had
no idea anybody would settle there. The early settlers
in that State set aside a field of corn for fuel. There is
worse fuel than ear corn. On the advent of the railroads,
coal became the universal fuel. As the great prairie set
tled up, groves of trees Avere planted and hedges set out,
and that barren waste of the sixties was transformed into
a beautiful Avooded landscape.

66 WHEN THE AVILDAVOOD AVAS IN FLOAVER.
About the only recreation of the farmer on the Western
prairie Avas to go to town. With the tired housewife and
little ones tucked in a Avagon, off they would go. The town
was the Casino of the farmer. It was the meeting place
of the isolated settlers. On all the holidays the farmers
went to town. All kinds of excuses were offered to "get
to go" to town. I recall that the Avhole countryside went
to town one day to see the eclipse of the sun. With the
coming of the iron horse came the styles from the East,
the money-shark, and discontent. In the good old days
everybody was contented. Mortgages, a stranger in the
land heretofore, began to appear on the records. On my
way to town one day I met one of the old settlers, who
said : "Well, Stanton, I have mortgaged the farm to one
of them 'ere money critters. I had to pay ten per cent.
interest, by gosh! and a bonus, I think they called it, to
git the money. Betsey said she Avouldn't wear that darned
old sunbonnet to town again. My boy told me he would
leave the farm if I didn't get him a top-buggy to take his
gal out riding, and our little girl has cried ever since she
see'd that young lady git off the cars at Woodbine with
them high-heel shoes and a feather in her hat. Well, I
be dog-goned, Stanton, if I ain't going to see some of this
life Avith the rest on 'em."
In the groves of timber scattered throughout the State of
Iowa, the All-seeing One provided fuel for the earlier set
tler. It Avas the custom that each settler should have the
privilege of owning a sufficient acreage in the groves for his
Avants in the fuel line, and it was the unwritten laAV that
those Avho owned more of the grove than they absolutely
needed were compelled to sell the neAVComer a portion of
their holdings. If some Rockefeller had come sailing along
in the early days of Iowa, he would likely have formed a

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH 67
stock company to acquire the groves of the State,and would
have had the settlers where the Standard Oil Company has
the people of this country at the present time. Some
Rockefeller might have tried the game, but he wouldn't
have found the submissive individual of to-day, nor would
he have found corrupt legislators to enact, nor courts to
construe, the law to his liking, but he would have found a
note in his morning mail notifying him that it would be
beneficial for his health if he took a change of venue and to
be quick about it.
The "Co-operation Society" of Six Mile Grove, in which I
was interested, demonstrated the fact that a "holding com
pany" is not absolutely essential for the success of an en
terprise. If commercialism as practiced to-day had been
in esse in the early days of Iowa, how natural it would have
been for one of these "Napoleons of finance" to have cor
nered the groves of Iowa and made the poor settler of the
sixties pay tribute, so this "successful" business man could
travel in European waters in his yacht, his daughter marry
a prince, and his son by a display of the predatory wealth
of the parent demoralize the youth of the land.
The West should insist on constitutional conventions to
revise the National and State constitutions, so that the
people can bring.them up to date, and brush aside the old
theories and proAisions under which the robber Barons
hang on to their ill-gotten gains. What does the Standard
Oil crowd care if you dissolve their corporations so long as
you do not wrest from them their money? So revise the
Statute Law that the government or any citizen can bring
an action against any wrong-doer for-a readjustment of his
affairs, in which action, on proof that the defendant has
acquired any portion of his wealth by fraud, the court
shall have the poAver to decree that all of his wealth shall

68 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
be turned into the public treasury ; and that no Statute of
Limitations shall apply to such an action.
The courts have decided that the various Standard Oil
companies are illegal combinations. The law should be
that all malefactors who have acquired wealth through
those companies must disgorge.
If the malefactors cry "confiscation," let the people an
swer, "No, simply an equitable, moral readjustment."
On account of the long distance to the towns, keeping the
larder supplied was one of the problems constantly con
fronting us. It was fifteen miles from my ranch to the
nearest town. Having to make a round trip of thirty miles
to supply our wants, it necessitated our keeping a close
watch on the "trestle-board." I remember once having
to make the thirty miles simply for a* match. Forever after
that trip, a piece of pasteboard Avas hung up in the dining-
room; whenever any one discovered that anything was
needed its name was written on the pasteboard, so when
the usual .trip was made to town the "score card" would
show what was required.
Until I went to Iowa I thought the Sun, as regards vege
tation, was more important than the Moon, but I soon
learned that the Moon was the "cock of the Avalk." The
Moon seemed to regulate everything. During the planting
season about all you heard was "the full of the Moon,"
"the dark of the Moon" and other moonshines. On one of
my trips to Woodbine, I met a neighbor with his horses on
the jump for home. I inquired what was the matter, and
he yelled back the Moon fulled at six o'clock and he must
get those potatoes in before that hour or they would all
run to vines. One of my neighbors had it so badly that he
actually told me that one of his children Avas doomed to be

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH 69
unlucky all its life as it Avas born at the wrong time of the
Moon. There were tAvo rules Avhich everybody followed — never
pass a rattlesnake without killing it, and Avhen you went
to town call for your neighbor's mail. I use the word
neighbor, but it hardly applies to the situation, as the
word "neighbor" with me covered a circuit of forty miles
in diameter. I was amused at a remark a felloAV made
Avhen I settled on the Pigeon. His nearest "neighbor" was
fourteen miles away. My location was about six miles from
him, whereupon the fellow made the remark: "Well, I
guess I Avill have to move; neighbors are getting too thick."
Speaking of rattlesnakes, the Indian Avas the only indi
vidual who let the rattlesnakes alone. The rattlesnake
will alAvays give you warning, and Avill not attack you un
less first attacked. The Indian seemed to appreciate these
tAvo cardinal virtues of the rattlesnake. The bite of the
rattler is deadly poison, and an antidote is necessary to
save life. Whiskey was as good an antidote as one could
take, and no larder was complete without it. A weakness
of one of my neighbors was partaking too freely of the "Oh,
be joyful" ; in fact, he was under the influence more times
than over it. Yet he offered a very sensible excuse : "You
see, boys, it is this Avay. When one of you fellows gets
stung with a rattler you rush all over the neighborhood,
losing lots of time, hunting for whiskey, and often die be
fore you get it; but when a rattler jumps me, the remedy
is already there, and I keep 'right on plowing." Mud is also
a remedy. I recall one time visiting an isolated stock
ranch, and, as we approached, we saw the only herder in
a peculiar position on the ground. As we came up to
him he had one leg bare to the knee in a hole in the ground,
with a pail of Avater beside him, and he was tamping wet

70 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
dirt around the leg. He had been bitten by a rattler and
Avas applying the only remedy at hand.
In the fall folloAving my arrival in the Hawkeye State,
there was a hot political contest going on, and I attended
one of the meetings at Harlan, the county seat of Shelby
County. Speaking of Harlan, I will never forget the way
they distributed the mail. The post office was in the hotel
where I stopped. The "post office" consisted of tAvo dry
goods boxes, one where you deposited the mail and the
other where you got it. When the mail-carrier arrived, he
Avould hand the pouch to the postmaster, who was the
proprietor of the hotel, also hostler and waiter combined.
The combination postmaster, proprietor, hostler and waiter
Avould dump the mail into one of the boxes, and whenever
a citizen called for his mail, he would dig into the dry
goods box, look over its contents and take what mail be
longed to him, and thus the mail in the early sixties was
distributed in the shire-town of Shelby County.
I naturally have heard in my life many political issues
discussed, but I never heard of a nightshirt: being an issue
until that night at Harlan. There was a joint debate be
tween the two opposing candidates for representative in
the legislature. The district generally went Republican.
The Democratic candidate was a farmer, the Republican
candidate a lawyer. The majority of voters were farmers.
Many of them had never heard of a nightshirt, let alone
owning one. In the heat of a former debate the Democratic
candidate had charged his opponent Avith being an aristo
crat in that he wore a nightshirt. The Republican candi
date at first denied it, but at the Harlan meeting the Demo
cratic candidate produced the necessary proof, and from
that moment the Republican candidate's chances were

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH.

71

The Author.

72 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
doomed; in fact, if I recollect rightly, he withdrew from
the contest.
What a comfort were letters and newspapers in our
isolated homes! It was a long way to the post-offices, so
the rule of getting each other's mail Avas strictly adhered
to, and often, when taken from the post-office, it was a
long time and by circuitous routes before it finally reached
the owner. When one got his neighbor's mail it was not
expected that he would go miles out of the way to deliver
it, Sometimes it would be a week reaching its final des
tination. One of the most disagreeable nights I ever
passed was trying to locate a letter with other mail which
had been taken out of the post-office by one of my neigh
bors. There was a young lady from the East visiting us at the
time, who was a great letter writer, and I thought she
Arould drive us all crazy trying to figure out how she could
get her mail to and from the distant post-office. On one
of my trips to town I found my mail had been taken out
the day before by one of my neighbors. The postmaster
Avas unable to tell to whom he delivered it. It wasn't a
matter of great concern to me, as I knew it was safe some
where and would eventually get around. On my return
home I made a great mistake. Instead of saying there
wasn't any mail, I said it was taken out by somebody.
The words had no sooner left my mouth than our guest
gave a yell like a Comanche Indian and almost had a fit.
It seems she was expecting an important letter. All her
letters, both going and coming, seemed "important," and
those going were generally marked "in haste." As evening
approached the more hysterical she got. My wife told me
there wouldn't be any sleep in that house that night if I
didn't strike out and get that mail.

RUNNING A STOCK RANCH 73
It was more than a night's ride to all my neighbors, so
I divided up the territory with one of my men. He was
to cover one-half and I the other. I was in hopes that my
nearest neighbor, Avho was five miles away, Avould be the
man, but there was no such luck in store for me. If I had
known what Avas ahead of me I would never have left the
place, but slept in one of the barns. There was nothing
delightful riding over the prairies in the dark of the moon,
trying to steer clear of dogs while waking your neighbors
up in the middle of the night. The first streak of daylight
Avas shedding its luster over the horizon as Captain Dyes'
place near Gallon's Grove came in sight three miles away.
The captain's was the last place on my list. As I left the
last place before the captain's — the distance between the
two being seven miles — I came near starting home, believ
ing my man had gotten the "important" letter on his route.
It was lucky that I didn't turn back, as the captain had
the coveted prize. Old Sol was showing his scalp above
the prairie grass as I reached the captain's. In the cattle-
yard was the captain milking the cows. I propounded
the nowr stereotyped question, "Got any mail for me?"
"Yes," came back the reply. "Well, Cap, for God's sake
let me have it. " I explained the situation, and he laughed.
so hard he rolled off the milk stool. Headachy and hun
gry, I started for my home, fifteen miles away. When I
arrived the house was in an uproar. Nobody had slept a
wink. The young lady had collapsed at 2 a.m., and they
had sent for a doctor. My man had returned at that hour
with the report that some mail had been lost by Bill Cuppy
near Leland's Grove, and he believed my mail was among
the rest. The first thing I did on my return was to dis
patch one of the men to Woodbine with a request to the
postmaster: "Don't deliver any of my mail to anybody
without an order."

74 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

CHAPTER VII.
SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO.
As already stated, the Northwestern was the first roao^
across IoAva, and the trains were run in a go-as-you-please
kind of style. There Avas one passenger train each way a
day and several freights. They had a schedule just to look
at, but not to run by. They Avould stop anywhere for any
thing or anybody. They tell a story that Knox Shufelt,
a passenger conductor, held his train while he acted as
best man at a wedding at a near-by farm house. Like the
governors of North and South Carolina, it was a long dis
tance between stations. As soon as the railroads got
through, we stock men took ad\rantage of it and commenced
shipping our stock over the road to Chicago. The engineer
who ran the freight I usually shipped on was Johnny
Wells, and the conductor was Jim Folsom. The boys were
great hunters and carried their guns along, and while pass
ing through Carroll County, where there was a good sup
ply of prairie chickens, they often stopped the train to
knock over a dozen or so. They used to run through Har
rison and Crawford Counties as if the Old Nick was after
them, so as to have plenty of time to hunt in Carroll.
You who are riding on the Northwestern to-day, with its
double track and its frequent and SAvift-moving trains,
think of a freight train standing on the only track for

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO. 75
hours at a time, and the trainmen off on the prairies hunt
ing chickens. When Ave arrived at Boone, the end of the
division, the trainmen were often called up by the super
intendent to explain why they could not make schedule
time. The boys spoke of "hot boxes," "broke in tAvo com
ing over the hills of the divide," and when they ran out of
excuses we stock men would come to the rescue and tell
the superintendent the cattle were getting down badly and
we had to stop and get them on their feet again.
There is an end to everything, and there Avas a fiuish to
Folsom hunting prairie chickens Avhile running a freight
train. Jim was caught red-handed, and I was in at the
kill. One morning, bright and early, I had loaded four cars
of cattle and tAvo of hogs at St. John, now Missouri Val
ley, and Jim came along from Council Bluffs on his way
to Boone. It was a beautiful day in the fall of the year,
and the boys thought they Avould take a shot at some
prairie chickens. Wells pulled the throttle wide open, and
away we flew up the valley of the Boyer and over the di
vide for Carroll County. At a level place in the road the
boys brought the train to a stop, and over the prairie we
went after chickens. The train was entirely deserted. We
had been gone about an hour when there came resounding
over the prairies a long-drawn-out whistle of a locomotive.
It seems the superintendent had started out on a prospect
ing tour from Boone and had found Jim's deserted train.
The cold chills commenced to run up and down the boys'
vertebrae as they caught sight of the superintendent's car.
Jim was equal to the occasion, hoAvever. Picking out six
of the fattest chickens, he approached the stern-looking
superintendent with a smile, and, handing out the chick
ens, said: "Mr. Superintendent, allow me." Jim by in
vitation rode to the next siding in the superintendent's car,

76 WHEN THE WILDWOOD AVAS IN FLOWER.
and what took place at the little seance betAveen them Jim
Avould never tell, but the next time I went over the road I
noticed Ave did not stop at our favorite hunting grounds,
and as we rolled over the ties through Carroll County, Jim
sat in the corner of the caboose looking through the win-

"Johnny" Wells.
dow, and would take a long breath every time he saw a
prairie chicken fly over the train. But it did not follow
that Jim never got any more prairie chickens, as they Avere
occasionally lying dead along the track by coming in con
tact with the telegraph wires. The prairie chicken would

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO. 77
make a good carrier-pigeon, so to speak, as it is a rapid
flyer. Like the quail, its breast is large and most pala
table. I have had lots of trouble with four-footed animals in
stock cars and have forgotten most of those occurrences,
but I will never forget the set-to on a locomotive, between
five of us on one side and a Woodbine, Iowa, saloon
keeper on the other, who had a sudden attack of delirium
tremens. The material* of the first grade of the railroads
through Iowa was prairie dirt. Often the Boyer River
was out of its banks from frequent rains, and the grade
of the Northwestern was washed away, and for miles the
track was under water, preventing the moving of trains.
In the early days of railroad building in the West the main
object w7as to reach distant points as soon as possible and
get trains to running, as there was always some incentive
offered for rapid construction; therefore, proper grades,
punching dirt under ties and driving spikes was often sac
rificed to the main point to "get there." The first grade
of the Northwestern down the Boyer w7as only about three
feet higher than the bottom lands, so often in the rainy sea
son the track was under water, sometimes to the depth of
several feet.
While I was at Sioux City on a little business trip there
occurred a terrific storm, and when I arrived at Missouri
Valley on my way home no trains were running on the
Northwestern, as the track in places was covered with
water and the wires were down in every direction. There
was an important message at Missouri Valley which was
necessary to be sent to Dunlap, the end of the division, and
they were sending a wild engine over the road to deliver it.
The engine, if I recollect rightly, was in charge of Tommy
Burling, a friend of mine, and knowing that I wanted to go

iO WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
to Woodbine, he invited me to ride on the engine. Besides
Burling, his fireman and myself, the other occupants of the
locomotive were the Woodbine saloon-keeper and two Dun-
lap men. During my term of office as Mayor of AVoodbine
I had considerable trouble with this particular saloon
keeper. He was a hard drinker and had an attack of de
lirium tremens during my term.
We were moving slowly along and occasionally going
it blind so far as the track was concerned, expecting to
strike a piece of undermined track and topple over, when
"the man from behind the bar" struck Burling a terrific
blow and grabbed the throttle, pulling it wide open. I
yelled to everybody that the fellow had an attack of de
lirium tremens. The fireman struck the saloon-keeper over
the head with his coal shovel, dropping him to the floor.
Burling at the same time jumped for the throttle. The
maniac was soon on his feet again, and right there began
the hottest fight in close quarters that I was ever in. We
fought in the narrow space of the locomotive and all over
the tender, on top of the coal, but wre finally dumped the
saloon-keeper off of the engine into the water. Burling
said he Avould rather ditch the engine than let that fellow
get aboard again, so he put on more steam, and luckily for
us we pulled away from our guest, and the last Ave saw of
him he was running and half swimming along the railroad
grade. On our arrival at Woodbine I notified the saloon-keeper's
partner of the occurrence; they immediately dispatched a
boat down the valley and finally landed their man.
I have unloaded a good many carloads of stock, but I
never saw cattle unload themselves except once, and that
was a carload of Texas steers AA'hile going down the steep
winding grade of the Northwestern Railroad from Moin-

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO.

79

gona to the Des Moines River bridge. The grade on both
sides was steep, with many curves, and the boys used to
run doAvn those grades as if old Nick Avas after them, so as
to get a good start for the up-grade on the other side. The
time I refer to Ave were running wild, being a stock train
of tAventy-five cars with no other freight. The boys had the
customary orders to keep out of the Avay of the regular

Moingona Bridge, Scene of Kate Shelly' s Heroic Act.
trains. At the last station, the engineer saw he had time to
reach Boone to meet the regular passenger train going
West if he put on a little more steam, so Avhen we struck
the Moingona grade we were going about forty miles an
hour. The car containing the Texas steers was out of repair,
having no crossbar at one of the exits. A crossbar prevents

80 WHEN THE AYILDAVOOD WAS IN FLOWER
any pressure against the side doors. As the train rounded
the second curve we saw a Texas steer going horns over
hoofs doAvn the steep incline at the side of the track, the
next moment we saw another. A side door of the car went
next, and then came another steer and then another. The
conductor, Charlie Dow, tried to signal the engineer from
the caboose, as none of the train creAV dared to climb onto
the top of the train. The engineer never looked back, all he
was thinking about was getting onto a siding at Boone. In
fact, he couldn't have stopped anyway, so on he went.
NotAvithstanding I Avas afraid the caboose would jump the
track any minute, I couldn't help but laugh as I saAV steer
after steer roll down the embankment. As we struck the
bridge, a single wooden span, I saw the sight of my life,
a steer going through the air turning somersault after
somersault, and disappearing into the river. As we
started up the grade toAvards Boone, the train slackened
and Ave all climbed on top and ran towards the car which
contained the Texas steers. About half of them were still
in the car, and were rushing each other from one end to the
other, and every now and then a steer would tumble out.
As the train came to the switch yard at Boone, the rest
of them jumped out and the country between Moingona
and Boone was alive with Texas steers.
We intended to unload at Boone, spending the night and
the next day there. On account of the defective car, the
owner of the Texas steers put it up to the railroad com
pany, and that night and all the next day Boone and the
entire country-side were rounding up Texas steers. Some
Avere so badly crippled that they were shot, others were
sold to local butchers. One vicious cuss had wandered
down into a slue on the river bottom and had injured two
or three horses and men trying to corral him, and the rail-

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO. 81
road company ordered him shot. Nobody dared to go near
him, so they got the best marksman in Boone to wing him.
About all you could see of the steer Avas his head above
the slue grass, and at this the fellow fired. He would fire,
and about all the steer would do would be to shake his
head. The fellow fired four times and he said he would
take his oath he had hit the steer between the horns every
shot. The animal made a charge toAvards us and the
Boone man plugged him behind one of the fore legs, and
the gentleman from the Lone Star State dropped. I there
learned that an animal's head, especially that of a Texas
steer, is not a vital spot, as every one of those four shots
had struck him squarely in the forehead between the eyes.
Not having been born with a silver spoon in my mouth,
and having to paddle my own canoe, I naturally have
tackled some hard propositions, but the toughest job I
ever undertook was to start from the Missouri River and
land a consignment of cattle in the Union Stock Yards,
Chicago, without a loss. The first run Avas three hundred
miles across the State of IoAva to the Mississippi River;
it generally took thirty-six hours, tAvo nights and a day.
In loading cattle, on account of the freight charges, you
naturally would get every steer in a car you could. The
steers had "standing room only" ; consequently, if a steer
got clown, which Avas a very common occurrence, on ac
count of the fatigue from standing too long, it Avas either to
get that steer on his feet again or he Avould be trampled to
death, and aAvay would go the profit on that car of cattle.
Sometimes you could raise him by standing alongside of
the car and using your prod — a pole about six feet long
with a sharp iron point in one end of it — but often you
had to climb into the end window of the car and go right
among them, horns, droppings, and all, and take your

82

AVHEN THE WILDAVOOD AVAS IN FLOAVER

chances of ever getting out alive, the trainmen paying no
attention to you, the train running thirty miles an hour,
and maybe it is night and as dark as pitch. As I look back
to the days and nights when I Avas a shipper of stock to
Chicago, and recall the many horn-breadth escapes I had,
the wonder is I am aliATe.
Many a time I have started from the Missouri River for

The Home of the Stockman and His Herd.
Chicago with a trainload of stock and never got a wink
of sleep for twenty-four hours at a stretch. I recall the
night at Belle Plaine that we pulled a dead Mexican out
of a car of Texas steers. Instead of insisting on having
his car sidetracked to get up some steers that were down,
he foolishly crawled into the car and to his finish. What
a great relief it Avas on our arrival at the yards at Chicago,
as we turned the stock and prod pole over to our commis-

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO. 8J
sioner and started for the Transit House for a bath, shave
and a change of raiment, and to enter a clean dining-room
again for the first square meal in four days, and, after the
stock was sold, to return home dressed as gentlemen. No
one would have thought that the Avell-dressed individual
comfortably lounging in a Pullman with an ebony em
ployee catering to his wants, Avas the same unkempt, dirty
citizen who, but a few hours before, Avith a four-days'
growth of whiskers on his chin, Avas in a filthy stock car
trying to get a steer on his feet.
A character Avho traAreled under the sobriquet of "Canada
Bill" was well known along the Northwestern as the king
pin three-card monte man of the Northwest. "Humbug"
Barnum, the greatest showman the world ever knew, said a
fool was born every minute, and the daily and nightly occu
pation of "Canada Bill" was trying to confirm the truth of
that saying. Bill and his cappers worked the Northwest
ern betAV7een "the tAvo rivers," and many a bank roll of
persons green as regards the ways of this world, found its
way via "the picture card" to Bill's exchequer.
On my way back from Chicago, after a shipment of stock,
being unable to sleep, I left my berth and went forward
to the smoking car for a smoke. I walked the length of the
smoker to see if I knew anybody. The only familiar face
was that of a felloAV by the name of Jack Bridgers.
Bridgers posed as a traveling man. He traveled all right,
sometimes mighty fast. He claimed as his home Fort Lara
mie, Wyoming. He was known around the old Herndon
House at Omaha — where I made his acquaintance — as a
"road agent," one of those fellows who stop stage coaches
in the lonely passes of the mountains to take up a collec
tion for present necessities and future wants. As I sat
down beside him with a "Hello, Jack !" he didn't seem to

84 WHEN THE WILDAV00D WAS IN FLOWER
like it being recognized ; at first he denied his identity, but
he soon mellowed and we talked of times along the Big
Muddy. As the train stopped at a small place called Colo, there
climbed aboard a fellow who to. all appearances was a typi
cal hayseed. I immediately recognized the newcomer as
"Canada Bill." Personating an old farmer was Bill's fa
vorite rdle. I don't believe any one but myself knew who
he was except the trainmen. Bill ahvays made himself
solid with them. He had hardly taken his seat, which was
just across the passage away from the one occupied by
Bridgers and myself, when in a loud voice he commenced
one of his tales of woe. In regular old farmer parlance he
said he had just come over from the Calhoun County Fair
and had been swindled out of a whole lot of money by some
three-card monte men, and he had bought a deck of cards
to learn the trick himself. I told Bridgers who the hay
seed Avas, he said he had heard of "Canada Bill,"
but had never met him. It was but a short time before
Bill commenced separating some of the boys from their
spare change.
In the game of three-card monte it is an easy matter to
guess the picture card unless some other card is substituted
in the act of throwing. One of the tricks of the game is that
the manipulator changes the location of the picture card
after the three cards have been thrown. This change is
made when the bettor momentarily takes his eyes off of the
cards while hunting for his money. Bridgers said to me,
"See me make my fare from Omaha to Laramie, and I will
make it by an old trick if your man don't smell a mouse."
Bill threAV the cards. Bridgers offered to bet tAventy he
could tell the picture card. Bill said, "I'll go you, neigh
bor." Bridgers had his tAventy ready, covered Bill's, and

SHIPPING STOCK TO CHICAGO.

85

before Bill had time to Avink, Bridgers pulled a knife from
his boot, droA^e it through the picture card and pulled his
gun, Avith the remark, "I have dirked the picture card."
Canada William Avas a good loser and never Avhimpered as
Bridgers raked in the pot. The display of the artillery of

The Mother Watching the Branding of Its Offspring,
the "traveling man" from FortLaramie broke up the game;
the hayseed from the Calhoun County Fair lit a perfecto,
pulled his hat over his eyes, with the remark, "Well, I guess
I struck an exception to Old Barnum's rule."

86 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER

CHAPTER VIII.
ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES.
While I was raising stock in the valley of the Pigeon
for the benefit of the Beef Trust and the railroads, I saw
the start and finish of one of the greatest scourges that
ever afflicted a farming community — the destructive locust
or grasshopper. Anything that can bring a fast-running
train to a standstill certainly deserves recognition. Many
a time I saw grasshoppers stop a passenger train on the
NortliAvestern. I don't mean they would catch hold of the
cars and stop the train by main strength, or hop aboard
and pull the bell cord, but they covered the rails in count
less thousands, and, like the tramp preferring to die rather
than move, the locomotive in squashing out their lives so
greased the track that the driving-wheels failed to hold to
the rails. One fall, about the time the corn crop was
nearing maturity, there came whirling through the air
millions of grasshoppers. Looking toward the sun they
appeared like snowflakes. As they descended they acted
as if they hadn't had a square meal for a month; they
covered the corn, in fact, everything. The only citizens
who seemed to meet them with a glad hand were the
turkeys. Unlike the historic bird, he didn't have to sneak
up behind, but like the enemy of the Light Brigade at
Balaklava, the grasshoppers were on all sides. After the

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 87
pests had devoured everything that was green and pala
table, they deposited their eggs in the soil and winged their
flight to pastures new. The spring sua hatched out the
eggs, and the neAvly born devoured the groAving crops and
took their departure as soon as their wings developed.
There seemed to be nothing to destroy these pests. For
several falls they made us a visit, then, possibly tiring of
our society, left us never to return. As the plains to the
west of us settled up, the breeding places of the locust were
encroached upon and destroyed, and the grasshopper
ceased to be a burden.
Those who have not lived on the prairie will not believe
the stories of actual occurrences with the wind. It is one
continual blow night and day from one year's end to the
other. I started one day for market with a load of oats.
It Avas my first experience transporting that article. The
wind was bloAving a gale, and as it struck the wagon it
formed a whirl over the oats and they commenced to circle
in the air. In spite of all that I could do they kept on
circling, and by the time I arrived at the market not a
peck of oats Avas left and I had seeded down the country.
I was running my ranch at the time the insurance com
panies first inserted a clause in their policies against
"straight Avinds." For two weeks, night and day, there
came a Avind from the southwest that caused my house to
vibrate so we dared not sleep in it. During those two weeks
we slept on the prairie. How trees ever grew in that coun
try is beyond my comprehension !
The greatest dread of the inhabitant of the prairies is
the cyclone. No one has any conception of a Western
cyclone unless he has been on the ground, or, I might prop
erly say, in the air. One of the worst that ever occurred
in the West I saAV, but, thank Heaven, did not feel. I was

sS

WHEN THE AVILDAVOOD AVAS IN FLOAVER

in Mills County, IoAva, buying cattle. It was one of those
aAvful hot, muggy days in July, when you could look for
hailstorms, thunderstorms and cyclones.
Speaking of hailstorms, I attribute my early baldness to
an experience I had Avith a hailstorm. The day the partic-

The Author's AA'ife and Her Indian Pony.
ular hailstorm I refer to occurred was about as hot as hu
manity could bear. I had gone on horseback to drive up
some cattle. One of the dogs went along with me. I was in
my shirt sleeves without any undershirt, and wore a straw
hat, or what was left of it. I say Avhat was left of it, as the

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 89
top of the hat Avas gone, leaving my ambrosial locks exposed
to the rays of the sun. I Avas as good as bareheaded. You
often hear of stories of hailstones being as large as hens'
eggs and possibly doubted them, but if you Avill believe me,
I have seen hailstones as large as eggs, and double-yolk
eggs at that. I was on my way back with the herd, and
as I came over the divide and started down a long hollow
that led to the Pigeon I saw a hailstorm coming up the
river. When I first saw it, it was about a quarter of a
mile away and coming as fast as the wind. The stock
could feel the chill and knew what was coming as Avell as
I did, and all hands started on the jump down the hollow
for the river, in order to get under the protection of the
bank. Before any of us got half way to the river the storm
Avas upon us. Hailstones commenced bouncing off the top
of my head and welting me on the back. I jumped off
the horse and tried to keep him between me and the storm,
but in trying to hold him, we were going around and
around in a kind of a "two-step," so to speak. There was
nothing to do but let go of the horse and strike out for the
river bank. I have heard of the Delaware whipping-post,
and I can imagine how a fellow's back feels. My dog was
at my heels, getting it with the rest; every little way he
would lie down in the prairie grass and whine and then
up and after me again. I would hold up my hands over my
head and ward off the stones till I could stand it no longer,
then my head would catch it again. There is one redeem
ing feature about hailstorms — they are of short duration.
But that one lasted long enough to keep me company to
the river bank. As I reached the bank over I went and
crawled under the protection of an overhanging sod. The
sun shone forth again; the cattle, one by one, came out of
the river bottom ; the horse had gone to the stable, but the

90 AVHEN THE AVILDWOOD AVAS IN FLOWER
ever-faithful dog was at my side. The hair had partially
protected my scalp, but my back looked like that of a small
pox patient. That hailstorm utterly destroyed one of my
corn fields, consisting of one hundred acres.
I recall a little episode which occurred in an adjoining
corn field a month later that laid low another portion of
my corn crop. Among the other dogs on the place Avas a
bulldog. A cattle ranch and bulldogs do not dove-tail
very well, but as this particular dog was a pet of the female
contingent his society was allowed. Like all bulldogs,
this one was on the popular side of the monopoly question,
for if he was ever called upon to help the other dogs out,
where the herd was concerned, he would pick his animal
and leave the balance of the herd to the rest of the dogs.
So if any reader of this volume intends embarking in the
cattle business and is a bulldog fancier, he will find it
necessary to figure one bulldog Avith every head of stock.
The little episode I refer to occurred on a certain occasion
Avhen the cattle broke into a corn field, not an uncommon
occurrence on all well-regulated farms, and we started
with a shepherd and a NeAvfoundland dog to drive
them out. Without our knoAvledge the bulldog sneaked
along. After the other dogs had quietly and suc
cessfully, or, at least, we thought they had, cleared the
field, we heard an awful racket down at one end. Follow
ing the noise we found the bulldog and a three-year-old
dancing the minuet AAThile smashing down corn by the rod.
The dog had the animal by the nose, and the steer was
swinging him around like a professional club swinger.
Before we got the dog's grip loose, between the men, horses,
dogs and steer we destroyed more corn than the animal
Avould have eaten in a month. The bulldog no doubt

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 91
thought he had performed a heroic act, and he never could
quite understand, Avhenever thereafter the other dogs start
ed after the stock, AAhy he was left in his kennel to meditate.
In trying to describe a blizzard I mentioned the fact
that Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries failed to
supply the necessary words. If in addition to Messrs.

"Texas," Our Mainstay.
Webster and Worcester, Mrs. Webster and Airs. Worcester
and all the little AATebsters and Worcesters Avere to compile
dictionaries, there would still be adjectives to coin to prop
erly describe a Western cyclone. As already stated, the
cyclone to which I particularly refer was in Mills County.
While sitting on the piazza of a hotel we heard a low moan-

92 WHEN THE AATLDWOOD AVAS IN FLOAVER
ing sound which one of the bystanders remarked was the
forerunner of a cyclone. Off to the soutliAvest black clouds
commenced to loom above the horizon ; higher and higher
they arose and commenced to Avhirl in a circle. The moan
ing we had heard changed to a roar. The clouds became
funnel-shaped, Avith a long narrow tail hanging toward the
ground. From the hotel steps we saw it bounding along the
prairie, leaving a track a quarter of a mile Avide swept as
clean as a floor. The little whirlwind in the streets gives
you the principle of the cyclone. Like it a cyclone forms
a vacuum, lifting everything from the ground. The cyclone
passed about a mile south of where I stood. After its
passage the inhabitants of the adjoining country rushed to
the aid of the stricken ones. Such a sight I never saAV, nor
ever listened to such experiences. Alen, women and chil
dren were found dead, with every strip of clothing gone.
Houses taken bodily from their foundations, torn into
pieces and carried away for miles. Gullies full of dead
animals and refuse, dead chickens without a feather, iron
machinery twisted like a pretzel, ruin and desolation on
all sides. A Air. Osier's place, a gentleman from whom I
had recently bought some stock, Avas in the track of the
storm. His whole family lost their lives; he was saved.
He told me that at one time he was at least two hundred
feet in the air, and sailing along with him was a pet colt
so close he could have put his hand on it. In one of Air.
Osier's corn-cribs there was over 5,000 bushels of corn;
not a piece of the corn-crib nor an ear of the corn remained.
The blacksmith of a village over which the storm passed
was at work, and as the shop, Avhich had a dirt floor, lifted
and started heavemvard, he caught hold of the anvil and

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 93
hung on and thereby saved his life. The Eastern farmer
sometimes deplores his lot, but if he had seen what I saw
that day he Avould conclude there Avas something Avorse to
contend Avith than railroads, commission men, book agents,
candidates and poor markets.
It Avas while I was battling with the elements on the
Pigeon that the old settler had to admit that the record-
breaking winter storm occurred. The storm and the in
tense cold of the 13th of January, 1888, Avill never be ef
faced from the memory of those who experienced it. Up
to 3 p. m. the wind was in the Southwest, with no atmos
pheric Avarnings of what was to come. Suddenly the wind
whirled to the Northwest, and that fine snow Avhich is the
forerunner of a blizzard came sifting along the frozen
ground. The bulb in the thermometer began to sink, and
with each passing moment the fury of the storm increased.
For thirty-six hours it raged. Parents lost their lives en
deavoring to reach the isolated school-houses where the
children were marooned. Usually in storms the stock is the
first consideration, but they were left to shift for them
selves, consequently thousands perished. ForeA^er after the
dread of an approaching 13th of January to the ATestern
stockman was like the guillotine to the condemned crim
inal.

94 WHEN THE AVILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER

CHAPTER IX.
UP AGAINST THE RED MAN.
In my career on the plains as a "cow puncher," as mayor
of a frontier town, and as superintendent of a mine in the
early days of Leadville, Colorado, I have occasionally been
where I felt like shying my "caster into the ring" ; but of
all my experiences I never ached to go on "the war path"
as I did when on the Niobrara River in Nebraska, years
ago, I saAV one of my best friends lying dead, scalped by
a band of bloodthirsty Indians. Back in the seventies I
was interested in a cattle ranch in that locality. The only
railroad across the plains at the time was the Union
Pacific. The nearest station of the railroad to our ranch
Avas Ogallala. About fifty miles farther up the river from
the ranch in Avhich I was interested was that of the Aloore-
head boys, of Dun lap, Iowa. ATe often visited. Some of
my stock had strayed away, and in hunting for them it took
us in sight of the Aloorehead corral. As we came on to the
divide from Avhere Ave always caught sight of the Aloore
head ranch, we saw a cloud of smoke instead. As we ap
proached the place we saAV it was entirely consumed. About
three hundred yards from the corral we came upon one of
Aloorehead's helpers lying on the ground shot dead and
scalped. Near the corral lay the dead body of Frank
Aloorehead. AATe knew it was the work of Indians. It

UP AGAINST THE RED MAN.

95

Little Wolf's Double.

seemed that Little Wolf's band of Cheyenne Indians had
broken away from their reservation in the Indian Territory
and had left a track of blood and ashes through the States

96 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOAVER
of Kansas and Nebraska, and it was these devils who had
done the work.
Possibly the novice is not aware of the fact that the
scalp taken by the Indians is that part of the head where
the hair makes a croAvn. Some have more than one crown.
Aloorehead must have had tAvo, as he was scalped in two
places. Over the grave of his dead brother Frank, Jim
Moorehead took an oath of revenge. Whether he ever got
revenge or not I do not knoAV, but I do know that Little
Wolf is dead. The Niobrara country in those days was
an awful lonesome place. Our nearest town was Ogal-
lala, one hundred and fifty miles aAvay. There we
had to go for our provisions and mail. Reports were made
every two Aveeks to the OAvners of the cattle on the range
which necessitated a ride of one hundred and fifty miles
and back. I made the ride once and "once was enough for
him." Loping seventy-five miles betAveen daylight and
tAvilight is quite a jaunt, but to get up the next morning
and go another seventy-five, and then go back over the route
in another two days is about all the average citizen can
stand. There was a ranchman's corral just half way to
Ogallala, where we stopped over night and changed horses.
It was either to make the seventy-fiAre miles to that corral
in a day or camp out, and I never heard of any of the boys
taking the camping-out end of the proposition. God help
them if they did ! Physicians tell us that there is nothing-
more beneficial than horseback riding, but they didn't
mean three hundred miles in four days, with the chances
of being chased by Indians.
The hardest ride I ever made in my fifteen years in the
saddle was a forty-two-mile gallop from Six Alile Grove,
in Iowa, to Council Bluffs, and made under a terrible
nervous strain. The wife of my nearest neighbor, while

UP AGAINST THE RED MAN. 97
feeding a cane mill, caught her right arm in the machinery
and crushed it above the elboAV before they could stop the
machine. I was present when the sickening accident oc
curred. Aiounting the fleetest horse in my friend's stable, a
mustang, I soon reached the divide along which led the old
Alormon trail to Council Bluffs. This trail was the prin
cipal road traveled by the Alormons across IoAva on their
exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City. The
horse seemed to realize what had occurred, and for the
first twenty miles needed no urging, but on the last stretch
I often applied the spurs and whip. As a guide to those
who for years afterAvard followed the trail, the Alormons
sowed sunflower seeds along it, and the Alormon trail ever
after was marked by tall sunfloAvers. The wind would Avhirl
them over the road, and I was constantly dodging them,
and occasionally I would get a swipe, but I made the
forty-two miles in tAvo and three-quarter hours, but it
was the last trip that horse ever made. The exertion was
too much for him, and I left him in Council Bluffs to die.
Fortunately, the doctor was at home, and fifteen minutes
after my arrival Ave were going back over the trail with a
span of horses that for fleetness would have been the
envy of any horseman.
While I was attending a meeting of the Masonic lodge
of which I was a member, at the little frontier toAvn of
Dunlap, IoAva, we were called to defend the town from a
threatened attack from the Omaha tribe of Indians. The
Indians had been camped for a couple of weeks by the
Boyer River, about a mile from town. The chief was
YelloAV Smoke. He was a great gambler, and a suc
cessful one at that. * He often visited the saloons of
the town for a game of cards and to see what show there
was to get his hands on some firewater. Yellow Smoke,

98

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER

unfortunately, sat down one night in a game with some
toughs, who purposely got him drunk to rob him. They
stole his money and an elegant fur robe, and in the melee
Yellow Smoke was killed. The toughs fled the tOAvn. As
soon as the tribe heard of Yellow Smoke's death they came

The Original American.
for the body and demanded the men who killed him. The
body they took aAvay and buried, and sent word to the
town authorities that they wanted the men Avho had killed
their chief. There were four hundred bucks in the Indian
camp, armed to the t^eth, and as Dunlap had only about

UP AGAINST THE RED MAN. 99
five hundred inhabitants all told, things began to look a
little dubious. The authorities sent back Avord, which was
the truth, that the men Avho killed Yellow Smoke were not
residents of the place and had fled from the town. The
Indians wouldn't believe if, and demanded the men at
once or they would come after them. We all knew Avhat
the result of that expedition would be. A committee,
of Avhich I was a member, from the lodge, visited the In
dian camp to try and appease them, and assure them that
the men had left. At the suggestion of one of the mem
bers, we dressed in our Alasonic regalia. AThat a fortu
nate suggestion! To the astonishment of all of us, the
Indians on- our approach greeted us with Masonic signs,
and assured us they would believe Avhat we told them.
Our statement proved satisfactory. The Indians having
obtained Alasonic signs in some unaccountable manner, un
doubtedly saAred Dunlap from being wiped off the map;
that is, it looked that Avay. But there is one thing certain ;
from what I kneAv of the caliber of Dunlap citizens and
the out-of-toAvn members of the lodge who were present
at that particular time, the Omaha tribe of Indians would
have been someAvhat reduced before the Aviping-out process
Avas completed.
In all my experience with the noble red man the most
trying moment I ever passed through was when I sat at my
desk in a grain house at Woodbine, Iowa, with my back to
six stalwart Indians while closing a transaction with them
in which from all appearances I was taking advantage of
their ignorance. On my election to the mayoralty of
Woodbine I bought a half interest in a grain business.
About half of the time I spent at the office of the grain
house. We had several government corn contracts to fill.
Western Iowa at that time was one of the great corn belts

100 AVHEN THE AVILDAVOOD AVAS IN FLOWER
of the West. The contracts necessitated the corn being
shelled and sacked. The improved corn sheller with its
necessary equipment was a little too rich for our bank ac
count, so all the corn shelled at the Avarehouse Avas done by
hand shellers. Two good men could shell and sack one
hundred bushels a day. AYe paid five cents per bushel. For
the benefit of the reader who never saAV a hand corn sheller,
I would state that it is a small iron contrivance which is
put in motion by a person turning a crank and another
feeding the machine one ear at a time, the corn coming out
of one hole and the cobs another. Every once in a Avhile
the men Avould stop to sack the accumulated corn and clear
away the cobs.
An island on the Boyer River about half a mile from
AVoodbine was a favorite Indian camping ground, and it
was seldom that Indians were not in camp there. They
daily visited the stores of the town to trade skins of ani
mals they had trapped along the Boyer for grub and knick-
knacks. The path from the island passed our warehouse.
Nailed to the corner of the building was a sign, "Corn
shellers wanted." On my arrhral one morning at the office
of the warehouse I saw six Indians running a corn sheller
which my partner had put to work. One of our men was
trying the hopeless task of instructing the noble red man
the trick of running a corn sheller. It seems they had seen
the sign "Corn shellers wanted" and had made applica
tion. I would give right now one hundred dollars if I had
a photograph of those six Indians running that corn shel
ler, and I can assure the reader he would see it reproduced.
As I stated, one of our men Avas trying to sIioav them how
to run the machine, but he finally gaA e up the job. Instead
of running two machines, the whole six Avere, I might say,
standing around one. In feeding a hand corn sheller you

UP AGAINST THE RED MAN.

101

put one ear of corn in immediately after another, but in
spite of my man's directions, the Indian Avho was feeding
the machine would not put in another ear until he saAV the
cob of the preceding one come out. One Indian Avas hand
ing corn to the felloAV Avho Avas feeding, another turning the

Dinner Is Now Ready in the Dining Car.

crank, another picking up the lonely cob as it fell to the
floor and carrying it over to the cob pile, another holding
a sack and another with a broom and scoop shovel gather
ing up the kernels of corn as they came from the machine.
The felloAV who Avas turning the crank soon saw he had the

1 02 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER
hardest job, so there was a continual argument going on
as to whose turn it was next to turn the crank. After they
had worked about four hours, they entered the office, greet
ing me with the word "backsheesh," which means, in
English, money. I knew they were ready to quit and be
paid off.
I sent one of the men to measure the corn, and he re
turned with the announcement that they had shelled the
immense amount of two bushels, which at five cents a
bushel came to ten cents. For the moment I didn't know
what to do. With six Indians, all over six feet, standing
at my back, who had worked hard according to their theory
for nearly half a day, it required a lot of nerve on my part
to hand them a lonely ten-cent piece. I never looked up as
I handed one of them the coin. I expected to hear a war-
whoop and feel my scalp leaving my head and several
knives enter my anatomy. I could realize the feelings of
the criminal in that horrible moment as he sits in the elec
tric chair between the completion of the strapping and the
turning on of the electric current. After firing a little
Indian dialect at each other, they filed out of the office. As
they crossed the threshold two gentlemen who had been
sitting in the office and who were aware of what had taken
place, burst into laughter. The Indians hearing the laugh
ter stopped, and greatly to my relief, grimly smiled. The
fact of the matter was my partner had put up a job on me
and was in a nearby store playing "seven up" Avhile watch
ing developments at the warehouse.

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES. 103

CHAPTER X.
THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES.
In the schooldays of my boyhood I learned of the Great
American Desert, but little did I think then that I would
ever experience its discomforts. It required courage almost
beyond the human frame to cover the trail to Denver and
Santa Fe. Toiling along months at a time, urging slow-
moving ox teams through the hot, blinding sandstorms by
day and guarding your all from the Indians by night
was enough to dethrone one's reason. I have seen strong
men, who had endured many a hardship, crying like chil
dren at the trials around and before them. Nature, not
satisfied with afflicting us Avith the real, Avould often mock
us Avith the unreal. Alan and beast perishing from thirst
Avould see before them the mirage of some shady stream,
seemingly a short distance aAAay. The dumb brutes, ig
norant of the deception, would bolt toAvard the phantom,
often following it to their death. Beautiful cities Avould
appear above the horizon as if to lure us on, then, like the
hopes of this life, soon faded aAvay. I have often heard
of the sufferings of the soldiers on the plains, but their life
Avas clover to that of the government trains, and still
the hardships of the government trains, composed of
men, was a mere bagatelle to that of the immigrants with
their women and children. They Avere the unprotected ones
who invited the attack of the Indians.

104

WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.

The United States Government and those who to-day
are enjoying the benefits of the plains and the Rockies,
OAve a debt to the immigrants of the sixties Avhich they can
never repay. On those long, Aveary tugs from Omaha to
Denver it was a great relief, at least to me, Avhen the

Omaha.
Rockies came in sight. Notwithstanding when first seen
they were over a hundred miles away, it was a satisfaction
to know that your goal AATas stationary and always in view,
and ere long your journey would be at an end, although at
times, after days of travel, Pike's Peak and its companions
seemed to be as far aAvay as Avhen first sighted.
There Avas nothing sIoav about building railroads over the
plains; if they didn't build several miles between meals

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES. 105
they considered it poor progress. For hundreds of miles
there were neither cuts nor fills. The surveyors would go
ahead and stake out a strip the required width, furrows
along each side of the stakes were plowed, ties would be
laid between the furrowed strip, and rails spiked doAvn,
and the construction cars run thereon. At the time the
Pacific Railroad bills were before Congress there were
opponents to the bills, of course, as there is to everything.
If a balloon came sailing over some communities, dropping
twenty-dollar gold pieces, there are people Avho would try
to shoot the aeronaut for his audacity. According to
the Congressional Globe, the discussion over the Pacific
Railroad bills showed what poor prophets we mortals be.
Every speaker who opposed the bills dwelt long and
earnestly on what the Indians would do. They claimed
that on account of the Indians the road could not be built,
unless under the protection of troops, and after the road
Avas constructed the Indians would tear up the track unless
it was guarded the Avhole length. AYhat a godsend it is
that there are people who cannot be persuaded by scare-
croAvs. If not, America would still be a Avilderness!
While the Pacific railroads Avere under construction the
only thing the Indians did was to ride along the ridges at
a safe distance, half scared to death in fear of the iron
horse ; and after the road was built these ferocious Indians,
who Avere going to eat the road up, ties, rails and rolling
stock, seeing the white man riding along in a cushioned
seat smoking his cigar, commenced to make inquiries if
they couldn't also ride. Instead of tearing up the track
they became an infernal nuisance, pestering the govern
ment and railroad agents for free rides. There was hardly
a train on the road without having one or two flat cars
occupied by a lot of lazy, dirty Indians riding along at

106 WHEN THE AVILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
the Government's expense. A certain train crew gave that
practice its quietus. They started out of North Platte for
Omaha with the usual Indian delegation. Riding on flat
cars is ticklish business, as there is nothing to hold on
to. The engineer said as he started out that you would
find a string of Indians lying along the side of the track
or he would ditch the train. He didn't ditch the train,
but he did the Indians. While rounding curves he pulled
the throttle wide open, and at every curve an Indian or
two would roll off. The Indians were on their bellies,
sliding over the car and yelling for dear life, but before
the engineer let up he had dumped the Avhole bunch.
What a God-forsaken country Avas western Kansas and
Nebraska prior to the eighties. AATe often hear the expres
sion "land poor," but I never realized what it meant until
I "bulhvhacked" over the sandy desert from Omaha to
Denver. They tell a story of a land transaction in west
ern Nebraska which will give the reader an amusing il
lustration of "land poor." On the construction of the
Union Pacific Railroad immigrants came pouring into Ne
braska on the strength of the alluring literature issued
by that company. If the "press agent" of the Union Pacific
didn't get a good salary, he certainly deserved it. The
fellow Avas lucky to escape with his life from disappointed
immigrants. The land transaction I refer to was as fol
lows : among others, a man from Illinois came to Nebraska
Avith his family to locate on government land, but was un
able to find any Avhich suited him. He Avas referred to a
man Avho Avas "land poor." The Sucker had no money
he could spare, but he had an extra span of mules and of
fered them to the Nebraskan for two hundred acres,
and the offer was accepted. The necessary papers in the
transaction were draAvn up. A feAv days afterward as the

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES 107
immigrant Avas examining the papers he discovered that
besides the two hundred acres, the "poor land" man had
slipped in tAvo hundred acres more.
How interesting it was to witness the birth and develop
ment of a railroad toAvn on the frontier ! The first intima
tion that a certain spot Avas to become a toAvn on the rail
road was when some business-looking individual came
stalking down the line where the surveyors had driven their
stakes far in advance of construction, and entered into ne
gotiations with the owner of the desired tract for its pur
chase. There was never any difficulty closing the deal, as
the owner was generally offered more money than he ever
expected to see. The surveyors came next and staked out
the future metropolis. As the sleepers and rails were laid
along the grade a siding Avas run out. The next arrival Avas
a box car, with a stovepipe sticking out of it, which was
run onto the siding. That was the temporary depot and
the home of the railroad agent. Talk about Tsars, Kings
and high potentates generally, that agent was a combina
tion of them all. His say was final ; there was no appeal
from him. He was the wonder of far and near. People
used to come for miles to look at him. That blue cap with
that gold band set the little country girls wild. The boys
thought it an honor to be kicked out of the box car by him.
If you wanted to ask him about anything, if you knew what
was good for you, be far away or behind something.
The next adjunct to the new town were two more box
cars, one furnished with bunks and the other a dining car.
They were for the use of the men who were to build the
depot and freight house. Now, my dear reader, for
Heaven's sake don't think that when I say dining car I
mean the palatial one of to-day, for, if you had seen the
inside of that box car, and the cook, and what he cooked,

108 WHEN THE WILDW00B WAS IN FLOWER
and the way he cooked it, a yoke of oxen could not have
pulled you into that car for a meal, and if you had seen the
bunks and graybacks in the other, when the time came to
"Rock me to sleep, mother," you would have gone out on
the prairie and lain down in the grass. As the first freight
train arrived the rush Avas on. The agent was busy selling
lots and the trainmen side-tracking carloads of lumber, and
the enthusiastic citizens packing it on their backs to their
respecth'e locations. One enterprising citizen was putting
up an eating shed, another a hotel, another a general store,
another a grain and agricultural house, four or five more
each building a saloon ; in fact, nearly all lines of business
were represented. Through the whole twenty-four hours
saws and hammers were resounding over the prairie. The
buildings were generally one-story affairs. Everybody was
trying to get established first. It Avas all bustle, hurrah
and get there. The next big gun to appear on the scene
was a post office inspector. Everybody was glad when the
government official arrived, not only because he came to
establish a post office, but it was a satisfaction to know that
a bigger dog than that railroad agent had come to town.
The greatest event that ever happened in the town was
the arrival of the first woman. Alen were invariably
the first comers to a new Western town. The hotel man
soon found it necessary to bring his family, and the date
of their arrival was noised around among the boarders.
Around the town the news spread like a prairie fire, and all
agreed that such an event required some action. It was
decided that the whole town should be at the depot and
escort the mother and her two children — the landlord's
family — to their home. A committee was appointed to
make the necessary arrangements. The railroad agent was
appointed chairman. They sent for a couple of fifes and

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES. 109
a drum and hired a farmer's team and wagon. The agent
was appointed a committee of one to escort the lady from
the train to the Avagon. The agent also agreed to act as
drum major and lead the procession. As the agent was the
only one in town AArho had a decent suit of clothes, there
was no objection to his conspicuousness.
The long-looked-for train arrived with its precious
freight. The agent escorted the astonished mother to the
wagon decked out in the flowers of the wild, the father fol
lowing, with the two children and a big St. Bernard dog —
the first dog in the town. The dog did not seem to relish
the close proximity of the agent to his mistress, and tried
to bite him. The dog's failure to reach the agent was a
keen disappointment to the crowd. The procession started.
First came the railroad agent with his blue suit, twirling a
broom as a baton. Next came the drum corps, two fifes and
a drum, then the wagon, the father and driver on the first
seat, the mother and two children on the back seat, and
the dog occupying the remaining space. Then came the
citizens afoot, two abreast. The procession marched
through the streets, the parents laughing, the children cry
ing, the dog barking, and the crowd singing appropriate
songs. At the hotel the croAvd dispersed after giving three
cheers for the happy parents, the children and the dog.
The arrival of a woman and children in town changed the
Avhole atmosphere of the place. The men were put on their
good behavior, and with the arrival of other women and
children and more dogs the skirmish line of civilization
had struck the town.
The evening train of the next day brought an important
adjunct to the community. As the train rolled in there
alighted therefrom a "lean and hungry Cassius," tall and
angular, with long hair and an unkempt appearance, and

110 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOAVER
an intelligent cast of countenance withal. He appropriated
the first dry goods box he could lay his hands on and
started for the public square. Alounting the box he doffed
his hat, ran his hands through his flowing locks, wildly
swung his arms and opened up with a thrilling voice. The
gathering crowd soon learned that a "pusher of the quill"
was among them. He announced that he Avas a newspaper
man and that he would start a paper, furnishing the brains
if the town would furnish the money. He spoke of the
great advantage a newspaper was to a town. He was asked
by one of the citizens the amount of money required to
swing the thing, and the answer was $250. As the new
comer's arguments were convincing, the amount was raised
then and there, and ere the Sun set on another Saturday
night the "Prairie Banner" was unfurled o'er the uncertain
sea of journalism, a sea whose coast line is strewn with
many a wreck. The saying of Timothy Titcomb that "the
law had undoubtedly spoilt many a good farmer" — which
remark I take as a personal affront — might truthfully ap
ply to other avocations.
Professional men came dropping into town, a school and
church. Avere erected, the toAvn was incorporated and a
Mayor and other officers elected, streets graded, sidewalks
laid and trees set out. The one and a half story wooden
buildings gave way to brick blocks, a public hall was
erected, the place was booked as a one-night stand by the
theatrical profession, a band was organized, secret socie
ties installed, and the town that started from a box car and
a stovepipe on a siding eventually grew to a flourishing
municipality, giving an illustration of the grit and enter
prise of the American race.

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES.

Ill

While I was holding down the chair of the chief execu
tive office of the city of Woodbine, the great strike at Lead-
ville, Colorado, had been made on Fryer's Hill, and I and
one of the solid citizens of the town thought Ave Avould take
a run out there and look the situation over. The Union
Pacific Railroad had been built, and I found the trip from

Denver and the Ever Snow-capped Rockies.

Omaha to Denver someAvhat different than I did years
before, Avhen I was associated with Mr. Bosler, a govern
ment contractor. There is a big difference betAveen cross-

112 WHEN THE AVILDW00D WAS IN FLOWER.
ing the hot sands of the desert in a railroad train and fol-
lOAving a slow-moving ox team, and at night a berth in a
sleeping-car is much more preferable to lying under a
wagon Avith a gun as a bedfellow, with one eye open trying
to figure out whether that object you thought you saAV was
simply the Avaving of the grass or some sneaking Indian.
I thought I had seen a frontier toAvn when I struck Boone.
But Boone Avas not in the same class Avith Leadville.
What a restless race is the American ! In my life on the
plains I saAV railroads projected and built to isolated places
over dreary wastes, yet the cars were crowded with Ameri
cans, many of whom for the life of them couldn't tell
where they were going or Avhat for. If they would build a
railroad to the infernal regions, the cars Avould no doubt
be full of Americans, taking their chances on "beating the
devil around the bush."
The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad had reached Lead
ville, and on the morning of the third day we arrived.
Leadville is situated on Avhat was once known as Cali
fornia Gulch, one of the richest placer mining deposits in
the world. Little did the old miners know as they Avashed
the gold from the sand in California Gulch that the hills
Avhich looked down upon them contained as rich ore as the
Rockies possessed. They tell the story, and seem willing
to SAvear to it, how the rich mineral deposits of Leadville
were unearthed. Aliners are constantly being grub-staked
to seek new discoveries. A poor miner by the name of
Fryer and a companion were grub-staked and started off
from California Gulch for the Alosquito Range. Among
other things they took along was a jug of Avhiskey. They
had gone but a short distance when they concluded they
would stop and sample the Avhiskey to see if it Avas Avorth
carrying. The result Avas they never left the spot until

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES.

lie

the Avhiskey Avas consumed. The Avhiskey gone, they
couldn't see any object in going farther, so they proposed
to dig a hole in Alother Earth right then and there, Avith
the result that they exposed the carbonates that made

Fryer's Hill in the Long Ago.

Fryer's Hill at Leadville known the Avorld over as one of
the richest mining strikes.
AYhile Ave Avere in Leadville Ave attended a political meet
ing and saAV a candidate SAving a croAvd by a trick I never
saw before nor expect to see again. The miners' vote was all-
important, and as the Leadville district Avent, so went the

114 AVHEN THE AVILDAVOOD WAS IN FL0AVER.
State. The opposing candidate had been there a fortnight
before and it seemed to be the opinion that he had corraled
the mining vote. It was reported that the candidate who
I heard, said, as he left Dernier, that he had a sure scheme
to win the miners' vote if he were given the opportunity
to work it, and it seemed he had, but no one would have
believed it a winner if he had knoAvn what it was before
hand. The miners never did take much stock in politics,
so the candidate's reception was rather a chilly one. The
fellow stood six feet in his stockings and was built in
proportion ; was a good speaker, told some funny stories,
and altogether made a very convincing speech. But one
could see that the miners were not over-enthusiastic. After
he finished he asked if anybody wanted to ask any ques
tions. Some "butter-in," fresh from the East, arose to
ask a question, and the candidate requested him to come
on to the platform. The felloAV obeyed and propounded
a simple question. The words had no sooner left his mouth
than the candidate, who had Avalked over to where he was,
hit the fellow a bloAv in the face, knocking him head over
heels off the platform. We all looked on in utter amaze
ment. There was a dead silence, broken by the candidate
walking to the foot-lights and smilingly inquiring if there
was anybody else Avho wished to ask any questions. In a
moment the miners were on their feet, cheering like mad
and yelling at the top of their voices : "You are the kind
of a man we want." They rushed on to the platform,
boosted the fellow on to their shoulders and paraded all
over town Avith him. He won the miners' vote.
A daily sight and a very amusing one was the arrival
and departure of the jack trains to and from the mines on
the mountains. They brought ore down, and everything
used in the mines above they packed back. The loads

THE PLAINS AND THE ROCKIES.

115

they carried up the mountainside were simply astonish
ing. They were very small animals and seemingly docile.
They had no harness on them of any kind, except a wooden
piece, like a saAv-buck, girded to their backs. To the saw-

The Little Pittsburg in the Good Old Days.

bucks the loads were attached. A train consisting of seven
teen jacks was loaded one day in front of the hotel where
I was stopping; two were loaded each with a barrel of
kerosene and the others with 16-foot planks. The kero
sene barrels were tied on the saw-bucks and were as large
as the jack. A plank was fastened on each side of the

116 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
jacks, extending four feet in front and about six behind.
We watched them with a glass as they held to the mountain
trail. A jack train is absolutely necessary to the mines
on the steep isolated mountains. All the jacks ask in
return is a place to roll over and permission to emit an
occasional bray. Not much recompense for their services !
There is no more faithful animal to man than the horse
species, yet how cruelly they are often treated. There
is no more philanthropic work than to aid and assist those
societies in the great cities which have for their aim the
protection of those toiling dumb brutes, who cannot ex
press their wants, and who one often sees fall by the way
side through the cruelty and neglect of their masters.

THE PASSING OF THE STOCKMAN. 117

CHAPTER XL
THE PASSING OF THE STOCKMAN.
Becoming tired of music and profanity, we gladly ac
cepted the invitation of an old stockman we happened to
meet to visit his ranch in Wyoming for a hunt among the
foothills for caribou. How good it seemed to be in the
woods again and aAvay from that money-crazy crowd at
California Gulch. Will the time ever come when there
will be some other aim in life than hunting gold? It is
an honest endeavor in the daylight fair to extract the raw
material from Alother Earth, but often through ways Avhich
are dark do we extract the finished product from our fel
low man. I Avas glad that my friend offered me the oppor
tunity to hunt for something else than veins and fissures
and hear something else than "a mill run" and so many
"ounces to the ton." I was glad to get away from trying
to solve the crooks and turns of the tAvo-legged animal,
and study the habits of the four-legged one.
In the preceding chapters the author has endeavored
to so relate his experiences on the frontier that the reader
Avould find something in this book of a pleasant nature,
but the life he led and its culmination Avas more of a
tragedy than a comedy. While blazing the way, the many
ordeals through which I struggled and the sacrifices I was
compelled to make better fitted me for the life that fob

1 18 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
lowed, and I attribute my success Avhen I again returned to
the Empire State to my experience on the plains. In order
to fully appreciate the comforts of this existence, one
should have experienced the life of the frontier. No one
is competent to decide what is best for mankind without
having first communed with Nature. Many of the great
men of ancient times and those Presidents of our country
to whom we look as examples, lived in the open.
It was a sorry day for me, while I was a stockman, that I
AA'rote an article and had it published stating the truth con
cerning the beef combination. I regretted more than once
that I wrote the article, but who is there that hasn't writ
ten something he regrets? The only man I ever heard of
who had no regrets for what he had ever written lived in
New Hampshire. He happened to make the remark that
he had never written anything he regretted. They imme
diately proposed to run him for governor, but upon inves
tigation they ascertained that he couldn't write.
I was a marked man from the time I wrote that article.
To my surprise, the railroads took up the cudgel on behalf
of the Beef Trust; while other shippers had no difficulty
'getting cars to ship their stock in, I always seemed to have
trouble. They received rebates, while I got what the his
torical little pig did who neither went to market, stayed at
home, had the choice of the menu card, nor tweaked at the
barn door. If Charles K. Skinner, the agent of the North-
Avestern at that time at Woodbine, Iowa, or John B. Ander
son, the agent of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul at
Portsmouth, both good friends of mine, are alive, they could
tell of many orders they received concerning me, that they
found a way not to execute. After I got started with my
stock I was often hampered along the line. I was once side
tracked for four hours at Cedar Rapids on the Northwest-

THE PASSING OF THE STOCKMAN.

119

ern in a sleet storm under the pretense that there Avas some
thing broken on one of my cars, but the yardmaster, with
whom I was well acquainted, told me there was nothing
the matter. On my arrival in Chicago I was fortunate
enough to find President Keep at the company's office, and

My Last Bunch of Stock.
I appealed to him, and, as a New Yorker, he promised me
he would look into my case. As the same bill of fare con
tinued to be handed to me, I infer all I got was a "look-in."
Before I threw up the sponge, however, I got one shot
at the crowd by being instrumental in sending an attache'
of the Union Stock Yards to Joliet, and stopping, at least

120 AVHEN THE AVILDAVOOD WAS IN FLOAVER.
temporarily, a practice which was simply murder. A
disease that is always prevalent among swine, and which
has lost millions of dollars to the stock feeder, is known as
hog cholera. Whole droves have been swept away by that
dreaded disease. Carloads of infected hogs have been
shipped to the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, through the
ignorance of farmers and carelessness of shippers, and are
now, for aught I knoAv. I have seen cars of hogs start from
western Iowa with pronounced cases of cholera, with hogs
dying all the way in, and on their arrival at Chicago, the
dead were sold to local butchers to be tried into lard, and
those able to walk over the scales into the great packing
houses were converted into "sugar-cured hams" and pickled
pork. Every shipper of swine product knoAvs the truth of
AA'hat I state, and every inspector in the yards and packer
knows that diseased meat has been handed out to the con
sumer. I would much prefer to draw the veil over man's in
humanity to man, but I consider the duty I owe as an
American to relate my experiences. Picture to yourself
the home of the cattle raiser on the great prairies of the
West, Avho, with his little family, is battling, like all of
us, for an existence. I can tell the story no better than to
folloAV the little calf avIio first saAV the light of day on a
storm-swept prairie, until he, as a three-year-old, fattened
for the market, entered one of the great abattoirs in the
city on the shore of Lake Alichigan. The first six months
of its life it ran by its mother's side. The folloAving spring-
it entered the one-year-old grade, and roughed it, summer
and winter, until it became a two-year-old past, and entered
the feed-yard to be fattened, a corn-fed steer for the mar
ket. During those long years corn Avas planted and gath-

THE PASSING OF THE STOCKMAN.

121

ered by willing hands in the hope that in the end the re
ward Avould come, but, alas, what a sacrifice !
I Avas a shipper of live stock to Chicago before, during
and after the formation of the Beef Trust. Prior to its

Union Stock Yards, Chicago.
formation, buyers from Pittsburg, Buffalo, Philadelphia
and New York were in the yards bidding for our stock, and
the prices we obtained gave us some reward for our labor.
I will long remember the morning Avhen I arrived at the
yards with a consignment of stock and was informed by
my commissioner, Harley Green, that the clay of a profit to

122 WHEN THE WILDWOOD WAS IN FLOWER.
the stockman Avas at an end. He informed me of the form
ing of the Beef Trust and that competition was no more.
An arbitrary price succeeded "supply and demand." The
combination fixed the price. They knew what it cost to
fatten a steer, and the bid was just enough to encourage
you to go back and make another try. If you didn't like the
price of the day, you had the privilege of paying yardage —
a rather expensive undertaking.
If you thought you were being robbed, which you were,
you could reload and ship farther East, but you would
run against the same combination with virtually the same
bid. There was nothing for you to do but to stand and
deliver, and return to your family and try to comfort those
who had toiled with you for three long years to convert that
little calf into a fattened steer, and tell the same sad story
that other stockmen carried to their isolated homes.
The Beef Trust was not satisfied with controlling the
purchasing end, but after the stock was slaughtered and
passed through the packing-houses, it was shipped to the
cold-storage houses of the East, and put on the block with
an arbitrary price to the consumer. That was the condi
tion then, and through the non-action of the law-enforcing
power it prevails to-day. An individual or corporation
Avho controls the price at both the purchasing and dis
tributing end of a product exacts all the profit — it
is simply a question of hoAV much do you want ere
you quit, and human nature's wants are never satis
fied. The greed of that great combination deprived the
little children of the stock raiser of education and the nec
essaries of life — their mothers, through toil and depriva
tion, were driven to the asylum, and their fathers to their
graves with broken hearts, and as I, who they drove out

THE PASSING OF THE STOCKMAN. 123
of business, see the offspring of the Armours, Morrises and
their kind, and the beneficiaries of like combinations,
flaunting their predatory wealth, it is easy for me to under
stand why there is unrest throughout the domain of this
great Republic.
As I look back to the herds of cattle and other stock I
once owned, and the little colts I petted and who wore
their lives away in my behalf, as I cast my eye over the
plains where so many friendships were formed, a feeling of
sadness comes over me. For I realize that they and those
pleasant associations are gone forever. When I remember
the live stock that I was instrumental in bringing into this
world, who knew no other home than mine, and who looked
to me for protection, but whom I loaded into cars to be
shipped to their death, I feel as if I had committed an un
pardonable sin, and as I know that those animals gave up
everything, even their lives, for my profit, I cannot help but
think, what good have I done in this world to atone for
such a sacrifice?

THE END.

g The first literary effort by G. Smith Stanton, g
1 Where the Sportsman Loves to Linger, 1
g was pronounced by many of its readers to be one of g
g the most interesting of little volumes. Chief Justice g
g Fuller, of the United States Supreme Court, wrote Mr. g
g Stanton that it was "the most excellent and vivid g
g brochure " he had ever read. The book describes the g
g three most popular canoe trips in the State of Maine g
g — the Allagash, and the East and West Branches of g
$ the Penobscot. The author tells most entertainingly g
g of his hunting and fishing experience, and also gives g
g plenty of information and advice useful to the reader, g
j| as he takes him from New York City by the Maine g
$ Steamship Company Line to Portland, thence through g
$ the Maine woods, and brings him back to the city by the ^
$ Fall River Line. The story is one of actual experiences, $s
$ and the author was fortunate to have as his companion #
$ Dr. Hazelton, of Bangor, one of the best amateur p.
$ camera artists in the country, and the book contains ft
$ eighty half-tone pictures of the scenery and the wild ^
ft animals of the Maine woods. ft
ft The book is printed on specially made wood-cut ft
ft paper, from large type, contains one hundred and ft
ft twenty-five pages, fully illustrated, and is bound in ft
ft attractive cloth binding, with printed inset on the ft
ft front cover. Price, one dollar, net. ft
ft ft
ft It can be secured at all bookstores, or it will be ft
ft . . . ft
ft sent by mail upon receipt of price, $1.00, and 8 cents ft
ft additional for postage. Address all orders to ft
I J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COHPANY, |
ft BOX 767. 57 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK, ft
Pftft*ft»«»»^ft«ftftft»®&ft««««ft«ft««*»»ft»»«§

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