In Arizona a number of us were sitting around the feeble camp-fire the desert scarcity of fuel permits, smoking our pipes.We were all contemplative and comfortably silent with the exception of one very youthful person who had a lot to say.It was mainly about himself.After he had bragged awhile without molestation, one of the older cow-punchers grew very tired of it.He removed his pipe deliberately, and spat in the fire.
"Say, son," he drawled, "if you want to say something big, why don't you say `elephant'?"The young fellow subsided.We went on smoking our pipes.
Down near the Chiracahua Range in southeastern Arizona, there is a butte, and halfway up that butte is a cave, and in front of that cave is a ramshackle porch-roof or shed.This latter makes the cave into a dwelling-house.It is inhabited by an old "alkali"and half a dozen bear dogs.I sat with the old fellow one day for nearly an hour.It was a sociable visit, but economical of the English language.He made one remark, outside our initial greeting.It was enough, for in terseness, accuracy, and compression, I have never heard a better or more comprehensive description of the arid countries.
"Son," said he, "in this country thar is more cows and less butter, more rivers and less water, and you kin see farther and see less than in any other country in the world."Now this peculiar directness of phrase means but one thing,--freedom from the influence of convention.
The cowboy respects neither the dictionary nor usage.He employs his words in the manner that best suits him, and arranges them in the sequence that best expresses his idea, untrammeled by tradition.
It is a phase of the same lawlessness, the same reliance on self, that makes for his taciturnity and watchfulness.
In essence, his dress is an adaptation to the necessities of his calling; as a matter of fact, it is an elaboration on that.The broad heavy felt hat he has found by experience to be more effective in turning heat than a lighter straw; he further runs to variety in the shape of the crown and in the nature of the band.He wears a silk handkerchief about his neck to turn the sun and keep out the dust, but indulges in astonishing gaudiness of color.His gauntlets save his hands from the rope; he adds a fringe and a silver star.The heavy wide "chaps" of leather about his legs are necessary to him when he is riding fast through brush; he indulges in such frivolities as stamped leather, angora hair, and the like.High heels to his boots prevent his foot from slipping through his wide stirrup, and are useful to dig into the ground when he is roping in the corral.Even his six-shooter is more a tool of his trade than a weapon of defense.With it he frightens cattle from the heavy brush; he slaughters old or diseased steers;he "turns the herd" in a stampede or when rounding it in; and especially is it handy and loose to his hip in case his horse should fall and commence to drag him.
So the details of his appearance spring from the practical, but in the wearing of them and the using of them he shows again that fine disregard for the way other people do it or think it.
Now in civilization you and I entertain a double respect for firearms and the law.Firearms are dangerous, and it is against the law to use them promiscuously.If we shoot them off in unexpected places, we first of all alarm unduly our families and neighbors, and in due course attract the notice of the police.
By the time we are grown up we look on shooting a revolver as something to be accomplished after an especial trip for the purpose.
But to the cowboy shooting a gun is merely what lighting a match would be to us.We take reasonable care not to scratch that match on the wall nor to throw it where it will do harm.Likewise the cowboy takes reasonable care that his bullets do not land in some one's anatomy nor in too expensive bric-a-brac.Otherwise any time or place will do.
The picture comes to me of a bunk-house on an Arizona range.The time was evening.A half-dozen cowboys were sprawled out on the beds smoking, and three more were playing poker with the Chinese cook.A misguided rat darted out from under one of the beds and made for the empty fireplace.He finished his journey in smoke.Then the four who had shot slipped their guns back into their holsters and resumed their cigarettes and drawling low-toned conversation.
On another occasion I stopped for noon at the Circle I ranch.While waiting for dinner, I lay on my back in the bunk-room and counted three hundred and sixty-two bullet-holes in the ceiling.They came to be there because the festive cowboys used to while away the time while lying as I was lying, waiting for supper, in shooting the flies that crawled about the plaster.
This beautiful familiarity with the pistol as a parlor toy accounts in great part for a cowboy's propensity to "shoot up the town" and his indignation when arrested therefor.
The average cowboy is only a fair target-shot with the revolver.But he is chain lightning at getting his gun off in a hurry.There are exceptions to this, however, especially among the older men.Some can handle the Colts 45 and its heavy recoil with almost uncanny accuracy.I have seen individuals who could from their saddles nip lizards darting across the road;and one who was able to perforate twice before it hit the ground a tomato-can tossed into the air.The cowboy is prejudiced against the double-action gun, for some reason or other.He manipulates his single-action weapon fast enough, however.
His sense of humor takes the same unexpected slants, not because his mental processes differ from those of other men, but because he is unshackled by the subtle and unnoticed nothingnesses of precedent which deflect our action toward the common uniformity of our neighbors.It must be confessed that his sense of humor possesses also a certain robustness.
The J.H.outfit had been engaged for ten days in busting broncos.This the Chinese cook, Sang, a newcomer in the territory, found vastly amusing.
