Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack: Being an Extremely Humorous & Sarcastic Story of the Trials & Tribulations Endured by a Party of Stockmen Making a Shipment from the West to the East.Benton, Frank
General
Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack: Being an Extremely Humorous & Sarcastic Story of the Trials & Tribulations Endured by a Party of Stockmen Making a Shipment from the West to the East.
Benton, Frank
Benton, Frank, 1853-1921 -- Anecdotes; Cattle trade -- West (U.S.) -- Anecdotes; Cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- Anecdotes; Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Anecdotes; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Anecdotes
He had been gradually growing weaker lately, not being able to keep
anything on his stomach except a little Limburger cheese since the night
he had the skunk dream. He always imagined this dream to be a warning,
and had low sinking spells at times, specially when the two sheepmen and
Jackdo were all three in the car in at once, and at such times we were
obliged to take a prod pole and drive Jackdo and the two sheepmen out
the car and make them ride on top till Chuck revived. We made some
smelling salts out of asafoetida and Limburger cheese for him to use
when he had these fainting spells, as he frequently did when the car got
warm and Jackdo and the sheepmen were there. We also found the
decomposed body of a dog lying beside the track one day, and gathering
it up in a gunnysack would hang it round Chuck's neck at night when the
sheepmen and Jackdo had to ride inside, and in that way he would get a
little sleep. But if he happened to be out of reach of any of these
remedies when one of the sheepmen come near him he immediately began to
strike at the end of his nose and mutter something about glue factories.
Poor old Chuckwagon! In my mind I can still see his rugged, tear-stained
face as he would piteously hold out his hands for his sack of decomposed
dog when one of the sheepmen or Jackdo came in the way-car.
All I know of Chuckwagon's life before he come West was what he told me
on this trip. He said as a boy he had worked cleaning sewers in Chicago
and after that was watchman for glue factories till he come West, but
with all this training had never got hardened enough to stand the smell
of Jackdo, Cottswool Canvasback and Rambolet Bill in a way-car.
He died like a hero. When we see he was going, Packsaddle Jack took a
prod pole and drove Jackdo and the sheepmen down the track a ways so
Chuck could breathe some purer air. Then we gave him a whiff of
decomposed dog, propped him up against an old railroad tie and took his
post-mortem statement in writing as to cause of his death. We let some
cattlemen who had formed themselves into a committee for the public
safety up in the New Fork country, in Wyoming, have his statement. We
now went to the nearest town, got the best coffin we could and after
selecting a place right under a big cliff, we buried old Chuck and piled
up a lot of rock at the grave so we could come back and get him and give
him a good decent burial on his own ranch. We didn't have much funeral
services, but Dillbery Ike made a talk which just filled all our ideas
exactly, and here is what he said:
DILLBERY IKE'S TRIBUTE TO CHUCKWAGON.
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