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. — John Shaqi
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
I now instructed King to take the saddle off the hoss he was riding and
tie the hoss to the pack-hoss, and I also done this with the one I was
riding. We then turned them loose and the three animals immediately
started south towards Wyoming. I then told King to saddle one of the
hosses that the Injuns had caught for us, but pay no attention to the
Injun who was holding it. I saddled the other animal; two Injuns each
had a rope on the hoss's neck. When we got them saddled and bridled, I
told King to get on his, and I got on mine. The Injuns were standing all
around us as well as the squaws and papooses, but they had all laid down
their guns. I pulled my Winchester out of the saddle scabbard and
throwing a shell in the barrel, I told King to pull his six-shooter and
cut the Injun's rope that was on his hoss's neck. He said: "The Injuns
will shoot me if I do." I said: "I will shoot you right now if you
don't." Although he was very much excited, he managed to pull his knife
out of his belt and cut the Injun's rope, and immediately started off
after the pack-hoss and saddle hosses on a dead run. The Injuns all set
up a howl, and the squaws began bringing the guns out of the teepees.
But I kept throwing my Winchester down on first one and then another.
The Injuns kept up an awful din hollering to one another, all the squaws
yelling to kill the masacheta (white man). But I could hear the chief's
voice above them all, telling them not to shoot me. The two Injuns
holding the hoss having dropped their ropes, I suddenly threw the ropes
off my hoss's neck and reaching down grabbed a papoose, five or six
years old, and throwing it up in the saddle with me, galloped away. I
knew they wouldn't shoot at me as long as I held to that papoose. But
it was like holding on to a full-grown wildcat. I was carrying my
Winchester in one hand, guiding my hoss with the same hand and trying to
hold on to that little biting, scratching, hair-pulling, shrieking
papoose with the other. My hoss was bounding over rocks and sage brush.
But he was a magnificent animal and in less time than it takes to tell I
was out of gunshot, and then I dropped that shrieking little Injun devil
on a sage bush and galloped off in the gathering darkness.
I soon caught up with King. We traveled all night and the next day.
Putting him on the trail to Wyoming with all the hosses but the one I
was riding, I turned north again to find the other two hosses. That day
I met a Piegan Injun that I was acquainted with, and he told me old
Crazy Head's band was camped on the Yellowstone River, and that they had
my other two hosses and tried to sell them to him.
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