Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1883 — THE KING OF THE COWBOYS. [ARTICLE]

THE KING OF THE COWBOYS.

A Bad Man from the Far, Far Wert in the Bowery. “I’m a bad man,” he said, as he leaned up against the bar of the "Home for Tired Men” on the Bowery, and gave the thin barkeeper a look that made him quail. “Yes, I’m a bad man, ” he continued, as the boys came crowding up. “I’m from the West, the extreme West, where blood, hot blood, is spilled daily by men like me. Say, yon.” he said, catching the eye of a tall man with a large red pimple on his nose, “did you ever hear of Big-Headed Jack?” The tall man answered that he had heard of Red-Headed Mike, but the pimple on his nose turned a ghastly white, and he fell shaking into a chair as the Bad Man drew a revolver and remarked that this was no time for redheaded men. “Perhaps some gentleman here has heard of Big-Headed Jack,” he said, as he glanced around at the boys, but a dead silence prevailing, he continued, “Big-Headed Jack was a, tough man. He came to Rattlesnake Bead to take the town. He took the largest portion of it until he came across me. I shot thirteen holes in him. I’ve got a wagonload of Injun scalps I ‘raised’ myself. I’m bad, but I’m nothing unless excited. Here, boss, fill ’em up for the boys.” At this evidence of a link to a common humanity the boys rallied without losing a man. “Give me something powerful, boss, something that will make me feel as though the -wind was blowing right off the prairies on me once again. Ah, I’m a reckless dare-devil. Give me something powerful to soothe me.” “I suppose you have seen a good deal of blood shed in your time, sir,” said a pale man in the rear. “My life has been but turmoil and rapine. Devastation and horror have found me in their midst. Men in the West, the farthest West, call me the King of the Cowboys.” A shudder ran through the crowd, and the tall man with a red pimple on his nose disappeared through a side door. “And yet,” said the Bad Man, musingly, “I was once a quiet, unassuming boy, knowing nothing of crime.” “Say, dad,” said a large-headed boy shoving himself through the door far enough to reveal a mouth extended from ear to ear in a general smile, “Ma says you won’t know anything for a week if you don’t come and carry them ashes down right off. You’d better drop that pistol and come mighty quick. She’s waitin’.” The King of the Cowboys looked around with a sickly smile. A very cold light gleamed in the eyes of the thin barkeeper. The Bad Man got through the door first, and the thin barkeeper came back looking morose and unsocial, and, taking a piece of chalk, added to the sign over the bar of “No credit given here” the sad word “to-day,” after which a lack of interest was apparent in the prosperity of the place, and the thin b rkeeper was left with his elbows on the bar, lonesomely burying his hands in his hair. — New, York Journal.