Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1894 — The Mexican Puncher. [ARTICLE]

The Mexican Puncher.

Harper's Magazine The Mexican “punchers” all use the “ring bit,” and it is a fearful contrivance. Their saddle-trees are very short, and as straight and quite as shapeless as a “saw-buck packsaddlo.” The horn is as big as a dinner plate, and taken altogether it is inferior to the California tree. It is very hard on horses’ backs, and not at all comfortable for a rider who is not accustomed to it. They all use hemp ropes which are imported from some of the southern states of the republic, and carry a lariat of hair which they make themselves. They work for from eight to twelve dollars a month in Mexican coin, and livfe on the most simple diet imaginable. They are mostly peoned, or in hopeless debt to their patrons, who go after any man who deserts the range and bring him back by force. A “puncher”, buys nothing but his gorgeous buckskin clothes, and his big silver-mounted straw hat, his spurs, his riata, and his cincha rings. He makes his teguas or buckskin boots, his heavy leggings, his saddle, and the patron furnishes his arms. On the round-up, which lasts about half of the year, he is furnished beef, and also kills game. The balance of the year he is kept in an outlying camp to turn stock back on the range. These camps are often the most simple things, consisting ol a pack containing his “grub,” his saddle, aqd serape, all lying under a tree, which does duty as a house.