Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1896 — CHEYENNE SADDLES. [ARTICLE]

CHEYENNE SADDLES.

The Delight of the Cowbqy .and Unite*? States Cavalry. '' All over North America for many years Cheyenne saddles have been famous, and every equestrian outside the United States cavalry and of the Northwest Mounted Police of Canada has either had ills horse tricked out with Cheyenne leather or wished lie had. The fancy work on saddles, holsters and stirrup hoods that once made Mexican saddlery famous and expcnsive long ago was copied by the Cheyenne makers, who kept up the fame and beauty of American horse trappings, but made them so cheap as to lie within the means of most horsemen. In the old days when Western cattle’ ranged all over the plains and the cowboy was iu his glory, that queer citizen would rather have a Cheyenne saddle than a best girl. In fact, to be without a Cheyenne saddle and a lirst-claSs revolver was to be no better than the sheep herder' of tliat era.

When the writer was in Cheyenne recently the first places lie looked for were the saddle-makers’ shops. He was surprised to find only one showy, first-class store of that kind, and, instead of there being a crowd in front of If,‘there was no sign of-nnore business than was going on at the druggist's near by, or the stationer's over the way, The goods displayed in -the windows were beautiul and extraordinary. There were the glorious, heavy, hand-strap-ped saddles; there were the huge, cumbrous tapnderos; there Were the lariats or ropes; the magnificent lilts that looked like Moorish art outdone; and there were mule skinners and the fanciful spurs; and, in short, the windows formed a museum of things that a cowboy would have pawned his soul to own. The metal work was all such as a cavalryman once declared it, “the most elegant horse jewelry in creation.” Englishmen arid Germans now buy the fanciest and best trimmings to send abroad to their homes. Hand-strapped saddles cost from sl3 to SBS. but $35 buys as good a one as a modest man who knows a good thing will care to use. Cowgirl saddles were on viewseven of them - .with rigging for side seats and with stirrups made in slipper shapes. It is'not that there nre really half a dozen cowgirls in the world, or half a dozen women like the Colorado cattle queen or the lady horse breeder of Wyoming, but there arc Western girls who have to ride a great deal, and they had fond fathers and brothers, and still fonder lovers: hence the mauu-* facture of magnificent side-saddles, all decked with hand-strapped patterns, and*l Poking as rich as the richest Bedouin ever dreamed of horsegear lieing made. There is still a good trade in eowljpy outfits that are ordered from Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas, and similar goods go to the horse ranches of Nevada,, Idaho and Oregon. Moreover, as long as men ride horses there will be a trade in fancy outfits for them.—Denver Field and Farm.