Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1906 — FROM OUT IN THE WILD AND WOOLY. [ARTICLE]

FROM OUT IN THE WILD AND WOOLY.

• Sept. 21,1906. Onoe more upon the 'eteem keen’ .r . yet once more.” That was not just as Byron wrote the line, for he said “waters” and not steam keers. The latter in fact were scarcely invented in Byron’s days. Awakening this morning from my comfortable berth in a Pullman tonrist sleeper, sWhere everything was conducive to a good night’s sleep except the chue-chuc, chucehuc of the car wheels on the track, I realize the truth of Poor Richard’s saying, “Late to bed and early to wake, Make yoar eyes bleary and your head t > ache.” I realized further that promise to “write sumthin” for the Republican as I journeyed along. Gazing out of the window on this first daylight day of travel towards the Coast, at the swift passing panorama

of fair and fertile lowa’s level fields and gently rolling plains, I remember me how on another morning almost 32 i years before, I had looked out on the same prospect. That was almost a third of a century ago, and the writer was then a callow young man with no gray hairs on top oi his cranium and not enough gray matter within it to hurt him much. Now the gray is plenty enough outside, whatever the interior may contain. “Ah m* 1 Ah me! With what another heart and with what other ayee, I need to watch, if I be he that watched.” But that is as far as those Tennvsonian lines fit the case and I suspect that facts rather than poetry is what most readers will prefer anyhow. However, as little has yet been seen or heard that would be of much interest, I will devote the rest of this letter to reminiscences of that earlier journey with, occasional lapses into the present, for purposes of comparison.

In the spring of 1874 there was but one Pacific railroad, and many men who passed for persons of good judgment, said that there would not be another for generations. Now a person can cross from ocean to ocean six different times and never ride twice over the same tracks for a single mile. This original Pacific road is the same I am traveling over, the Union Pacific from Omaha to Ogden, and the Southern Pacific the rest of the way, only the Southern Pacific was then called Central Pacific.

In those days this one rente charged what it pleased and if yon did not like it yon could leave it alone. The cheapest rate from Chicago to Frisco was #65, the next #IOO, and the highest #l5O. I took the cheapest way, for in those days every dollar looked as large as a cart-wheel. Now a good-sized dinner plate might be a more fitting comparison. And this is what I got for my #65: A Beat in a crowded smoking car as far as Omaha, on » regular passenger train, and from Omaha westward a seat in a little more crowded emigrant car attached to the far end oi a long and by no means fast, height train. That trip across the plains was about as far behind the conditions which prevail today, as i t was ahead of a trip by the ox team route in the days of >49.

The oar was nearly filled with California bound people, mostly fresh but jolly young fellows, ready to make the best of every situation, and to Bee fun in everything, whether there was really any fun in it*or not. Thus one young chap, after spending some time reading a bloviating guide book, suddenly looked up and inquired of the passengers generally, “What kind of a bird is a kyoatt” The question was greeted by a general laugh, yet notone of those who heard the question, knew that what he v was asking about was the cyote, pronounced kyotie, the world renouned little prairie wolf of the west. The only notable experience in

crossing lowa wafe*the gadded invasion of the smoker by a bunch of apparent nabobs from the rear cars and having in their company a very rough dressed aud uncouth looking customer, who seemed both halfwitted and half-shot, but who flourished big [rolls of money, and said he was a big stock raiser from out west and was going home after selling a train load of steers in Chicago. He had a pack of cards with him, and would take three of them and show their faces and then move them about face down on his lap so awkwardly that anyone could tell which was which, but he would bet and lost sums with the rich fellowS“who came in with him. They robbed the poor simpleton blind but still he had plenty left to bet with any of the “emigrant” crowd, but tho it looked easier than finding money, none of us invested. Later we learned that the simple minded galoot was “Canada Bill,’, the most expert three-card monte man that country ever knew. The rich fellows were his pals and na doubt the conductor on the train stood in with him. He and his .gang left the train at Council Bluffs and we saw no more of them.

At Omaha a great crowd of emigrant or third-class ticketed holders were herded * together on the platform for several hours, and finally loaded on the rough cars above mentioned, every person being assigned to the half seat he was expected to occupy to the end of the Union Pacific at Ogden, where all had to change cars. The boss of the depot police who herded us was a towering, hoary, profane old pirate, who cursed and swore at the emigrants, and in case of the foreigners whose knowledge of the English did not extend even to the cuss words, he did not hesitate to reach the seat of their understanding with the toe of his boot He met his match in a particular old Pike from Missouri who was leading seven generation of his descendants into the land ot promise beyond the Sierras, and who could give him back cuss for cuss. The people in tribes and families were treated beet in the matter of seats, while the single men were left to the last and packed into the poorest car in the lot. I got as a seat mate a good-natured young Swede, who knew about tux words of English, but by a little trading with another like him I go# a whole short seat in an end to myself. The backs and bottoms of the seats were upholstered with wooden slats about as soft and springy as railroad iron. However, most every fellow had a eouple of blankets in a roll, and these made good cushions and covers also. Such things as improved couplings and still less air brakes on freight trains were nob thought of then, and when the train took up or let out the slack in starting and stopping, the passengers were tossed and jostled about in a manner more exciting than agreeable.

The “Wild and Wooly West” was a realty in tuose days. For about 100 miles west of Omaha the country was settled but from that clear to California, except at rare intervals, the whole country was still an unsettled wilderness and desert. Buffalos were still plenty back a distance from the railroad, while it was a common thing to see big droves of antelopes from the car windows. Wild Indians were still plenty and hostile, and, most any place a few miles from the railroad, were chances for having your scalp lifted. There was a sort of truoe between the Indians and the railroad, based on the unrestricted privilege of the redskins to flip a freight car whenever tney pleased and ride as far as they pleased. And the top of every such train was ornamented by from one to a dozen big bucks. All over the plains, bo thick that one could al-most-walk on 1 them for miles, were the skulls of buffalos, and even being piled up in huge stacks and

shipped east to fertilizer factories. At oue the fresh and bloody head and neck of .an enormous buffalo bull lay by the railroad track. Plenty spec'mens of the rough pioneers and cattle raisers were to be seen, aud the railroad guide books said the wearer of $ horse blanket overcoat.might be a millionaire miner or cattle raiser. Plenty of wearers of horse blanket overcoats were seen, and judging from the talk they gave the tender feet immigrants on the train, there were more billionaires than millionaires among them. The rest of this story of a third of a century ago trip will be given in the next letter, if there are any more.

G. E. MARSHALL.