USA > Kansas > Ford County > Dodge City > Dodge City, the cowboy capital, and the great Southwest in the days of the wild Indian, the buffalo, the cowboy, dance halls, gambling halls and bad men > Part 21
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Now, while this litigation was going on, Nigger Ben was not idle, for he started lots of big schemes and deals. For instance, he claimed to own thirty-two sections of land in Gray county, Kansas. About the time the United States Land Office was moved from Larned to Garden City, Kansas, the Wright-Beverly store at Dodge burned, and their large safe tumbled into the debris in the base- ment, but the safe was a good one and nothing whatever in it was destroyed by the fire. This safe was used by the Texas drovers as a place in which to keep their money
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and valuable papers. Ben knew this, and, when the government land office was established at Garden City, Ben wrote the officials and warned them not to take any filings on the thirty-two sections of land in Gray county, minutely describing the land by quarter sections. He told them that cowboys had filed on and proved up all these tracts and sold them to him, and that he had placed all the papers pertaining to the transactions in Wright, Beverly & Company's safe, and that the papers were all destroyed by the fire. Now, to verify this, he had written to the treasurer of Gray County to make him a tax list of all these lands, which he did, and Ben would show these papers to the "tenderfeet" and tell them he owned all this land, and instanter attached them as supporters and friends, for no man could believe that even Ben could be such a monumental liar, and they thought that there must surely be some truth in his story.
He went to the president of the Dodge City National Bank, who was a newcomer, showed him the letter he received from the treasurer of Gray County, with a state- ment of the amount of tax on each tract of land, and, as a matter of course, this bank official supposed that he owned the land, and upon Ben's request, he wrote him a letter of credit, reciting that he (Ben) was said to be the owner of thirty-two sections of good Kansas land and supposed to be the owner of a large Mexican land grant in New Mexico, on which were gold and silver mines, and quite a large town. He then went to the presidents of the other Dodge City banks and, by some means, strange to say, he got nearly as strong endorsements. As a joke, it is here related that these letters stated that Ben was sober and industrious, that he neither drank nor smoked; further, he was very economical, his expenses very light, that he was careful, that he never signed any notes or bonds, and never asked for like accommodations.
On the strength of these endorsements and letters, he
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H. L. SITLER One of the Seven Old Timers of Dodge City
bargained for thousands of cattle, and several herds were delivered at Henrietta and other points. Cattle advanced in price materially that spring, and the owners were glad that Ben could not comply with his contracts to take them.
Quite a correspondence was opened by eastern cap- italists and Omaha bankers with Ben, with a view to making him large loans of money, and, in the course of the negotiations, his letters were referred to me, as well as the Dodge City banks and other prominent business men for reports, here.
It is astounding and surprising what a swath Ben cut in commercial and financial circles. Besides, he success- fully managed, each and every year, to get passes and annual free transportation from the large railroad sys- tems. How he did it is a mystery to me, but he did it. If he failed with one official, he would try another, representing that he had large shipments of cattle to make from Texas and New Mexico, Indian Territory, and Colorado. He could just print his name, and he got an annual over the Fort Worth & Denver, and the writing of his name in the pass did not look good enough to Ben, so he erased it and printed his name in his own way. This was fatal; the first conductor took up his pass and put him off the train at Amarillo, Texas, and Ben had to beat his way back to Dodge City.
John Lytle and Major Conklin made a big drive, one spring, of between thirty and forty herds. They were unfortunate in encountering storms, and on the way, a great many of their horses and cattle were scattered. Each herd had its road brand. Mr. Lytle was north, at- tending to the delivery of the stock; Major Conklin was in Kansas City, attending to the firm's business there; and Martin Culver was at Dodge City, passing on the cattle when they crossed the Arkansas River. Mr. Culver offered to pay one dollar per head for their cattle that
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were picked up, and two dollars per head for horses; and he would issue receipts for same which served as an order for the money on Major Conklin. Ben Hodges knew all this and was familiar with their system of transacting business. Ben managed to get to Kansas City on a stock train, with receipts for several hundred cattle and a great many horses, supposed to be signed by Culver. (They were forgeries, of course). The receipts were for stock on the firm's different road brands, and Major Conklin was astonished when he saw them. He did not know Ben very well and thought he would speculate a little and offered payment at a reduced price from that agreed upon. He asked Ben what he could do for him to relieve his immediate necessities, and Ben got a new suit of clothes, or, rather, a complete outfit from head to foot, ten dollars in money, and his board paid for a week. In a few days Ben called for another ten dollars and an- other week's board, and these demands continued for a month. Ben kept posted, and came to Conklin one day in a great hurry and told him that he must start for Dodge City at once, on pressing business, and that he was losing a great deal of money staying in Kansas City, and should be on the range picking up strays. The Major told Ben that Mr. Lytle would be home in a few days and he wanted Lytle to make final settlement with him (Ben). This was what Ben was trying to avoid. John Lytle was the last person in the world that Ben wanted to see. He told Conklin this was impossible, that he must go at once, and got twenty dollars and transportation to Dodge City from Conklin.
A few days afterwards, Lytle returned to Kansas City, and, in a crowd of stock men, at the St. James Hotel, that were sitting around taking ice in theirs every half hour and having a good time, Major Conklin very proudly produced his bunch of receipts he had procured from Ben in the way of compromise, as above related, and
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said: "John, I made a shrewd business deal and got your receipts for several hundred cattle and horses for less than half price, from Ben Hodges." Enough had been said. All the cattlemen knew Ben, and both the laugh and the drinks were on Conklin. He never heard the last of it and many times afterwards had to "set up" the drinks for taking advantage of an ignorant darkey. He was completely taken in himself.
One time Ben was in a hot box. It did look bad and gloomy for him. The writer did think truly and honestly that he was innocent, but the circumstantial evidence was so strong against him, he could hardly escape. I thought it was prejudice and ill feeling towards Ben, and nothing else, that induced them to bring the suit; and, what was worse for Ben, his reputation as a cattle thief and liar was very bad.
Mr. Cady had quite a large dairy, and one morning he awoke and found his entire herd of milch cows gone. They could get no trace of them, and, after hunting high and low, they jumped Ben and, little by little, they wove a network of circumstantial evidence around him that sure looked like they would convict him of the theft beyond a doubt. The district court was in session, Ben was arrested, and I, thinking the darkey innocent, went on his bond. Indeed, my sympathies went out to him, as he had no friends and no money, and I set about his discharge under my firm belief of his innocence.
I invited the judge down to my ranch at the fort to spend the night. He was a good friend of mine, but I hardly dared to advise him, but I thought I would throw a good dinner into the judge and, under the influence of a good cigar and a bottle of fine old wine, he would soften, and, in talking over old times, I would introduce the subject. I said, "Judge, I know you are an honest, fair man and want to see justice done; and you would hate to see an innocent, poor darkey, without any money
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or friends, sent to the pen for a crime he never com- mitted." And then I told him why I thought Ben was innocent. He said, "I will have the very best lawyer at the bar take his case." I said, "No, this is not at all what I want; I want Ben to plead his own case." So I gave Ben a few pointers, and I knew after he got through pleading before that jury, they would either take him for a knave or a fool.
I was not mistaken in my prophecy. Ben harangued that jury with such a conglomeration of absurdities and lies and outrageous tales, they did not know what to think. I tell you, they were all at sea. He said to them:
"What! me? the descendent of old grandees of Spain, the owner of a land grant in New Mexico embracing mil- lions of acres, the owner of gold mines and villages and towns situated on that grant of whom I am sole owner, to steal a miserable, miserly lot of old cows? Why, the idea is absurd. No, gentlemen; I think too much of the race of men from which I sprang, to disgrace their memory. No, sir! no, sir! this Mexican would never be guilty of such. The reason they accuse me is because they are beneath me and jealous of me. They can't trot in my class, bcause they are not fit for me to associate with and, therefore, they are mad at me and take this means to spite me."
Then he would take another tack and say: "I'se a poor, honest Mexican, ain't got a dollar, and why do they want to grind me down? Because dey know I am way above them by birth and standing, and dey feel sore over it." And then he would go off on the wildest tangent you ever listened to.
You could make nothing whatever out of it, and you'd rack your brains in trying to find out what he was trying to get at; and you would think he had completely wound himself up and would have to stop, but not he. He had set his mouth going and it wouldn't stop yet, and,
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in this way, did he amuse that jury for over two hours. Sometimes he would have the jury laughing until the judge would have to stop them, and again, he would have the jury in deep thought. They were only out a little while, when they brought in a verdict of not guilty.
Strange to say, a few days afterwards that whole herd of milch cows came wandering back home, none the worse for their trip. You see, Ben had stolen the cattle, drove them north fifty or sixty miles, and hid them in a deep canyon or arroya. He had to leave them after his arrest and there came up a big storm, from the north, which drove the cattle home. I was much surprised when the cattle came back, for I knew, then, what had happened and that he was guilty.
I could fill a large book with events in the life of this remarkable fellow, but want of space compels me to close this narration here.
The life of the cowboy, the most distinguished deni- zen of the plains, was unique. The ordinary cowboy, with clanking spurs and huge sombrero, was a hardened case, in many particulars, but he had a generous nature. Allen McCandless gives the character and life of the cowboy in, "The Cowboy's Soliloquy," in verse, as follows:
"All o'er the prairies alone I ride,
Not e'en a dog to run by my side;
My fire I kindle with chips gathered round(*),
And boil my coffee without being ground. Bread, lacking leaven, I bake in a pot, And sleep on the ground, for want of a cot. I wash in a puddle, and wipe on a sack, And carry my wardrobe all on my back. My ceiling's the sky, my carpet the grass, My music the lowing of herds as they pass;
My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones, My parson a wolf on a pulpit of bones.
But then, if my cooking ain't very complete,
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Hygienists can't blame me for living to eat; And where is the man who sleeps more profound Than the cowboy, who stretches himself on the ground. My books teach me constancy ever to prize; My sermons that small things I should not despise; And my parson remarks, from his pulpit of bone, That, 'The Lord favors them who look out for their own.' Between love and me, lies a gulf very wide,
And a luckier fellow may call her his bride; But Cupid is always a friend to the bold,
And the best of his arrows are pointed with gold.
Friends gently hint I am going to grief;
But men must make money and women have beef. Society bans me a savage, from Dodge; And Masons would ball me out of their lodge.
If I'd hair on my chin, I might pass for the goat
That bore all the sin in the ages remote; But why this is thusly, I don't understand, For each of the patriarchs owned a big brand.
Abraham emigrated in search of a range, When water got scarce and he wanted a change; Isaac had cattle in charge of Esau;
And Jacob 'run cows' for his father-in-law- He started business clear down at bed-rock,
And made quite a fortune, watering stock;
David went from night herding, and using a sling,
To winning a battle and being a king;
And the shepherds, when watching their flocks on the hill,
Heard the message from heaven, of peace and good will."
(*) "Chips" were dried droppings of the cattle. Buf- falo "chips" were used as fuel by the plainsmen.
Another description of the cowboy, different in char- acter from the last, but no less true to life, is from an exchange, in 1883.
"The genuine cowboy is worth describing. In many
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respects, he is a wonderful creature. He endures hard- ships that would take the lives of most men, and is, there- fore, a perfect type of physical manhood. He is the finest horseman in the world, and excells in all the rude sports of the field. He aims to be a dead shot, and universally is. Constantly, during the herding season, he rides sev- enty miles a day, and most of the year sleeps in the open air. His life in the saddle makes him worship his horse, and it, with a rifle and six-shooter, complete his happiness. Of vice, in the ordinary sense, he knows nothing. He is a rough, uncouth, brave, and generous creature, who never lies or cheats. It is a mistake to imagine that they are a dangerous set. Anyone is as safe with them as with any people in the world, unless he steals a horse or is hunting for a fight. In their eyes, death is a mild punishment for horse stealing. Indeed, it is the very highest crime known to the unwritten law of the ranch. Their life, habits, education, and necessities have a ten- dency to breed this feeling in them. But with all this disregard of human life, there are less murderers and cut- throats graduated from the cowboy than from among the better class of the east, who come out here for venture or gain. They delight in appearing rougher than they are. To a tenderfoot, as they call an eastern man, they love to tell blood curdling stories, and impress him with the dangers of the frontier. But no man need get into a quarrel with them unless he seeks it, or get harmed unless he seeks some crime. They often own an interest in the herd they are watching, and very frequently become owners of ranches. The slang of the range they always us to perfection, and in season or out of season. Unless you wish to insult him, never offer a cowboy pay for any little kindness he has done you or for a share of his rude meal. If the changes that are coming to stock raising should take the cowboy from the ranch, its most interest- ing features will be gone."
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Theodore Roosevelt gave an address, once, up in South Dakota, which is readable in connection with the subject in hand. "My friends seem to think," said Roose- velt, "that I can talk only on two subjects-the bear and the cowboy-and the one I am to handle this evening is the more formidable of the two. After all, the cowboys are not the ruffians and desperadoes that the nickel library prints them. Of course, in the frontier towns where the only recognized amusements are vices, there is more or less of riot and disorder. But take the cowboy on his native heath, on the round-up, and you will find in him the virtues of courage, endurance, good fellowship, and generosity. He is not sympathetic. The cowboy divides all humanity into two classes, the sheep and the goats, those who can ride bucking horses and those who can't; and I must say he doesn't care much for the goats.
"I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I be- lieve nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the aver- age Indian. Take three hundred low families of New York and New Jersey, support them, for fifty years, in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cowboys who can take care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers of the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. 'What! do you want to kill my soldiers with it?' asked the general. 'No,' replied the chief, 'Want to kill cowboy; kill soldier with a club.'
"Ranch life is ephemeral. Fences are spreading all over the western country, and, by the end of the century, most of it will be under cultivation. I, for one, shall be
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sorry to see it go; for when the cowboy disappears, one of the best and healthiest phases of western life will dis- appear with him."
Probably every business has its disadvantages, and one of the great pests of the cattleman and cowboy was the loco weed. This insiduous weed, which baffled the skill of the amateur, was a menace to the cattle and horse industry. The plant was an early riser in the spring season, and this early bloom was nipped as a sweet morsel by the stock. Once infected by the weed, stock never recovered. The government chemist never satisfac- torily traced the origin of the supposed poison of the weed. Stock allowed to run at large on this weed, with- out other feed, became affected by a disease resembling palsy. Once stock acquired a taste for the weed, they could not be kept from it, and never recovered, but, by degrees, died a slow death.
Like its disadvantages, every business probably has its own peculiar words and phrases, and in this the cattle business was not deficient. For instance, the word, "ma- verick", is very extensively used among stock men all over the country, and more particularly in localities where there is free or open range. I am told the word originated in this way. A gentleman, in very early times, soon after Texas gained her independence, moved into Texas from one of our southern states, with a large herd of cattle and horses, all unbranded. He was astonished to see every- one's stock branded and ear-marked, which was not the custom in the country he came from; so he asked his neighbors if they all branded. Oh, yes, they all branded without an exception. So he said, "If everyone brands but myself, I will just let mine go, as I think it is a cruel practice, anyway, and you all will know my stock by its not being branded." His neighbors thought that was a good idea, but it did not work well for Mr. Maverick, as
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he had no cattle, to speak of, after a few years; certainly, he had no increase.
The "dead line" was a term much heard among stock- men in the vicinity of Dodge City. As has been stated, the term had two meanings, but when used in connection with the cattle trade it was an imaginary line running north, a mile east of Dodge City, designating the bounds of the cattle trail. Settlers were always on the alert to prevent the removal or extension of these prescribed limits of driving cattle, on account of danger of the Texas cattle fever. An effort being made to extend the line beyond Hodgeman county, was promptly opposed by the citizens of that county, in a petition to the Kansas legislature.
The long-horned, long-legged Texas cow has been dubbed the "Mother of the West". A writer sings the song of the cow and styles her, "the queen", and, in the "Song of the Grass", this may be heard above the din that "cotton is king". A well-known Kansan has said that grass is the forgiveness of nature, and, truly, the grass and the cow are main food supplies. When the world has absorbed itself in the production of the necessaries of food and clothing, it must return to the grass and the cow to replenish the stock exhausted in by-products.
At Dodge City now, however, the open range and the cattle drive have been supplanted by the wheat field and the grain elevator. In the early times, cattlemen and grangers made a serious struggle to occupy the lands. But destiny, if so it may be called, favored the so-termed farmer, "through many difficulties to the stars." The time and the occasion always affords the genius in prose and rhyme. The literary merit is not considered, so that the "take-off" enlivens the humor of the situation; so here is "The Granger's Conquest", in humorous vein, by an anonymous writer:
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"Up from the South, comes every day, Bringing to stockmen fresh dismay, The terrible rumble and grumble and roar, Telling the battle is on once more, And the granger but twenty miles away.
"And wider, still, these billows of war Thunder along the horizon's bar; And louder, still, to our ears hath rolled The roar of the settler, uncontrolled, Making the blood of the stockmen cold, As he thinks of the stake in this awful fray, And the granger but fifteen miles away.
"And there's a trail from fair Dodge town, A good, broad highway, leading down; And there, in the flash of the morning light, Goes the roar of the granger, black and white As on to the Mecca they take their flight. As if they feel their terrible need, They push their mule to his utmost speed; And the long-horn bawls, by night and day, With the granger only five miles away.
"And the next will come the groups Of grangers, like an army of troops; What is done? what to do? a glance tells both, And into the saddle, with scowl and oath; And we stumble o'er plows and harrows and hoes, As the roar of the granger still louder grows, And closer draws, by night and by day, With his cabin a quarter-section away.
"And, when under the Kansas sky We strike a year or two that is dry, The granger, who thinks he's awful fly,
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Away to the kin of his wife will hie; And then, again, o'er Kansas plains, Uncontrolled, our cattle will range, As we laugh at the granger who came to stay, But is now a thousand miles away."
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CHAPTER XVI. Distinguished Sojourners at Fort Dodge and Dodge City
NOW I want to tell you something of the great of- ficers who came to Fort Dodge in the early days. General Phillip Sheridan first came to Fort Dodge in the summer of 1868. He pitched his camp on the hill north of the fort and next to my house. I saw a good deal of him while fitting out his command against the Indians, and he dined with me several times, together with the officers of the post. On one of these occasions, about noon, on the hills to the southwest, we saw with strong field-glasses what seemed to be a body of horse- men or a bunch of buffalo. But they moved so straight and uniformly that we finally came to the conclusion that they must be Indians. As the apparition came nearer we discovered that it was but one ambulance with a long pole lashed to it, with a wagon-sheet attached to the pole for a flag of truce. It was the largest flag of truce ever used for such purpose. The driver proved to be Little Raven, chief of the Arapahoes, who had come in to have a peace talk with General Sheridan. As a result of the long talk, Little Raven badly out-generaled Sheridan (as has been related in another chapter). He said all the time he wanted was two sleeps to bring in the whole Arapahoe tribe. General Sheridan said to take a week and see that all came in. The old chief insisted that he only wanted two sleeps. He started out the next morning loaded down with bacon, beans, flour, sugar, and coffee. Little Raven told me afterwards it was a great ruse to avoid the soldiers until they could get the women and children out of danger. When Little Raven set out for Dodge, the women and children had started south, to get into the broken and rough country that they knew
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so well, and with which our soldiers were so little ac- quainted at that day. It was really laughable to hear his description of how he disposed of his ambulance after getting back to the tribe. He said the soldiers followed the tracks of the ambulance for days, so his rear-guard would report at night. The other Indians were for burn- ing it or abandoning it; but Little Raven said he prized it so highly that he did not want to lose it. So they took off the wheels, and hung them in some very high trees, and concealed the body in a big drift in the river, cover- ing it with driftwood.
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