USA > New Mexico > Lincoln County > History of the Chisum war ; or, Life of Ike Fridge : stirring events of cowboy life on the frontier > Part 4
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That left me to return alone with the extra horses. Naturally, looking for company, I met a man that was coming west and we fell in to- gether. His name sounded funny to me, McAimey it was, but it wasn't considered just the proper thing to question people too much. He told me of his adventures in the western country and talked of the many fights he had seen and taken part in. I knew better than to believe them, but be- ing lonesome and needing help with the horses, too, I fell for his line, hook, sinker and all. I thought he was the very idea, but to my sorrow it was not long before I learned different.
Just at the close of the second day's riding we got to Cambridge, just east of Henrietta. There we went into the little saloon to get a drink of their whiskey. Four men that had been in the saloon lond enough to be feeling kind of proud of themselves began to pick at us. They teased us considerably and called us "Sap Oak
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Cowpunchers." We didn't say anything. Just drank our little swig and went on about a half- mile and camped for what we thought would be the night. As we were making camp my new partner said:
"I was just fixing to call those fellows' hand when you left the saloon."
I told him we didn't want to have any trou- ble. About that time the four men passed us and yelled at us some, and went on to Henrietta. We were so close to town that we decided we would go on to Henrietta and have a cafe meal. After putting the horses in the wagon yard for the night we headed to the restaurant and on the way we saw these same four men going down the street talking to each other. As we passed we spoke to them and they returned our greet- ings with "Hello, tenderfeet." We still remain- ed silent. After we had finished eating we went down into the main part of town and entered the big false fronted dance hall. I knew the man who ran the hall and I saw a woman that was for- merly at Fort Griffin. She knew me at Fort Griffin as "Fant Hill Jack."
This fellow Gibbins, the proprietor of the hall, said, "You boys come on and take a, drink."
The girl walked up between me and my part- ner and said to me: "Jack, we have taken several drinks together." About that time these four men that had decided to torment us walked into the dance hall. My partner whispered to me: "If they say anything I will call their hand."
One of them walked up to us and put his
1
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hand on the girl's shoulder and asked her if she knew who she was talking to. She replied that she did. "He is my friend." As she said that, he took her by the hand and jerked her away from us. He had a quirt in his hand and hit her with it. That was more than I could stand to see and I knew he meant it as an insult to me. I walked up to him and slapped him in the mouth. He changed ends with the quirt and hit me over the head with the loaded end. The blow knocked me down over the stove.
Now was the time for my gallant partner to show his metal. I figured on him helping to keep the others back while I mixed it with this big fellow with the loaded quirt. But right there that partner's nerve wilted like a morning glory in the hot sunshine. Running into the big cowpucher, I grabbed him in the collar and was mixing it with him when one of his pals rushed into the melee. I backed toward a corner of the room to keep my back protected, and looked for the brave partner, but he was not to be seen. He had va- moosed.
The two fellows kept crowding me and I jerked my gun. The first one backed off but the other one came forward. I hit him over the head with the gun, and looked just in time to see the other one going after his gun. I learned that his name was Giles Flippen. When I saw Flippen drawing his gun I knew trouble was going to start. I began to shoot at him and the third shot struck him. He fell and I started to shoot again,
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but the fellow that ran the dance hall yelled:
"You have killed him. Don't shoot any more."
As the smoke cleared I discovered that the room was empty with the exception of the wound- ed man, the bartender and me.
I went to the wagon yard where our horses were and caught one and got on him bare-back, then rode up to the livery stable where my sad- dle horse was. I thought that I might be able to get my horse and saddle, but I saw five men guarding the stable. Going back to my camp I decided to try again at daybreak. The next morn- ing when I got to the stable, a boy was the only person in sight. I told him I wanted my horse and he told me to saddle him, then he went out the front door. Just as I got the saddle and blanket on my horse, four men came in the door and started toward me.
I asked them what they wanted and one fel- low said they wanted me. I then asked the spokesman if he was an officer and he said he was the deputy sheriff, so I told him that if he would send the other men out I would give up to him but not to the whole bunch. As soon as the others left I handed him my gun. He took me by the cafe for my breakfast and I asked him how the fellow was that had been shot. He said that the man wasn't hurt much but that I should have killed him. We then went on to the jail where my former partner was safely locked un and after I got in I told him that he had proved himself to be a fine fellow. He was so ashamed
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that he didn't say much.
They kept me in jail nineteen days and the fellow I had shot proved to be my friend. The grand jury went to his bed to see him in an ef- fort to get a bill against me for assault and at- tempt to murder, but he told them:
"No, they should have killed the four of us."
I was tried for assault and battery and paid a fine, then got my horses and outfit together and went on to the ranch.
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CATTLE DRIFT OFF THE RANGE
In the winter of 1879-a cold wet winter- the cattle drifted south from the Red river and Wichita river ranges and we tried to hold them as near the range as possible. The cowmen got together and put the south line of the range on the Clear Fork of the Brazos river, but cattle drifted there and cleaned up the forage of the range until we decided to turn them loose.
Then in the spring of 1880 the cowmen had a meeting. We decided to go to the Colorado river, as that was considered about as far south as the cattle had drifted during the winter. There we were to commence the work of gathering and returning the herds to their home ranges. The twenty-fifth of March we made the start south and three hundred cowboys with ten chuck wagons all got together on Pecan Bayou in Brown county, just north of the Colorado river. There we fixed to work back to the ranch, and each outfit was given its territory to drag for strays. The people in that country said it looked like war times as we all assembled in that county.
As we went down my cow wagon and outfit stopped for the night about two miles south of Cisco, which was just a tent town then. The Texas and Pacific railroad was being built and a town was springing up. There were two wood- en buildings and they were saloons.
The boys wanted to go back to town that night, so we all went. The people there saw some real cowboys. The boys began to drink liquor and get noisy. Cisco had a city marshall. He
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came into the saloon where there was a bunch of the boys and said:
"You boys will have to be more quiet."
Dick McDuff asked: "Well, who are you ?"
"I am the marshall of this town," the man re- plied.
Dick then asked him to take a drink, but he refused. Another boy told the bartender to give him a bottle, then he said to the marshall:
"Now, you drink or we will pour it down you."
Some of the cowboys were yelling, "Pour it down him," and the officer took a drink of the whiskey. Then another puncher said:
"This saloon man needs air."
They began to shoot through the roof and the saloon man left the house.
I said, "Boys, we had better go or we will all get into trouble."
We went and got our horses, roped some tents and dragged them into the postoaks, then went down by a little hut they used for a jail. The house was about ten feet square and one of the boys remarked: "Let's turn it over."
When we tied on to it, a man on the inside yelled :
Don't, you will kill me."
But, nevertheless, we turned it upside down and left the prisoner hollering.
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When fixing to leave camp next morning we saw a bunch of men coming and as they rode up to camp we saw they were officers and were headed by the sheriff. He called for the boss man and I rode out to where he was. He said that he would have to take the boys back.
I asked: "What is the trouble ?"
"Well, it is the way the boys acted last night."
"No one killed ?"
"No."
"You won't take us back then, and if you start to, you will have trouble. The saloon man sold that whiskey to these boys and they just drank too much. We paid him for all we got and these boys won't ever stand to go back without serious trouble.
Then he said: "All right, we don't want to have any trouble."
I replied: "If you want to start anything there will be over three hundred of us to work coming back."
Rather than incur the ill feeling of the cow- boys and cause a young war they went on back to town a d we proceeded on our journey to the general camp.
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A BEAR IS ROPED-A WOMAN IS WED
During the work of gathering the cattle for the drive north to the home range, Dick McDuff, Bob Mckinney and I were driving a herd of cat- tle through the timber near a cornfield when we saw a big black bear run into the corn patch out of the postoaks. We took down our ropes and Dick roped the bear by the head while I caught him with my rope by the hind legs. Bob went down to a log house nearby and asked the lady for an axe. They were old-fashioned frontier people and the woman simply said:
"The axe is at the woodpile."
The girl, however, figured we had treed something and asked Bob what we had. He told her that we had found a bear and added:
"If you like bear meat, we will give him to you."
We killed and dressed him and hung the meat in a post oak tree in the yard and threw the skin over the rail fence. McKinney told the girl that the skin would make her a nice rug and she said she would dress it. They thanked us and we rode off.
Awhile later I went into a store in a little town in that section and met the girl again. She looked me over and asked me if I was not one of the boys that had killed and given them the bear. When I admitted that I was, she told me that she and her mother had lots of fun out of her father by telling him they had killed the bear. We bade
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each other goodbye and I never saw her again.
We got back to the ranch on July 15th, and as the country was filling up with different kinds of people the real cowboys began drifting out and going to the western and northern territory.
That winter we went into our home camps and one day a, cowboy from a nearby ranch came over and told me that there was going to be a big dance that night and asked me to go with him. I got my glad rags on and went and had a jolly good time.
While there I met a young lady that attract- ed me very much and she didn't seem to have much trouble looking at me, so we spent the even- ing getting acquainted. I went back to the camp with my head filled with other thoughts than working on the range in all kinds of weather and eating cow camp grub.
Other meetings occurred and I made up my mind that if I could get her to be my wife I would quit the roaming life and settle down. Once a cowboy makes a decision, action is what he craves, and she soon became Mrs. Ike Fridge.
HOUSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
R01064 47425
txr
T
B
F898
FRIDGE, IKE
HISTORY OF THE CHISUM WAR: OR, LIFE OF IKE FRIDGE
Printed by SMITH, Electra
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