Excerpt
PALOMITAS
I’ve been around considerable in the Western Country––mostly some years back––and I’ve seen quite a little, one way and another, of the folks living there: but I can’t really and truly say I’ve often come up with them nature’s noblemen––all the time at it doing stunts in natural nobility––the story-books make out is the chief population of them parts. Like enough the young fellers from the East who write such sorts of books––having plenty of spare time for writing, while they’re giving their feet a rest to get the ache out––do come across ’em, same as they say they do; but I reckon the herd’s a small one––and, for a fact, if you could cross the book brand with the kind you mostly meet on the ranges the breed would be improved.
Cow-punchers and prospectors and such don’t look like and don’t act like what tenderfoots is accustomed to, and so they size ’em up to be different all the way through. They ain’t. They’re just plain human nature, same as the rest of us––only more so, through not being herded close in. About the size of it is, most folks needs barbed wire to keep ’em from straying. In a rough country––where laws and constables ain’t met with frequent––a good-sized slice of the population ’s apt to run wild. With them that’s white, it don’t much matter. The worst you can say against ’em is, they sometimes do a little more shooting than seems really needed; but such doings is apt to have a show of reason at the bottom of ’em, and don’t happen often anyhow––most being satisfied to work off their high spirits some other way. With them that’s not white, things is different. When the Apache streak gets on top it sends ’em along quick into clear deviltry––the kind that makes you cussed just for the sake of cussedness and not caring a damn; and it’s them that has give some parts of the Western Country––like it did New Mexico in the time I’m talking about, when they was bunched thick there––its bad name.
In the long run, of course, the toughs is got rid of––being shoved out or hung out, at first by committees and later on in regular shape by sheriffs and marshals––and things is quieted down. It’s the everlasting truth, though, that them kind of mavericks mostly is a blame sight commoner in parts just opened than the story-book kind––that’s always so calm-eyed and gentle-natured and generous and brave. What’s more, I reckon they’ll keep on being commoner, human nature not being a thing that changes much, till we get along to the Day of Judgment round-up––and the goats is cut out and corralled for keeps.
For certain, it was goats was right up at the head of the procession in the Territory in my time––which was the time when the railroads was a-coming in––and in them days things was rough. The Greasers living there to start with wasn’t what you might call sand-papered; and the kind of folks found in parts railroads has just got to, same as I’ve mentioned, don’t set out to be extry smooth....