FRONTIER TYPES 99 



one of my teamsters, who lived in a small outlying camp, used to keep the 

 youngest and most troublesome members of her family out of mischief by 

 the simple expedient of picketing them out, each child being tied by the 

 leg, with a long leather string, to a stake driven into the ground, so that 

 it could neither get at another child nor at anything breakable. 



The best buckskin maker I ever met was, if not a typical frontiers- 

 woman, at least a woman who could not have reached her full development 

 save on the border. She made first-class hunting-shirts, leggins, and 

 gauntlets. When I knew her she was living alone in her cabin on mid- 

 prairie, having dismissed her husband six months previously in an exceed- 

 ingly summary manner. She not only possessed redoubtable qualities of 

 head and hand, but also a nice sense of justice, even towards Indians, that 

 is not always found on the frontier. Once, going there for a buckskin shirt, 

 I met at her cabin three Sioux, and from their leader, named One Bull, 

 purchased a tobacco-pouch, beautifully worked with porcupine quills. 

 She had given them some dinner, for which they had paid with a deer- 

 hide. Falling into conversation, she mentioned that just before I came up 

 a white man, apparently from Deadwood, had passed by, and had tried to 

 steal the Indians' horses. The latter had been too quick for him, had run 

 him down, and brought him back to the cabin. " I told 'em to go right on 

 and hang him, and /would n't never cheep about it," said my informant; 

 "but they let him go, after taking his gun. There ain't no sense in steal- 

 ing from Indians any more than from white folks, and I 'm not going to 

 have it round my ranch, neither. There ! I '11 give 'em back the deer-hide 

 they give me for the dinner and things, anyway." I told her I sincerely 

 wished we could make her sheriff and Indian agent. She made the Indians 

 and whites, too, for that matter behave themselves and walk the 

 straightest kind of line, not tolerating the least symptom of rebellion ; but 

 she had a strong natural sense of justice. 



The cowboy balls, spoken of above, are always great events in the 

 small towns where they take place, being usually given when the round- 

 up passes near ; everybody round about comes in for them. They are 

 almost always conducted with great decorum ; no unseemly conduct 

 would be tolerated. There is usually some master of the ceremonies, 

 chosen with due regard to brawn as well as brain. He calls off the fig- 

 ures of the square dances, so that even the inexperienced may get through 

 them, and incidentally preserves order. Sometimes we are allowed to 

 wear our revolvers, and sometimes not. The nature of the band, of 

 course, depends upon the size of the place. I remember one ball that 

 came near being a failure because our half-breed fiddler "went and got 

 himself shot," as the indignant master of the ceremonies phrased it. 



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