MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD OF THE RANGE 



The buckaroo is a cowboy who can ride — and then some. No 

 pair of contestants on the Round-Up lists stand out more definitely 

 as strong types of the range or played the all-round game longer 

 or with a better spirit than the late Dell Blancett and his wife 

 Bertha Blancett, who has now retired from the contests. 



They had competed in the Round-Up since its inception until 

 we entered the world war. But we didn't move fast enough in 

 that contest for Dell, so he joined the Canadian Cavalry in the 

 great war for civilization and now lies with the other heroes 

 under the poppies of Flanders Fields. 



The American range man and the range woman, designated by 

 that picturesque title "cowboy" and "cowgirl" have no prototype, 

 any more than has that great, epic, pioneer movement which' re- 

 sulted in the settling of the West. That West bore and bred in 

 the cowboy type, a character, a point of view and a soul with a 

 timbre quite his own. 



His lonely life in the old days on the plains, when he had 

 often only his herd to sing to or only the coyotes to sing to him, 

 made him contemplative, introspective, strikingly individualistic, 

 at times a bit triste and occasionally a bit "onery." Normally 

 he is quiet, generous, courageous, conservative, exceptionally mod- 

 est, loyal in his friendships and with a keen original sense of 

 humor, yet he is capable of great recklessness and daring and 

 not a man to trifle with. 



He is a son of contrasts — in the day under a blistering burning 

 sun, at night under the cold bite of darkness; — a full belly one 

 week, a flat belly the next, monotonous days suddenly turned to 

 hours of utmost excitement; long vigils under these conditions 

 generally far from the centers of population, broken only by the 

 seldom occasions in town often with a wild let-loose of repres- 

 sion. Most of his similes, adages and comparisons in life are 

 distinctive and local in color, taken from the life he lives and 

 its environment. Tho modest, the cowboy has a positive con- 

 fidence in his manhood and is jealously guardful of his rights. 

 He often takes serious things lightly and light things seriously. 

 He has an inherent deep-lying chivalry, but while he'll ride fifty 

 miles each way in the saddle to spend a few formal hours with a 

 pretty girl, he'll ride two hundred to run down a horse thief. 



We were ridin' along homeward one night below the lowest 

 river bench in the Madison Valley — "Scuttle," my pal Rob Swan 

 and I, chapps to chapps, you knoW the feel. I had seen Scuttle 

 shoot pieces of broken glass no bigger than a nickel and then pul- 

 verize the smaller bits with a "twenty-two" against the twilight 

 that evening. Now the moon was half -set and a thin mist hung 

 in the valley bottom. 



The Whitney outfit had been operating up from the Jackson 

 Hole Country, ten thousand reward had been offered and they 

 were now reported hereabouts. What's the chances I asked 

 Scuttle of the sheriff's posse getting them. 



"Well mebbee they will, but more'n likely they won't." 



We jogged along for sometime the only sound the soft putter 

 of hoofs, the retch of saddle leathers and rub of chapps, then 

 Scuttle broke the silence. 



"Say pard, d'ye know I've been thinkin' about them 'sassins — 

 they ain't men, 'sassins what I call 'em, and d'ye know, that 

 mor'n likely the feller what gits 'em meb'll be some ord'nary 

 kind'er cuss, just like me." 



