Bill Jones of Paradise Valley, Oklahoma; his life and adventures for over forty years in the great Southwest. He was a pioneer in the days of the buffalo, the wild Indian, the Oklahoma boomer, the cowboy and the outlaw

Front matter

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Chapter II

Boyhood Days. — The Bender Farm in Kansas. — Killing My First Buffalo. — Hot Winds, Grasshoppers and Government Aid. — With the Choctaw Indians. — Teaching School in Arkansaw. — The Goat Party. — A Mishap in Joplin, Missouri. — A Printer's Devil in Cherokee, Kansas Page 20

Chapter III

Dodge City, Kansas, the Wickedest City in America. — The Endle.ss Chain Game. — A Night Hike to the Cimarron. — The Snuff Mines. — Caught in a Blizzard. — Rattlesnakes and Indians. Page 42

Chapter IV

A Trip to the Black Hills Prospecting for Gold. — Caught in the Circle. — Back in Texas Hunting Buffalo. — First Experience as a Cowboy. — Dro^^-ned in the Canadian River. — Back in Dodge. — A Trip to Kansas City. — My First Appearance on the Stage. — A Hard Ride of Fifteen Hundred Miles after Horse Rustlers Page 57

Chapter V

Off to Colorado with a Herd of Cattle.— An Ail-Night Fight with Mexicans. — A Month in Alamosa, Colorado. — On a Prospecting Trip to Western Colorado. — Cook in a Surveyors' Camp and Boss of a Pack Train. — Two Thousand Feet alx)ve Timberlinc. — Carrying the United States Mail in a Dishpan. — The Buried City Page 65

Chapter VI

Railroading and Punching Cattle at the Same Time. — Nine Miles and No One Hurt. — Caught in a Hotel Fire in Newion, Kansas. — Bog Riding in No Man's Land. Page 73

Chapter VII

Back in Texas \N-ith a Bunch of Cattle. — The Fight in Sweetwater and a Troop of United States Cavalry. — Arrives at Ft. Sitting Bull more Dead than Alive. — A Life-Saving Crew. — Death of Jim Springer. — Freezing to Death. — On a Tear in Wichita, Kansas .... Page 81

Chapter VIII

The Rendezvous Camp near Camp Supply. — An English Ixjrd and a Millionaire. — The Heart and Hand. — A Farewell Bachelor Dinner. — A Bear Hunt. — Roping a Mountain Lion.^ — Our Wild West Show and a Methodist Preacher. Page 90

Chapter XV

Hardships of the Cowboy on the Trail. — Jesse Chisholm, the Man Who wont Ahead. — The Cowboy will Always Live in Story and Romance. — The Finest Horseman the World Ever Produced.— The Stampede.— The Blizzard. — The Lonely Grave by the Trail. — "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie." — Dying of Thirst. — Shooting up the Town. — A Perfect Specimen of Physical Manhood Page 161

Chapter XIX

The Opening of Oklahoma in '89. — The American Indians. — The Boomer and the Sooner. — Captain Payne and Couch. — The Signal Guns. — A Race for a Home. — A

Mule Seventeen Feet High. — A Prairie Dog Hole and the First Claim. — Paradise Valley. — Hatching Little Chickens while You Wait. — Dutch Henry, a Noted Horse Thief from Dodge City. — Doc. — Kaffir Corn, Turnips, Rabbits and Cow-peas. — George Callison's Famous Rabbit Trap. — Roping a Crazy Man. — A Case of Blind Staggers. — A Case of Appendicitis. — Please don't Shoot the Fiddler, He is Doing the Best He Can. — "Nevermore." — A Bad Case. — A Cyclone. — Four Dead in the Mulnix Home. — A Railroad Wreck Page 208

Chapter XX

A River Pilot.— Bitten by a Gila Monster.— The Wharf Master at Lipscomb. — The Landlord of the Good Chuck Hotel. — Buried Alive for Three Days. — Carrying More than Two Guns Prohibited in Texas. — Ticks, just Ticks. — Mister, Have You a Snake that ^vill Bite a Woman?— A 60-40 Cut Page 248

Chapter XXI

Johnsinger's Wild West Shows, El Paso, Texas.— A Night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. — With Orosco's Mexican Sharpshooters, $10.00 per. — On Outpost Duty. — Capturing an Enemy. — The First Battle at Juarez. — A Mounted Burro Battery. — With Madero at Cases Grandes.— Chased Out of Mexico by the Soldiers and a Bunch of Coyotes. — Back in God's Country. Page 267

Chapter XXII

From El Paso to Alpine. — $50.00 for a Carload of Water. — A Real Estate Agent and the Steam Roller Gang. — San Antonio, One of the Glory Spots in Texas, and the Alamo. — "Lungers" and the Landlady where I Stopped Page 281

CHArTER XXIII.

The Beautiful Gulf Coast Country.— Two Thousand Dollars' Worth of Oysters to the Acre. — A Toothpick Garden and a Cordwood Farm. — Pearl Buttons and the G. A. R. — Grandpa Always Ran. — Blue Ribbons, Salt Water, a Shark and a Pretty Girl.— Mr. Mc, Conductor on the Sea Wall Special Page 290

Chapter XXVII

Hunting Trouble in Old Chicago Town. — If You want to get Rich, Send Me SlOO, and I will Tell You How.— Traveling with a Musical Comedy Company, Chorus Girls — Tom and Jerry. — A Drunken Mixup and the Police Station Page 307

Chapter I. My Fiiwt Experience With A Stenographer

"Wanted: A lady typist."

I inserted the above advertisement in the paper, and then I was ready for business. The first appHcant was a woman about forty years old and as ugly as a coyote. I gave her the job, and after she had removed her wraps and hung them up she sat down at the machine, fixed the jingle-bob and adjusted the do-flapper. Then she asked mv if we would commence the day's work in the usual way. " I guess so," I replied, and went on with my WTiting. I expected to hear that machine start off on a piece of ragtime music alx)ut like K. C. Jones, but nothing of the kind hai>pened. She turned around and looked at me. I asked her what was the trouble.

"Are we going to start the day's, work in the usual way?" she repeated.

I will admit that I can give a jack rabbit a running start of one hundred yards, and catdi him in a thousandyard dash; but I am too slow for the jx'ople of the East. "Please put me next to the way of starting work here in Illinois," I said to her.

" Every place where I have worked for the last twenty years," she replied, "when I was ready to go to work in the morning, the boss would always take me in his arms and ki.ss me."

"My dear girl," I answered, "as I already have a ^^'ife and a little boy, I don't think it would be right for me to do anything of that kind."

With that, she grabbed her hat and wraps, and out she went, while the phonograph in the next room played the "Rogue's March."

About 1 :00 p. M. another one showed up. I gave her the job. She was a blonde, about twenty, and as pretty as a sunkist peach. After the usual preliminaries in such cases, she sat down at the machine Thinking I ought to start the afternoon's work in the usual way, I stepped up behind her, put my arm around her neck and was going to put a kiss where it would do the most good. Then something happened. After I got through seeing stars, diamonds and a few other things, the lady where I have my office opened the door and windows to let out the smoke, swept out the dust and feathers and rearranged the furniture.

"Mr. Jones," she said, "I think it is safe for you to come out from under the bed."

With the help of two plumbers and a doctor, I got the machine fixed up that evening. Next morning I wrote my wife that I had been attacked the night before by half a dozen burglars and nearly beaten to death. And what next? Too slow for one and too fast for the other!

About ten o'clock next day another one dropped in. I gave her the job. I asked her a good many questions, and her answers were satisfactory. She sat down and was starting to WTite, when she turned around and looked me square in the eye. I could feel the touch coming, I got up and opened the window and the door, so I could get out at one while slie went out at the other. Slie wanted to know what I did that for, as the weather was extremely cold. I told hev that out West where I lived, when we went to church, we always raised the windows and left the door open, so tiie congregation could get out in a hurry without getting run over or burned to ileath, if the sky pilot failed to give satisfaction. I also told her that we always carried our guns to church with us, so that in case we were attacked by Indians we could stand them off.

All this time I wius standing within about four feet of the window, with my writing table between us. She looked me in the eye, and wanted to know how I happened to be battered up so badly, I told her I had attended a banquet a few days ago at Danville, 111., and in coming back there w:us a wreck, coaches all burned up and everybody killed. She said it was funny she had not heard of it before, as she knew .all the brakemen between Bloomington and Dan\'ille, I told her that I was the onlj' one who escaped. Then she looked me in the eye the third time and wanted to know if this was to be an open shop or a union job. I told her if she would promise to behave herself, I would shut the door and window. Then she wanted to know if I belonged to any union. "I don't know," I said, "my father was a Union man during the Civil War times."

" My, but you are slow," she said. " I mean, do you belong to any kind of an organization where people who do noi have to work meet for various reasons?" I tokl her that at one time I had joined the Knights of Labor, timt I h&d lx?longcd to the Orange, the Alliance, the I. O. (). v., the Knights of the Orient, the Owls, the Horse Thief's Ar«ociation and several others, but I had dropped all of them except the Benevolent Order of Jack Rabbits. Then she wanted to know how many days in the week I worked, and how many hours each day. I told her I did not know.

"Well, what in blazes do you know?" she replied. "I know that out West in a cow camp we work thirty days for a month and twenty-four hours for a day, and if it is raining or snowing or real bad weather, we have to do a double trick, all for thirty-five a month."

Then she acted as if she was coming round the table. I got in the open window and looked out to see if there was a policeman in sight. Then she picked up sone of my copy, read a little and said that it was all a lie.

I reached for my gun, without thinking I was in Illinois.

"Yes, I know that," I replied. "I carried tho belt in Oklahoma about a year A young lawyer came along one day and the boys made me give it up to him."

Then she reached for her hat and said she would only work six hours a day with three half-holidays each week for refreshments, and the price would be $25.00 per. Then she beat it while the phonograph in the next room played "See the conquering hero comes." As she went out, she stopped in the hall long enough to tell me that as soon as the McNamarras got back from California, where they are spending their vacation, she would have me dynamited.

Tlicn I went to see a blacksmith, to get him to hammer it out for me. He said that he could do it all right, but I would have to furnish the hammer and a few pounds of shingle nails.

Paradise Valley, Okla.

Mr. Woodrow Wilson, Washington, D. C. Most Esteemed and Worshipful Miister: —

I enclose you, under separate ^vrapper, a typewritten copy of my new book, entitled " Forty Years on the Hummer."

I enclose stamps for return postage. Do you think Bill Taft and Bill Bryan will run for President in 1916? Respectfully,

Bill Jones.

Paradise Valley, Okla.

Mr. Billie Bryan, Washington, D. C.

My Dear Sir and Brother: —

I enclose you under separate cover a typewritten copy of my new book, entitled, "Forty Years on the Hummer."

Enclosed find stamps for return postage.

Respectfully, Bill Jones.

White House, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Bill Jones, Paradise Valley, Okla. Dear Sir:—

I have delayed answering your favor of recent date until I could read your book. The other day I thought 1 would have a chance to read it, when a messenger boy rushed in and handed me a telegram. Here is what it contained:

** Woody, quit your smiling. You have T. 11. and the

Kansas Progressives on the run, thinking there is a cyclone headed West. John lliggs, Committeeman,

"Dexter, Kansas."

At a meeting of the Cabinet this evening, it was unanimously decided to appoint you to a very responsible position. I instructed the Secretary of War to make it out at once and forward it to you.

I hope you ^\^ll receive it in a few days. I think you can sell all of the first edition of your book here in Washington, as all the Cabinet Members wanted to borrow the tj-pewritten copy you sent me.

Thanking you for the favor, I am, respectfully,

W.

P. S. Yes, I think the three Bills— Taft, Bryan, and Jones — and the Niagara Falls, will always be running. Respectfully, W.

White House, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Bill Jones, Paradise Valley, Okla. My Dear Bill:—

Will say in reply that I think your book will prove to be a great seller, as everybody here in Washington wants a copy as soon as it is off the press.

Respectfully, Billie.

A few days later the postman handed me a oig official envelope that looked like it might contain a government blanket, or a copy of the Patent Office report. As it was from the Secretary of War, I knew that it contained my commission as Ambassador to China, Mexico or Cuba, when' a man with a steady nerve and an iron jaw was badly needed.

I hiid it on the tal)lo in my office, and went out and notified the landlatly and all the boarders, especially the young lady with the violet eyes, that my commission to ()shkosh had arrived. "All come in and I will read it to you." After I had read all the "Be it resolved" and "^^^lereases," I came to the place where it said, "appointed Porter at the Military Prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansivs. You will i)roeeed there at once and report to the warden for assignment." After I had finished reading it I laid it on the table and looked around the room to see where the young lady with the baby-blue eyes was. I was surprised. While I w;i.s reading they had all got up and silently departed. I was alone in my office, with that commission on the table.

I had been to Leavenworth several times, and I knew that it was not an open shop. They were all bound together by an iron-lx)und oath or something else that would prevent me from accepting the position as a porter. I wrote them that I was suffering from a nervous breakdown, contracted while I was detained at Huntsville, Texas, and that I would have «-o decline.

CHAPTER 11.

BOYHOOD DAYS — THE BENDER FARM IN KANSAS — KILLING MY FIRST BUFFALO — HOT WINDS — GR.\SS- HOPPERS AND GOVERNMENT AID WITH THE CHOC- TAW INDIANS — TEACHING SCHOOL IN ARK.\NSAW — THE GOAT PARTY — A MISHAP IN JOPLIN, MO. — A printer's devil in CHEROKEE, KANSAS.

I was born and partly raised in old Missouri. That settles it — you will know from the start that I have had plenty of trouble. A boy born in Missouri is sure to have trouble, and lots of it; and if I had to be born again, it would be in Missouri, for I am still hunting trouble. If I had been born in Hoboken, N. J., perhaps I would have owned the Standard Oil Company; then I would have given my money to the Methodists, and see what a row that would have caused in the Baptist camp. If I had been born in Arkansaw — the land of the big red apples and where the girls with the sun-kist cheeks are the prettiest in the world — there is no telling what good fortune might have come to me.

When I was old enough to wean, mama put a muzzle on me, and father put us all in a wagon and lit out for Kansas. We stopped about fifteen miles east of Cherryvale for a few weeks, where Daddy tried to buy a claim. While we were camped there, the Bender trouble came up; the Bender family had killed a lot of people and buried them in the garden. Among the victims was a Dr. York.

When ho was niiss«xl a soarcli which rosultod in the discovery, I think, of about thirteen men who had been killed and buried in that garden. There were lots of good honest people who would tell you the Bendirs were hung; others would say that they were shot, and sometimes it would hi' reported that they escaped. I don't know as much about it as some people do who were not there, but I do know that if the Benders got away, they got so far that the shrewdest officers in the United States have not found them to this day. What I saw at the Bender farm was a plenty for one chunk of a boy to see.

We went on farther west and located about half-way between the county seat and the woodshed. Dad could have bought the land where Peru, Kansas, is for a plug of tobacco, but he did not have the plug. Another thing, he was looking for a farm and not a stone quarry. Millions of gallons of oil have been taken off that farm since then.

Father bought a claim, and we all turned in and made it a good farm, and he slill owns it.

That Fall a lot of settlers went to Barber County, on a buffalo hunt, and that is where my trouble started. As I was the youngest one in the crowd, I had to keep camp and do the cooking. The first day they all had a good time hunting, and brought in a few turkeys, jack rabbits, and a coyote. All they talked about that night was buffalo, antelope, turkeys, mountain lions and coyotes. But they let all the big game get away. Next morning they were up and gone again; I decided that I would do a little iiunting myself. We were camped on a little creek; they all went on one side and that left the other for rac.

I had one of those old human guns, about seven feet long, tluit grandfatluT used when hv was in Kentucky, hunting Indians along with D. Boone. About ton o'clock I discovered tlirt'c huiTalocs stamling around looking wise, about a mile away. I walked and crawled until I was within a hundred yards of them. They could see me just as plain as I could see them. One young cow wa^ standing with her side to me, and the other two had their heads toward me. I got ready and cut loose at the cow. As I had heard that you could not kill a buffalo by shooting him in the head I expected to see the cow drop and the rest run off. But nothing of the kind happened. I was more surprised than they were. I loaded up my old gun and tried another shot. When the smoke cleared away, I was still there and so were the buffaloes. Tliird shot, same result — I began to think there was something AVTong in Denmark, I could take that old gmi and knock a squirrel's eye out in the highest tree in Missouri, and I could kill a wild goose or a prairie chicken at that distance every shot.

Just why I could not hit one those big buffaloes was a mystery to me. I was very careful when I loaded that old rifle next time. I took an invoice, and here is the way it showed up — one b<jy, one big gun, tiiree buffaloes one hundred yards away, plenty of ammunition, nothing in sight but the prairie and the l)uffaloes. Would I go away and leave them there? No; I would try again. I took good aim, shut both eyes and pulled the trigger. Wliat happened in the next few minut«'S I have not to this day found out. I took a sudden notion to go to camp and .•started there in a hurry. I tried to fly. I noticed that the buffaloes were g'jing toward the camp and it looked like they were trying to beat me to it. I did not want them to beat me, because I had gone away that morning ^\^thout washing the dishes, and the camp was not in good condition to receive visitors. I also noticed that one of them had a lame foot. I did not stop to see what was the matter, as I was not a veterinary surgeon anyway, and I was in a hurry to get to camp. I had business there that needed my attention.

All this time I was headed for camp — so were the buffaloes — I thought I would stop, get on one and ride to camp like Bill Cody. Would they stop and pick me up? I was doing my best to beat them to camp, when I began to feel their hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned my head to see how close they were and the unexpected happened. It most always does happen to me at just such a time. I stepped into a hole and down I went. That hole proved to be a little gully about two feet wide, two feet deep and about two hundred feet long, partly covered over with grass. I don't know whether I fainted or not, or how long I stayed in that hole. Any^vay, when I looked out there was not a buffalo in sight. I crawled out and took a good look around and then went back after my gun and hat. I had no trouble in finding them, for I had left the gun where I started, I am not going to tell you how far it was from where I started from to that hole, as you might think I was telling the truth. I have been on several buffalo hunts since this one, but none that had such a moving effect on me. I started on to the camp, and about half a mile from there I found Mrs. Buffalo as dead as Jim Jeffries.

When the rest of the crowd came in that evening I had about four bushels of buffalo meat nicely cooked for supper. During our stay we got several others — all we wanted to haul home.

I almost overlooked the bob-cat that I had a fight with. I had been out all day and had run out of gun caps. About four inches of snow had fallen the night before, and when I came on to Mr. Cat, squatted down in the snow, the problem was how to get him without any way to shoot. I was raised to believe that if you do not attack trouble, trouble will attack you, so I laid the gun down, got a good club, and at it we went. First round Mr. Cat got the worst of it; second round, Willie was slightly damaged, but still in the race. In the third round I received quite a bite and several scratches, but a good uppercut with my club laid him out for good.

There are lots of people who remember the summer, fall, and winter of 1874; hot winds, grasshoppers and government aid. First, came the hot winds. They were like a furnace, and would blister the hands and face like fire. We had to get into the house and shut the windows and doors to keep cool. A few days later came the grass hoppers, and they were a hungry bunch of tramps. They got everything that was green, and ate a good many things that were not green. They ate up forty rods of stone fence in thirty-seven and a half minutes by the watch. They destroyed more stone fences that fall than all the boys, dogs, and rabbits put together. The green headed horseflies were pretty bad that fall, and they made it hot for the stock. We had a pet cow, and in order to keep the flies from eating her, we covered her with some green paint that we had left over, after painting the house. The hoppers came along, ate up the cow, paint and all.

The hoppers would hold up the children on their way to school and take their lunches away from them. After the grasshoppers had eaten everything, we turned in and ate the grasshoppers. One old fellow said he used to live with the digger Indians in Idaho, and they considered a grasshopper equal to or better than oysters, crawdads, clams, chili, or chop suey. So we all learned to eat grasshoppers, and I can say from experience that they were fine; but I do not want to live long enough to eat them three times a day again. After that we had grasshoppers for about six weeks and had them cooked and served in every way that could be thouglit of. ^ Then the cry went out that the people of Kansas were starving to death. Thousands of carloads of aid were sent by the good people back home to starving Kansas, and even the government sent hundreds of carloads. Ten years later you could not find a man in Kansas who would acknowledge that he went up and got his little pile.

I remember that the men who received and distributed the aid were quite a bunch of jokers. We would get in line and pass by the house, and when we would stop at the door, the clerk would grab up what he thought you needed most and hand it out to you. My first draw <'onsisted of an old beegum hat, about fifteen inches high and four sizes too big for me, which some good old preacher had thrown in the car; a pair of number 12 boots; three pairs of government socks; a pair of pants that some skeleton had worn, as they fit me like a lady's kid glove; a coat and vest fifteen sizes too big; an old blue overcoat t!.:it saw service when Sherman marched t<» the sea: s ime uiidershirts {hut wnv just rij^ht, and several i)airs ol drawers. Several years later, after 1 iiad been inarrie(l n few times. I found out Mhere they came from. 1 think they were donated i)y dilTerent ])arties, as they wi're all (lifTerent in size, material, and make-up; but they kept me warm that winter. One Sunday, bright and early, I dressed uj) in my new suit and liiked out to siiow it to my jjjrl. When she met me at the door she looked like an anirel from wonderland. It would take some one Ix'tter jiosted on women's clothing than I am to describe what she had on. I went in. She hooked me over, connnenced to laught, and so did I. Pretty soon the wiiole family came in and began to laugh; then we all laughed together. We laughed all that day and all that winter, and everytliing we had on that Sunday morning makes me laugh, when I think about it now, and I just sit down and have a good laugh. I have made it a business through life, every time that I would get discouraged and troubles would come to n:e in great big bunches, I would have a smile all to myself. I expect I have been asked a thousand times what 1 was smiling about. My answer always was "nothing." .As all our neighl)ors got about the same things, we ail hail a good time.

I never enjoye(l myself, in all my life, before or since, more than I did that winter. I forgot to tell you that I f(»und thirty cents in five and ten-cent pa]>er money in the jxuits pockets. Shin plasters, we called it. and that was all the money I had for five months.

I never will forget the first (hmce I went to. .After that, we got up a dance for the purpose of showing o\n- new

]'. I LL .1 OX i:s clothes, with the understanding that each boy and girl was to wear just what he or she had. I went with my sister and £ny girl. I have attended many masquerade balls since that night, l)ut I can say truthfully that I never .^aw a bunch of young people enjoy themselves half as much as we did in Southern Kansas that cold winter.

A year later four of us started to Arkansaw, to put in the >\-inter hunting, fishing, and trapping, 'with the intention of having a good time. We started about November 1st. I think we crossed the Kansas line about where Elgin is now. We traveled in a southeast direction, crossed the Arkansaw River at Ft. Gibson, and the Canadian River not far from Webber Falls.