CHAPTER XI. Our Arrival in Cheyenne .

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We arrived in Cheyenne, and after reporting to the dispatcher what time our special stock train would arrive, we exposed Jackdo to the gentle breeze, which is always on tap in Cheyenne, and it blew all the cactus slivers out of his anatomy that he had accumulated in his nine miles slide in just thirteen seconds. We then started out to see the town. We asked an expressman on the corner of Main Street—he was the only live human being in sight—what was the main features of Cheyenne. He said Tom Horn and Senator Warren. We asked him what they was noted for, and he said that Tom Horn was noted for killing people that took things that didn't belong to them and then blowing his horn about it afterwards, and Senator Warren was noted for building wire fences on government Land and taking everything in sight.

Not seeing anyone on the streets, we asked him if it was Sunday, and he said every day was Sunday in Cheyenne except when they had a political rally, and then it was a durn Democratic funeral from sun to sun, burying the Democratic party over and over again, they rehearsed them same old services. Whenever people saw the politicians on the streets with clean shirts on they knew the Democratic party was going to have another funeral. The folks in Cheyenne was always going to church, or else burying the Democratic party. We asked him what the prevailing religion of the town was, and he said, "High-priced wool."

Just then Senator W—— came along, and hearing of the disappearance of two sheepmen, and it being near election time, he immediately had all the troops called out, got together a vast army of United States deputy marshals and wired the president of the Overland, who immediately chartered a special train loaded with detectives, and two cars loaded with blood-hounds in charge of a lawyer by the name of Ashby from Lincoln; one car loaded with automobiles, two cars loaded with bottled goods and other useful supplies and two pianos with pianola attachments, seven trunks full of mechanical music in air-tight bottles, and one steam calliope near the engine on a flat car. The Governor of Wyoming met the special train at Cheyenne, and after issuing a proclamation offering a large reward for the sheepmen dead or alive, joined the U.P. president in his car. They now started the steam calliope, and the Governor playing one of the pianola-attachment pianos, the U.P. president playing the other. The state chairman of the Republican party sang the old familiar hymn, "Ninety and Nine Were Safely Laid in the Shelter of the Fold," and Senator W—— made a speech something like this:

He said: "Fellow sheepmen and what few other citizens there are in Wyoming: What's the matter with the sheep business? Have we deteriorated in the eyes of the world in the last two thousand years? Who writes poetry of the sheep and sheepherder of the present time? What artist puts priceless paintings on canvass of the sheep business to-day? Why, fellow sheepmen, in ancient times all the poetry that was written was of the shepherd and his flock, and in every palace, in the most conspicuous place, was a picture of a tall shepherd with venerable beard and flowing locks, with his serape thrown carelessly over his shoulder, a long shepherd's crook in his hand, leading his sheep over the hill into some fresher pasture. And when the people saw the original of this painting in ye ancient time appearing over the hill in the sunset glow, they cried: 'Lo, behold the shepherd cometh.' Now what do they say? This is what you hear: 'Well, look at that lousy sheepherding scoundrel coming over the divide with his sheep. Boys, get your black masks and the wagon spokes.'

"Now," he says, "wouldn't that Ram you? What would our party have amounted to in Wyoming if I hadn't Bucked everything in sight? I've Lambed the stuffing out of the Democrats and Pulled Wool over the eyes of the would-be party leaders till we have Pretty Good Grazing and Fair We(a)thers.

"In a few days we will be called on to decide a great question at the polls, whether Billy Bryan will build your house out of cold, clammy, frosty silver bricks, or whether we will have houses built out of all wool. You must make a choice between the two. If you vote for me, it means a good, warm woolen house, good woolen underclothes, good woolen overclothes."

Judge Carey tried to say something about a gold plank, but everybody frowned at him so that he slunk off in the crowd and shortly afterwards was seen in a back alley having a heart-to-heart talk with two bow-legged cowpunchers who, while they did not know much about any kind of gold, let alone a big gold standard, knew anything was better than all this talk about sheep and wool.

Senator W—— kept talking as long as he could keep the Governor and the U.P. president making music. He said everybody who voted right could sit on his right hand with the sheep, otherwise they would have to associate with the goats on his left that was herded by Billy Bryan. Some of the crowd grumbled about associating with either one, but the Senator said there was no choice if they stayed in Wyoming.

A carriage now dashed up, all emblazoned with a coat-of-arms, which consisted of a panel of barbed wire fence with a rampant sheep leaning against it. The Senator entered this carriage, rolled away and the crowd followed him.

Although there had been no effort made to find the sheepmen, yet apparently the object of the railroad expedition had been accomplished, and they were about to return when they discovered that three of the highest-priced detectives were missing. They were found almost immediately on the trail of the man who could tell why a life-long Democrat in Wyoming, as soon as he starts in the sheep business, gets a public office in place of a life-long Republican who didn't own any sheep. The detectives were called off the trail and the president of the great Overland began his return. We heard afterwards that Captain Ashby claimed that two of the most valuable blood-hounds escaped from the hound car and he demanded that the U.P. pay him $700 for the dogs. He claimed that if they struck the trail of anything they would follow it to the death. A couple of mangy fox-hounds were found dead in an alley back of one of the Cheyenne hotels the next morning after the president's train left, and as it was known that one of the hotel cooks had been down to the train, these were supposed to be the dogs, and the claim was allowed. What caused their death was a matter of conjecture. There was quite a pile of hotel grub laying near the dogs. The hotel boarders differed in opinion. Some said the dogs died of indigestion and some said of starvation.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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