On the Dodge by William MacLeod Raine Read Free Book Online

 
IT WAS
in the days when the new railroad was pushing through
the country of the plains Indians that a drunken cowboy got on the
train at a way station in Kansas. John Bender, the conductor, asked him
for his ticket. He had none, but he pulled out a handful of gold
pieces.
    "I wantta--g-go to--h-hell," he hiccoughed.
    Bender did not hesitate an instant. "Get off at Dodge. One dollar, please."
    Dodge City did not get its name because so many of its citizens were or
had been, in the Texas phrase, on the dodge. It came quite respectably
by its cognomen. The town was laid out by A. A. Robinson, chief
engineer of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and it was called for
Colonel Richard I. Dodge, commander of the post at Fort Dodge and one
of the founders of the place. It is worth noting this, because it is
one of the few respectable facts in the early history of the cowboy
capital. Dodge was a wild and uncurried prairie wolf, and it howled
every night and all night long. It was gay and young and lawless. Its
sense of humour was exaggerated and worked overtime. The crack of the
six-shooter punctuated its hilarity ominously. Those who dwelt there
were the valiant vanguard of civilization. For good or bad they were
strong and forceful, many of them generous and big-hearted in spite of
their lurid lives. The town was a hive of energy. One might justly use
many adjectives about it, but the word respectable is not among them.
    There were three reasons why Dodge won the reputation of being the
wildest town the country had ever seen. In 1872 it was the end of the
track, the last Jumping-off spot into the wilderness, and in the days
when transcontinental railroads were building across the desert the
temporary terminus was always a gathering place of roughs and
scalawags. The payroll was large, and gamblers, gunmen, and thugs
gathered for the pickings. This was true of Hays, Abilene, Ogalala, and
Kit Carson. It was true of Las Vegas and Albuquerque.
    A second reason was that Dodge was the end of the long trail drive from
Texas. Every year hundreds of thousands of longhorns were driven up
from Texas by cowboys scarcely less wild than the hill steers they
herded. The great plains country was being opened, and cattle were
needed to stock a thousand ranches as well as to supply the government
at Indian reservations. Scores of these trail herds were brought to
Dodge for shipment, and after the long, dangerous, drive the punchers
were keen to spend their money on such diversions as the town could
offer. Out of sheer high spirits they liked to shoot up the town, to
buck the tiger, to swagger from saloon to gambling hall, their persons
garnished with revolvers, the spurs on their high-heeled boots
jingling. In no spirit of malice they wanted it distinctly understood
that they owned the town. As one of them once put it, he was born high
up on the Guadaloupe, raised on prickly pear, had palled with
alligators and quarrelled with grizzlies.
    Also, Dodge was the heart of the buffalo country. Here the hunters were
outfitted for the chase. From here great quantities of hides were
shipped back on the new railroad R. M. Wright, one of the founders of
the town and always one of its leading citizens, says that his firm
alone shipped two hundred thousand hides in one season. He estimates
the number of buffaloes in the country at more than twenty-five
million, admitting that many as well informed as he put the figure at
four times as many. Many times he and others travelled through the vast
herds for days at a time without ever losing sight of them. The killing
of buffaloes was easy, because the animals were so stupid. When one was
shot they would mill round and round. Tom Nickson killed 120 in forty
minutes; in a little more than a month he slaughtered 2,173 of them.
With good luck a man could earn a hundred dollars a day. If he had bad
luck he lost his scalp.
    The buffalo was to the plains Indian food, fuel, and shelter. As long
as there were plenty of