Evening Star Newspaper, December 15, 1929, Page 111

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 15, 1929. Wild West Comes East—By Gilbert Swan Ranging in the Great Open-All-Night Spaces, the Cow- punchers Who In- wvade Manhattan Annually for the Winter Rodeos in Madison Square Garden Look Over the Calves of Brook- lyn and the Bronx. Sketches by George Clark. T used to be that East was East and West was West, but that was before they had dude ranches and cowboys hit the Broadway trail. Now the twain not only meet, but that part of it which comes from Windy Guich brings a half dozen Park avenue telephone numbers that he picked up while showing the “lady dudes” around the plains. Back here in the great open-all-night spaces, 10-galicn hats are getting as common as half- gallon flasks. And thanks to the cowboy invasion, the na- tives are gettin’ to the place where they can teil a long-horn taxicab when they hear one; can tell a Brooklyn calf from a Bronx calf, with or without short skirts, and they find themselves hanging around the Madison avenue -cactus stores trying to get some Western local color. The “dudes” may appear funny to the cow country when they get out there, but a buckaroo can seem just as queer in the land of the ten- derfeet. But it won't be long now. Too many New Yorkers have been out on the “dude ranches” and too many riders and rcpers have been heading this way. We exchange dudes for bull-doggers and half the fat dowdgers of Fifth avenue can now make trick knots in the family clothes line and know a gila monster from a goldfish. OR, like it or leave it, New York is becoming a Winter wrangling ground for “dudes.” Corrals are set up in the lobbies of swanky hotels and there's a scout at every railroad terminal. Ten-gallon hats sweep through lob- bies and spurs click on marble floors. East Side kids, who never had seen a cowboy outside the movies, now shine the high bcots of the best calf ropers. Rodeso championships, which used to be settled out where the West began, now are staged be- fore the best silk hats that ever decorated a $10-per-seat box in Madison Square. Bronco busters and bull-doggers and calf ropers ride the rods, if necessary, to get to New York for the Winter round-ups. For the purses are the fattest to be found anywhere and a year’s grub stake awaits if one can carry off a champion- ship. Those arguments about riding and roping and steer wrestling which used to be settled out in the prairie arenas now are staged to “standing room only,” with anncuncers broadcasting and bands playing and arc lights glaring and ladies in ermine gefting a flirtatious wink from bronzed cowboys in wool shirts and trick crim- son neckerchiefs. Like prize fights and world championship ball games and all the rest of the contests, the_rodeo now comes to the metropolis. It uses the saw- dust of a made-to-order amphitheater instead of alkali-sprinkled stretches of the West. Hundreds of its best performers arrive in early Winter, when snow has put the plains in bed: they haunt the regions of Madison Square and if they don’t get any ef the prize money, they begin to join the throng cf workless actors in the mid-town belt, seeking just enough money to follow the rodeo rounds through the South. SLOWLY the cluttered, herded inclosure that they call New York becomes more and more familiar to a group of men whose lives have led them over lonely trails. Once the rodeo argu- ments have been settled to the satisfaction of cane-toting men and orchid - wearing grand dames the rodeo trail swings southward for the Winter, with new chances for purses. Rodeo performers in the East are not on a pay roll. Like horses entered in a race, they take their chances. If they can win the contests they get into the big money. If they can’t they ride back home on the hitch-hike basis. Some of them jcin circuses and Wild West shows or tour around with carnivals for a while to get their fare back to dear old Windy Gulch. Some make international reputations and get on & steady pay roll. Taken by and large, the rodeo is not a “racket”—at least for the participants. Nor has it any particular kinship with the Wild West shows. There are mighty few riders who come The bucking bronco is an outlaw; it may tire and grow old, but it never gets used to a rider. iej through a season, I am told, without a few broken bones. They have a genuine sense of competition and each new appearance is a new test of courage. RODEO bronchos, it seems, are not made to crder. Hundreds of people have had the no- tion that the broncs are trained to buck and put on their stunts under the urge of spurs. A bucking horse bucks, so I'm told by Joe Cahill, because it’s instinctive. Bucking horses may tire and grow old, but they never get used to a rider and they never stop trying to get rid of any weight that's on their backs. The bucking horse is an “cutlaw.” It's a breed unto itself. It’s practically impossible ever to break him into the saddle. The same horses are-used over and over again at rodeos and each time they’re let loose from the “chutes” they go right to it again. Of course, they are more fractious scme days than others. But there were a few of these “outlaws” who stuck to their reputations as man killers thrcugh- out their days. OIld Steamboat was such a horse, and it took a train wreck to finish him. He lies in a marked grave out in Cheyenne. Only one man ever rode him and that. was because of a long rain which had left the field deep in mud. Steamboat couldn’t get his hoofs up according to form and so one rider got e break. The next day, however, Steamboat took his revenge-—tossing off three riders cne right after the other, and all of them famous “busters.” The second famous “outlaw” was called Nn Name, and there wasn’t a rider—a professional or amateur—that didn’t take a chance on him at one time or another. And he left hundreds of them scattered all over the turf. They finally retired him abcut 10 years ago. THE search for good bucking bronchos goes on constantly and when a real man-tosser is found he brings a big price. They're brought in from many parts of the West and tried out in the smaller Western shows in Summer. If they prove to be really tough characters they're signed up for the “big time,” like star perform- ers of the stage or screen. Some funny tales are told of the first appear- ance of an ‘‘outlaw.” Sometimes they don't even bue¢k, but just run wild trying to knock their riders cff against fences and walls. There's plenty of danger in the air—even when the cow- boys seem to go a little bit “big town” in Man- hattan. And this Winter trek of the lariat brigade to the city generally brings into New York a dele- gation of the men who keep the romance of the plains alive. WILL JAMES, the cowboy artist and writer, comes ranging in frem his Rocking-R Ranch out in Pryor, Mont. And Ross Santee shows up with sketch book and pad. Courtney Riley Cooper gets out his Colorado hat and, once in a while Kermit Roosevelt recalls the rough- riding reputation of his famous father. Then, from Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Colo- rado and all the “where West is West” country starts a vast parade of cowboys and cowgirls alike, until, by the time the first snow flies, it'’s possible to see half a dozen 10-gallon hats on mid-Broadway each noon hour. And if you sit down and listen you’ll hear many tales of the bronch-busting world. You'll hear, for instance, that Marie Gibson is one cowgirl who always puts on a great perfcrmance. “She and her old man have a ranch around Haver, Mont,” they will tell you. “The old man Babes in the woods. was pretty badly busted up. Got thrown a lot of times and lost an argument in a steer-throwing: contest. He goes around and does odd jobs with, the rcdeos. She’s got a grown kid who's getting: pretty handy with the rope and the horses. Las§; year she came in with a busted foot or some- thing and went right on—with one of the tough= est horses in the chutes.” You'll learn also that since the Easterners: have been going West to the dude ranches for the Summer, they have become fans for certaim outfits and go to cheer just as lustily for their favorite cowboy performers as for their oldi college. 1 YOU'LL hear tales about Tom Horn, whose roping feats have never been equaled, and of’ Thad Sowder and Clay McGonigle. Thefr names belong to days when “round-ups” were young. For rodeos did not start as an amusee ment for silk-hatted gents sitting in boxes.. They came right out of the cattle industry, whem each outfit had its champion riders and ropers.. Two or three outfits would—and still do—match. their best men in an arena where the sky was: the limit and the horizon rimmed them in. Gradually this grew to the point where an en- tire section of a State cr of a district would send its best men to a competition. Like all sports, these competitions were at first on a strictly amateur basis, Men of the cow country took part in them for the sheer joy they got out cf “whoopin’ 'er up.”. A sad= dle, a pair of chaps, even a buckskin shirt was prize enough to set seven counties of cowboys: rodeo-do-ing for dear life. And they could ges along without these prizes if necessary. ¥ UNDER the modern scheme of things a cere tain professionalism has crept in, espee cially among the star actors. But the show they put on is as genuinely thrilling and dangerous as any in the old days of the West. The big difference is that in Gotham the boys do their stuff with national reputation at stake. When the rodeo is over its heroes go on their way to other points, just as they always have, trailing their hard-earned glories behind them. (Copyright, 1929.) - Uses of Collodion. COLLODION. once widely used in phes tography but now employed more fre« quently in surgery and chiropody, is made dissolving gun-cotton in a 50-50 mixture alcohol and ether. It is a elear, colorles$ liquid, gummy in texture and highly inflanse mable. Because it is non-soluble in wat:r and has$ the property of forming a coating which i# proof against outside poisoning, it is used¥ widely for treatment of scratches and minos’ cuts and chafings. 4 Arsenic in New Fields. ARSI!NIC, arch-foe of insect pests, is spread4 ing out in its activities, seeking new fieldd to conquer. During 1928, while 60 per cent of the arsenic output of the country went into ind secticides, 25 per cent was used for weed< killers and wood prescrvatives. The glass in< :l:st.ry uum ’;1 per cent more, requiring, liked e C e industry, only high arsenic. 52 v —_— ““‘J - “Retarder” Is Popular, IN this day of hurry and speed, a retardedy seems out of place, yet naturally occurring anhydrite, which is similar to gypsum but lacks its water of crystallization, is in demand to retard the setting of cement. The rate of solue tion of the retarder is much slower than thas’ of gypsum and this determines how quickly the cement hardens. e