The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 4, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1898. 23 TWO GIRLS WHO SUCCESSFULLY RUN A BIG CATTLE RANCH Dressed in Overalls and Blouses They Fish, Hunt and Ride the Ranges as Actively as Any Man. EEON IT WasS @ FIGHT TO THE AN a woman run a sheep ranch? ., she can. I have just seen it tried by two young girls, and it is a suc s 16 S and the other old, and they do the nr: well as great deal of the head work on a of thirty square miles, B besides horses, cattle 500 sheep, over the hills of Mendocino County I had often met the girls rid- ride and dressed in blue shirt- s, blue jean overalls drawn down high boots as guard against rat- , their hair braided and coiled a broad straw sailor hat. I had from the city, where women sweat shops and factories and ies had been occupying my mind. ade the girls' acquaintance and dly accepted an invitation to visit m at their home, the ranch next the - where 1 was Stopping, and ride the range with them and see them at their work. It was nearly dusk when I closed the big gate behind me and began the ascent up the two miles of trail from the road to the house. The mountains rise on every side, but in the purple distance. Near at hand the green open stretches away as far as the eye can follow in rich slopes and gently rising hills, covered with green mossy ark oaks and cathedral-like pines ' One might clear are the lish country house, s of all underbrush. 80 Louise, the younger sister, had gone with an Indian boy to drive in a bunch of cattle. One of the ‘“milkers” had gone dry and a new cow, practically wild, must be domesticated to provide milk for the table. The Lamns are well educated Ger- mans, who brought a good deal of money to Mendocino County and put it into their ranch. It is one of the larg- est In the northern country. When wool went down from 28 cents to 8 cents per pound their income stopped. After a few very bad years a mor! age began to grow. Help was very -d to get and not much help when found at the rate of $1 26 a day with board. At dinner they told me how it came that the two girls began their work about the ranch. At the time Gussie, the elder, had just returned from school in the city One late for and was about 14 years of age. day her father came home very to dinner. It had been raining DEATH WITH THE MAD BRUTE IN FRONT AND THE FENCE BEHIND. COW’S HEAD WHILE GUSSIE YANKED BACK ON THE LASSO. days and the rain had changed to snow and down by Ten Mile Creek about a thousand sheep were fast in the snow and wc perish unless they could be gotten « ‘I am going to help you, papa,” said Gussie resolutely. Her father at first said “no.” It was not always a pleas- ure to him that his sons were all daughters. But Gussie went along and so effectively helped that every sheep was saved. ‘But you sh buld have seen me when I came home,” she sald. “Wet! why, I was a cloudburst in the Kkitchen, and my skirt was torn from top to bottom, it seemed to catch every time I got off my horse or climbed a fence. Before I went out again I put on a pair of papa’s overalls and boots, and that is how I came to have overalls of my own now. When Louise came home from school she wanted to help me instead of going to work in town. We had to do something, and I am glad now that we are farmers.” The ranch has been saved, although much of the time Mr. Lamn has been unable to work and has been obliged to leave everything to the girls. At shearing time they have twenty-four to thirty m>n and Indians to oversee. Their father usually is engaged bar- gaining to sell the wool. “And don't you have queer experi- ences going about dressed like men,” 1 asked. “Of course, but I rather enjoy It now; every on. about here now takes it as a matter of course. At first some of the neighbors threatened to have us arrested, but they didn't.” But the cows were waiting to be milked, and the girls promised some “fun” with the wild cows, just brought in. Two coi.5 were peaceably dis- posed of and then came Marguerite, the one chosen from a herd of about fifty, to be domesticated, and certainly she was equal to her name and the added appellation Dalsy. Both girls mounted their horses and started to lasso her. But Marguerite knew a rope when she saw one, and kept the other cows between herself and the lassos. When Louise succeeded in getting the rope around a hind foot the cow pulled and plunged so madly it was all the two girls and horses could manage to pull her into the cor- ral and secure the rope to the snub- bing post. The corral was small, with a high fence. The girls dismounted, armed themselves with clubs and ropes and began to close in on the wild cow. She had taken her stand in the corner, and with all her might was pushing against the fence, which threatened to LOUISE AIMED A BLOW AT THE NEXT DAY GUSSIE CAME RIDING BACK, DRIVING THE SIXTY collapse. Suddenly she charged at Louise, who jumped aside and into the corner, and none too quickly. It was fight to the death with the mad brute in front and the high fence behind and Louise aimed at the cow’s forehead with the club but missed, and the blow fell upon the horn and started the blood. Half dazed with pain, the cow tore around the corral at the full limit of her rope. A lasso from Gussie brought her to her knees and another from Louise quickly rendered her helpless. Hitched to the post so that any mis- conduct brourht her to the ground the cow was milked and left to reflect over the ways of the rebellious. Sitting on the flower-covered porch Mrs. Lamn scolded the girls for their recklessness, but Gussie only laughed, and said it was fun. She was sitting on the ground with the head of a hound between her hands and three more fawning and jumping over and around her. Mrs. Lamn talked of her German home, for which in free Ameri- ca she never sighed, glad her daughters were living their full, happy life, and sorry only that they cared nothing for - the books which were almost life to her and her husband. Dickens, Scott and Thackeray, Kipling and Darwin were among the row of books. Robert Louis Stevenson Mr. Lamn would not have. He did not approve of his marriage. In the morning we were out at 5 o'clock, for it takes all day to “ride the range,” ten miles long by three wide, the whole inclosed by a ‘‘coyote” fence, the rails having a barbed wire stretch- OFF BY THE DROVER. ed a few inches above the top. Coyotes do not always heed the invitation to keep out, and in the winter the girls have great sport hunting them, as well as the other sheep killers, bears and panthers. The fences are held together by wires instead of nails, and some one had cut a wire, letting down several panels of fence. In their saddle bags the girls carry everything needed for fence mending, and they soon had the fence in place again. All the while they were volubly condemning “hunters as Just nuisances,” as they call every one who comes up from the city to spend a vacation. Seeing us coming the sheep ran “baa- ing” away along the sheep trails which cover the hills. One, however, could not run; it had been shot. “Another of those city hunters who can’t tell a sheep from a quail or a cow from a deer. I'd give it to him if I could catch him on this land,” ex- claimed Gussie, as she drew her revol- ver and put the creature out of its suf- fering. The vultures circled lower as we rode on, and other dark shadows passed over us in the same direction. We were coming to a rocky, bare hill when the dogs began to bark and were answered by a hound from the sunny side of a great rock. “There he is now spurred up the steep hill. We followed. She was doing all that language could accomplish in “giving it” to a youth, and he was from ‘“the city,” judging from his picturesque get-up as a mighty hunter. “But I am only shooting rattlesnakes, and Gussie SHEEP THAT HAD BEEN RUN sir or madam,” he protested to the in- dignant Gussie. “I'll sir or madam you if you don't keep off this range with your gun and dogs!” “Really I would like to know, for if you're a man I'd enjoy giving you a thrashing.” Gussle jumped from her horse. “Thrash me! I might have something to say to that. Just try it!” “Pardon me, madam, but I cannot fight a young lady. I did not know any one would so violently object to having the snakes killed on her place.” Lifting his hat he pressed it to his bosom, and bowing low before the an- gry girl continued: ‘Madam, it is my great pleasure to obey you! I go, never to return,” and he bowed again with mock gravity. He called his dog and gathering up six rattlesnakes, prepared to leave the TocKs. “You have shot every one in the head,” remarked Gussie, who could not restrain her admiration, for she is a Diana to the tips of her fingers. “Rather good. Haven’t spoiled a sin- gle skin. Won't you accept one when I have them cured?"” “No, I do not care about them, but”— and Gussie looked at me, for I had been wanting a skin for a belt, and a fortnight after the young rattle- snake hunter brought me a fine one. We looked to the fence and the feed and to the salt, which had been placed out for the sheep that morning by the Indian boy. A young calf had strayed from its mother and was in danger of its life among some horses which would not meet its advances half way, but were more inclined to kick and bite it off their feeding ground. $So Gussie rode in among the horses and rescued the “little fool.” “It is noon by the sun,” sald Louisa. “Let's get some squirrels and go to the camp?” She was ten minutes fast by my watch, but we were glad to find our feet once more after six hours in the saddle over the hot hills. It was a beautiful spot on Ten Mile Creek, between two high hills and hav- ing a broad sandy bar well sheltered by oaks and manzanita and hazel bushes. The water was so cool and inviting no second invitation was necessary for a swim, and after that we made a fire and had hot coffee and roast squirrels and then lay on the cool sand and talked. Clearer minded, fresher hearted, more womanly girls I have never met. They both are only too glad to have the free life on the hills, hard though it may be when winter storms, or there are summer fires. “But we don’t work half as hard as mamma does and are never tireder than men would be,” sald Guss! “We are so strong and are never sick. Everything seemed all right for the day on the range and we decided to ride in to town for the mall and back by the public road. ‘While Gussie was nailing more se- curely several planks on the bridge which was on their portion of the high- way, she remarked that she could not quite make out the run of the sheep tracks where a drove of sheep had gone by. Every gate we came to she examined the ground and at last ex- claimed, decidedly:. “I thought so. A thrifty sheep drover has turned his band into our range over night to save the half a cent a head, which Jim White charges for pasturing for a The dogs worked well, and slowly the sheep were going in the right direc- tion, till we reached a very steep, rocky place, and it was all the dogs could do to keep the sheep from going back or down the valley. My horse had been raised and grown old driving sheep, and like an old warhorse he en- Joyed the excitement, for Gussie sald let him have his head, and he paid little attention to me in the helter-skelter “buckaroing” over the loose stones on the bare, steep hill, now up and now down, but always heading the sheep. When the gates re shut on the last item of perversity it was quite dark, and the girls left the wild cow to medi- tate till morning, for the Indian was afraid to milk her. They petted her, however. I was not sorry to quit, for 1 was tired and hungry, too, though I had al- ready eaten three very big meals, but when Gussie said she was going to find something to eat we all went quite nat- urally and anxiously into the kitehen Mrs. Lamn is a small woman, and the kitchen s small, but both looked smaller with the two tall girls cooking and getting things out for supper. They are well up in housework, and move about with a grace which only perfect health and freedom can give. Mrs. Lamn was anxious to know what I thought of her girls, and I had noth- ing but admiration for them and the system which kept them fair and pure and healthy, and was so infinitely to be preferred to work in the city shops. “See me?” she said. “I am broken down by hard work—woman’s work. I came here a young woman twenty years ago, and for eighteen years I was never off the place, scarcely out of sight of the house. All of us women do the same. We never get away be- cause there is no one to leave at home, and the work must be done. That f why so many farmer’s wives go crazy; it's = the never-ending, monotonous drudgery. I'm glad my girls can live GUSSIE DREW HER REVOLVER AND PUT THE WOUNDED SHEEP OuT OF night, and of course he would not hesi- tate to take any sheep of ours that might happen to get mixed up with his band.” That meant a round-up on the Lamn range right away and a counting of sheep to tell how many were missing. So we hurried home to ask for an early dinner. The best time to round up the sheep is after 5 o'clock, as they begin feeding toward night in the direction of the sleeping grounds. They always sleep on top of a high hill and every sheep in the same sandv bed every night. ‘We ate our dinner and then went to the top of the sleeping hill with the first sheep. There were four of us. Louise to the right, the Indian to the left and Gussie and I in the rear, while five dogs bunched the sheep. There were 3600 sheep to drive into the home corral and count. They don’t easily drive to the home corral if they can help it, for they are afraid of shearing. We drove the bleating, bobbing, dust- raising, wrath-provoking mass before us. ITS MISERY, differently.” It seemed as if I had only just gone to sleep when I was called to breakfast, and after that the sheep were counted. First they were all driven into one corral and then run out one at a time through a gate into another corral. The girls stood one on each side of the gate to count the sheep as they ran. One sheep bore an M in a square for a brand and proved beyond a doubt that it belonged to the herd driven toward Ukiah, which had pastured on the Lamn ground the night before. A good many sheep were missing. “Never mind, I'll attend to that rov- ing sheep herder,” said Gussie very de- terminedly. And after breakfast she spurred off after him and her sheep. That she might have trouble getting the sheep from the droves or that she ought to take a man along never seemed to occur to any of the family. I rode with her as far as Jim White's and wished her success. Two days after she came back with * her dogs driving about sixty sheep be- fore her. HELEN GREY. d burdened burros filled e narrow, winding, wriggling trall; ndred settlers came to build, h day, new houses in the vale; me to feed A hundred gamblers ¢ ¢ On the same settlers—that was Creede. Slanting Annie, Gambling Joe z] And * 4" Bob Ford, “‘Sapolis ,v"" Smith, as he was kno 1 games peculiarly thelr own; For everything was open wide, And men drank absinthe on the shde. HIS was the running record of Creed Camp as set down at the time, A. D. 1892. With a press franchise, a force of printers, a lead pencil and a Or * power press, the writer had one to the booming camp to establish rning paper, with a tele- graph in ex vice, in a town that kad been ence but three short moons and was not yet definitely located on the maps. In a little bushiess spot by the road- gide was a board shanty upon the door of which was tacked a tin beer sign. Inside half a dozen workingmen—labor- ers or miners they might be—were sit- ting on wooden benches abcut the gtove. They had been in animated con- ation, but hushed.it as they noted . entrance of a newcomer. One small n with pale. lusterless hair and cold eyes, was recognizable as Tom, shell man—“Troublesome Tom,"” called him, I had seen a carpenter at Tom’s three-legged stool that 1 watch the game for a moment, then slowly slide his tool-bag from his shoulder to the ground, put five dollars on the table and pounce upon one of lis. He lost this five and two led the shell man a thief and 2ded his money back. es,” sajd the man with his cold s fixed upon the top of the moun- © “] presume that’s what you wanted with my money—to give it back.” Now the carpenter was pushed aside by a man who could guess. This man wag able to win three times out of five. 00000000000 Seeing that the game could be beaten a merchant from Denver put down ten, tried again and lost. Crumpling a fifty- dollar bill in his left hand the merchant ment and then made a grab. “Turn it over, turn it over,” he demanded ex- citedly, dropping the crumpled bill Tom turned it over, but there was noth- ing in it—nothing for the merchant. “Why didn’t you turn it yo'sef?” said a man with a southern accent and a full black beard; ‘that fellow’s a shark.” Now this same man was the Georgia pronunciation came from behind the pine bar and spoke to me. He had no whiskers, but I could swear that this was the man that had helped the mer- chant play off the hundred. “Yo' th’ a’tist that's goin’ to staht the daily papah, eh?” “Yes,” 1 answered. “Goin' to make wah on the gam- blahs?" asked the dark man. “Not for gambling.” “What fo’ then?” “Sandbags, six-shooters and masks,” was the reply. “Well seh, if that's yo' gait we can gallop in the same heat,” sald he, en- thusiastically, offering me his hand. “My name is Smith—Soapy Smith—an’ when yo' in trouble say so an’-I'll hep yo'.” That {8 the way we became ac- qualinted. Gambler Joe Simmens, one of Soapy's verkingmen,” died suddenly two days watched the two half shells for a mo- | & before the first issue of the Chronicle, and Soapy gave him a big fureral S£tancing at the open grave he opened | champagne, pouring some into the | grave and drank some, saying as he iid so, “‘Here’s to Joe’s soul over there, |if there is any over Ahere,” and passed | the bottle to his next friend. The description of that funeral which Hartigan wrote for the first issue gave the Chronicle a start and made it wel- come at the exchange table before it was two days old. It's a mistake to assume that gamblers do no good. Joe Simmens helped make the Chronicle. One day a man came over from Chalk Creek to burn a lot of money that he had just received for a group of claims. At dusk when he entered the Chronicle office his trousers were stuffed like the trousers of a football player—stuffed with money. His face was flushed and his eyes dancing. He was a miner by profession, & gambler by instinct and a deep drinker. He told Taber frankly that he had expected a reporter would find him out at the hotel, but seeing the paper was shy on enterprise he had come in to give up the news of the Chalk Creek district. He hinted that seeing his name repeated in the paper would help him over at the new camp where he was Mayor, Magistrate, Post- master and Notary Public. “If that likeness could go on the first page,” he said slidi a photograph over to the reporter, “I'd be willing to pay for the cut.” He offered to “open wine” for Too Strong for Him. BY CY WARMAN. join him at the Albany for a midnight feed. In the twilight of the following day he called again. He was not nearly so frisky. The stuffing was gone from his trousers and the twinkle from his eye. Pulling a chair up to the reporter’'s desk he began to pour out the story of his undoing. Hartigan, seeing a smile beginning to play about the smooth face of the reporter, went over (o give Taber an assignment, and Vaughn, the | master mechanic (and general manager in the editor's absence), came in from the back room. Half an hour later the man went out. “Say,” he called back from the door. “You don’t need to mention names, but I'll stand by the paper if you give the outfit a good roast.” Taber had written the heading for the expose in the presence of the Chalk Creeker, and he had cheered and ap- plauded it. When he picked up the paper on the following morning he was delighted to see that it had not been changed or softened: “CONSPIRACY. A DEEP LAID PLOT TO DO A MAN OF MONEY. Business Men to Form a Union to Protect Themselves Agalnst the Sharks.” And there was the miner’s “likeness” the gang, printers and all, if they would | on the front page, top of the column ‘no improvement. 0600560000000000OOOOOO0OOOOO0O0OOOO00000000OOOOQOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0 + THE PASSING O :md right up against pure reading mat- er. The miner had admitted, in the in- terview, that he had been in the habit of bucking the tiger at the Orleans Club, kept by one Sapolio Smythe, and that he had dropped several small wads there. TFinally, one of his men up at the mines, who used to deal faro at El Paso, said he could beat Soapy's game, but it would take time and money. For five hundred dollars to him in hand paid this Texas man would go down to Creede, get a job dealine »* the club, and allow his friend to break the bank. It was so simple and easy that the miner, finding himself heeled, gave the Texas man the money, the man got the job (he could deal brace) and down came the tinhorn to tap the till. The Texas man was ‘“honest,” but Soapy, looking in the mirror, saw the new man fooling with the box and when the game opened had another switched in. At first the Chalk Creek man lost heavily, but he cared no more for his money than the Texas man did for his life, and laughed as he unloaded. His roll was half gone before he won a bet. Now he left off joking and began to watch the dealer. In a little while his money was flowing into the till again, and he began’to double up. There was The miner hitched a six-shooter around so. that the Texas man could see it, and the Texas man’'s mouth began to twitch. Reaching into | SMITH. Reminiscznces of the Notorious Klondike Gambler, Confidence Man and Politician Who Met His Death Waile Trying to Clean Out a Vigilance Committee That Proved 8 O0000000000 00000000000000000000OOOOOOOOOOOOO00000000000000000OOOO00000000000000000000000000000OOOOOOOO a drawer the dealer lifted a revolver and laid it near his right hand. “ call you,” said he, in a voice soft and low, and without more ado the Chalk Creek man reached for his gun. Instantly Soapy was between them: “0O gentlemen, gentlemen!” said he. The two men put away their guns, a new dealer took the chair and the game went on. Soapy signed to the Texas man to ap- proach the bar: ‘“Here's a hundred for vyour week’s work. Get a drink and a cigar and take the trail to Texas.” “Why, what's up, Soapy?” “Oh, nothing much, only if you're here when that sucker goes broke he'll kill you. He thinks you been robbin’ ‘im an’ if you haven’'t you've been crooked with me, an’ in that case the rules o’ the house make it my duty to put your light out m’self, see?” A few minutes later a cigar went burning along the trail that lay by the banks of the Rio Grande. That, in substance, was the story told by the miner, verified by “Sapolio,” and printed in the Morning Chronicle. Later Soapy went traveling, and fa- vored the writer with some odd and in- teresting letters. The first came from South America, nearly two years ago, another from Havana and still another from Juneau, I answered that one and asked for the truth about the Klondike, for I could rely upon what Soapy said, and he answered from New Orleans. 4 A few weeks later he walked into the office of a New York magazine In which he had read many of my stories, introduced himself and asked for me. The next news I had of him was from Skaguay, enclosing the following: NOTICE. TO THE SKAGUAY MILITARY COMPANY. Gents—A meeting was called for the 22d, but has been postnoned till Tuesday, the 29th of March, 18%. All members_will be no fied where to report. Resnectfully, JEFF R. SMITH, Captain, JOHN FOLEY, First Lieutenant. It seemed to me that this thoughtfuls ness on the part of a man who had once stood for me at a killing, and of- fered to do it again, deserved a reply. So I wrote him briefly, concluding: “Write me when there is anything that will make a story, and be sure to wire me when. they hang you, which will doubtless occur during the coming summer.” 3 This letter probably never reached him, as no wire came back. On the 7th of June a miner lost a bag of gold in “Jeff Smith’s Parlors,” at Skaguay. The man made a noise about it, the citizens got together, Soapy got drunk and went out to fight them all. Arriving at the place where an indignation meeting was being held, Soapy found flve men guarding the entrance. He rapned Frank Reid, the City Engineer, over the head with a rifle. Reld snapped his pistol at Soapy and Soapy shot him in the groin. Standing on cne foot Reid put three bullets into Soapy. killing him in- stantly. 3 Soapy must have llved altogether about forty years. He had made many friends and about as many enemies, He got his name, Soapy, because of a quiet little business he used to drive in Denver. He would take a number of square bits of soap, wrap them in soft paper. enclosing in some, (but not in all) flve, ten, twenty and fifty dollar bills, then for a sum of money, fixed by himself, he would allow a. y man in tha audience to guess which of the little packages had money,