The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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suitable as this for the uses of the plains. The heavy boardlike felt is practically indestructible. The brim flaps a little, and in time comes to be turned up, and possibly held fast to the crown by means of a thong. The cowpuncher may stiffen the brim by passing a thong through a series of holes pierced through the outer edge. The heavy texture of this felt repels the blazing rays of the sun better than any helmet. There are no recorded cases of sunstroke on the range. The record might be different were straw hats or "derbys" substituted for the rational headgear which for so long has been the accepted thing in the cowboy country. The cowboy can depend upon his hat at all seasons. In the rain it is an umbrella. In the sun it is a shade and a safeguard. At night, if he sleeps cold, he can place it beneath his hips, and in the winter he can tie it down about his ears with his handkerchief, thus escaping the frostbite which sometimes assails tender-feet who rely upon the best of caps with ear-flaps. A derby hat is classed contemptuously under the general term "hard hat." Once upon a time a ranch foreman went to Kansas to get married, and report came back from the town that he had been seen wearing a "hard hat." It required many and elaborate explanations on his part to restore confidence in him after his return to the ranch. There are many stories which recount the wild delight with which the cowboys greeted the appearance of a silk hat in a frontier town where they and the owner of such hat happened to be sojourning together, and it is literally true that in the earlier days of the frontier such hats were often shot "full of holes" by cowpunchers who did not wait for the removal of the hat from the owner's head. These stories date to the wilder days of the cattle towns, when one of the favourite amusements of the wild range men was to induce some tenderfoot to dance for them by means of the persuasive argument of shooting into the ground close to his feet. Such times passed away long ago. To-day there are many gray-headed cowboys on the range who solemnly deny that they ever did exist.
A starched collar was never seen on the cow range, and it is matter of doubt what might occur to it were it attempted by one of the cowboys of a ranch. The wearer would probably soon find himself the possessor of some nickname which would cling to him for the rest of his life with annoying adhesiveness. The neckwear of the cowboy is to-day what it was decades ago. The loose shirt collar has loosely thrown about it a silk kerchief, which may rest about the neck quite above the shirt collar. The kerchief is tied in a hard knot in front, and can hardly be said to be devoted to the uses of a neck scarf, yet it will be found a great comfort to the back of one's neck when riding in a hot wind. The cowboy very probably wears the kerchief in his peculiar fashion out of deference to the conventional style of the range. It is sure to be of some bright colour, usually red, for these strong and barbarous natures have learned no admiration for the degenerate colours, such as pale green and the like.
A peculiar and distinctive feature of the cowboy's costume is his "chaps" (chaparejos). Here the inexperienced man might think he had found ground to twit the cowpuncher with affectation, for the heavy, wide-legged and deeply fringed leg covers certainly do have rather a wild look. The "chaps" are simply two very wide and full-length trouser-legs made of heavy calfskin, and connected by a narrow belt or strap. They are cut away entirely at front and back, so that they cover only the thigh and lower legs, and do not heat the body as a full leather garment would. They are loose, roomy, and airy, and not in the least binding or confining to the limb, for the cowboy wears no tight thing about him except his boots. The usefulness of the "chaps" can be very quickly and thoroughly learned by any one who rides with a cowboy for a single day over the ordinary country of the range. They are not intended for warmth at all, but simply as a protection against branches, thorns, briers, and the like, being as serviceable among the willow switches and sage brush of the North as against the mesquite and cactus chaparral of the South. The invention, of course, came from the old Spaniards, who gave us all the essential ideas of the cattle trade. In the country where chaparejos were first worn the cactus, the Spanish bayonet, and all the steellike hooks and whips of the chaparral make a continual menace to the horseman. The hunter in following the hounds in that Southwestern country has perhaps at times found himself in the middle of a dense growth of cacti which reached higher than his head as he sat in the saddle. To turn in any direction seemed impossible, and every movement of the horse brought fresh thorns against the unprotected legs of the rider. Well for him then had his legs been incased in the "chaps" he should have worn. Not even the best tanned calfskin always serves to turn the thorns and daggers of the cactus. Sometimes there is seen, more often upon the southern range, a cowboy wearing "chaps" made of skins tanned with the hair on. These appendages, with their long shaggy covering of black or white hair, would again tempt the inexperienced to twit the cowboy with affectation, but once more he would be wrong. The cowboy of the Southwest long ago learned that goatskin left with the hair on would turn the cactus thorns better than any other material.
The overcoat of the cowboy, or rather his overcoat and mackintosh combined, is the ever-present "slicker" which he is most pleased to wear tied behind him at the thongs of his saddle. This garment is an oilskin, similar to that used by fishermen on the sea-coast. It is cheap, almost indestructible, and exactly suited to its uses.
At times in the winter time, and in a colder country, the cowboy slips on a blanket coat, a long garment of heavy brown canvas lined with flannel. These coats, in a better grade, however, than is usually found upon the cow range, are issued by the Government to the soldiers at the Northern army posts, and the teamsters there declare they are as warm as a buffalo overcoat. Of course, upon the range in a cold Northern country, where the thermometer at times reaches 45° below zero, the cowboy abandons distinctive type in clothing and dresses, as do all men in that climate, in the warmest clothing at hand. He will wear mittens then instead of gloves, and will have heavy overshoes upon his feet. Perhaps he will take to the heavy knit German socks or to the felt boots of the North. In such costume, however, we do not find the cowpuncher at his usual work, and so may dismiss it as not pertaining to his dress properly speaking.
The wearing of arms upon the person is in many of the Western territories now prohibited by law, and it is no longer customary to see the cowpuncher wearing the revolver or even carrying the Winchester which at a time not many years ago were part of his regular outfit. In some of the ruder parts of the range, and at some seasons of the dangerous cattle wars, it was a matter of personal safety that required such arms and a ready familiarity with them. For instance, the laws of New Mexico required the citizen to "lay aside his arms upon reaching the settlements," and said nothing against the wearing of arms in the country outside the towns. The law was made for the safety of organized society, for the arms bearers rarely came to town except upon times of hilarity and drunkenness, and more than ninety per cent of the "killings" of the West occurred among men where intoxicants had been in use or were near at hand. Thus the notorious Joel Fowler, who was eventually hung in Socorro, New Mexico, in 1883, had been required by the sheriff to "give up his gun" as soon as he came in town, his character when under the influence of liquor being well known. Fowler unbuckled his belt and gave the sheriff his revolver, but kept a knife concealed about him. Less than two hours later, when crazy drunk, he stabbed and killed his own ranch foreman and best friend, who had tried to persuade and quiet him. The young sentiment then just growing in favour of law and order allowed Fowler his trial for this, but his lawyers took appeal and got the final hanging postponed for too long a time; so the citizens, who had only waited for the hanging as matter of form, concluded to save expense and keep on the safe side by hanging Joel themselves, which they did, leaving him, in spite of his loud objections thereto, suspended to a telegraph pole. That was back in what might be called the old times on the range, yet even then the sentiment against bearing arms was beginning to be felt, and some ranch owners would not allow their men to carry the revolver at all. Later on, say in 1887, on some of the ranges not so wild as the far Southwestern country, there was slowly growing a sentiment against the wearing of a "gun." In 1894, in one of the wildest parts of Texas, one heard a ranch foreman say, with a noticeable personal pride, that he "never did pack a gun." The candour of this statement is open to a shadow of doubt, for that same foreman had spent his life upon the cow range, and in the old times the cowpuncher certainly did "pack a gun." Indeed, he looked upon it as a part of his dress and one of the necessities of life, and as such it should be mentioned here.
The cowboy never wore "galluses" (braces), and he rarely wore a belt to support his trousers, depending upon buttoning them tightly enough for that purpose; but he did wear a belt, this the wide, heavy leather belt that carried his pistol holster. This belt