Judge — December 2, 1922 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Round-up—Pendleton, Oregon" by John Held, Jr. This is a humorous illustrated story about a Wild West roundup at Pendleton, Oregon. The sequential vignettes show various comedic misadventures: a wild cow milking contest, cowboys reaching for a horn that isn't there, bulldogging, a prairie rose (woman) amid the chaos, Indians as "the only danger," and concluding with a bucking bronco ride. The satire targets Eastern romanticization of the American West. The inclusion of a fashionable woman ("Prairie rose") surrounded by bumbling cowboys, combined with the casual reference to Native Americans as merely incidental danger, reflects the era's stereotypes and the gap between Wild West mythology and actual frontier life. Held's cartoon mocks both the cowhands and urban audiences' fascination with the West.