Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 183: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Camp-Fire Me. HENRY is correct when he states that the old Chisholm trail was the direct route be- tween the Red River on the Texas Border and Abilene, Kansas. South of the Red River various routes were used northerly from the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande, the route depending upon the starting point in Texas, but all headed for a central or common crossing across the Red River which was the southern terminus of the Chisholm trail. The chief points or sections from which Texas cattle were driven north in those days were Lock- hart, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Waco, Dallas and various other sections. From the Red River to Kansas the Chisholm trail traversed the Indian Nation, now the State of Oklahoma. 3 About 1874 the settlements were becoming so numerous that the cattle-men were forced to follow routes in driving still further west, and about that time either Ogallala or Cheyenne, Wyoming, was favored for a northern terminus of trails from the south, but there never was a route as popular, as prominent or as well known and over which more cattle were driven than the old Chisholm trail with Abilene as its northern terminus. [N READING Emerson Hough’s story, ‘‘North of 36,” I looked upon it as well written fiction with facts for a foundation. I recognized that personally Hough had had no opportunity to know the West as early as 1870 nor could he from personal knowledge describe customs and characters such as took part in the drive described in his story and I let it go at that, but with regard to the question as to whether Mr. Henry in his criticisms evidences a superior knowledge of the West, I am not prepared to state because I have not read his criticisms in full, nor am I prepared to state whether either Mr. Henry or Mr. Hough shows a more detailed and accurate knowledge of the old West than does Hugh Pen- dexter, but*I do know that Mr. Henry is right in many of the statements which I find in your “‘Camp- Fire” notes. For instance, Abilene did not exist in 1867. At that time there was a stage station on the old Smoky Hill Overland Route at Mud Creek, which emptied into the Smoky Hill River about half a mile southwesterly from the Abilene town in 1870. The stage station was kept by Mr. Tim Hersey, who later in 1870 removed his family to Beloit on the Solomon River, which:town site he actually owned and founded, and where he built a dam across the river as well as a sawmill and a grist-mill, the ma- chinery being driven by water-power. en the railroad built into Abilene and beyond the Hersey stage station, Mud Creek was abandoned. [N 1869, when the Texas cattle first commenced to be driven up the trail, the town of Abilene was not organized, had no police force, in fact, was merely a sma!l hamlet as stated in your ‘“Camp- Fire” columns. Early in the Spring of 1870 the leading citizens headed by the McCoy Brothers (Jim and Joseph), realized that there was a possi- bility, in fact a strong probability that thousands of heads of Texas cattle would be driven to that point for shipment to the East, and these men got to- gether, organized a village, and having had a taste in 1869 of the conduct that might be expected when hundreds of cowboys who traveled up the trail in charge of the many herds, aggregating in number, thousands of heads of long-horned Texas cattle, were visiting the town after several weeks drive and with 181 a big thirst for bourbon whisky, determined to ap- point a suitable man town marshal. NELSE WYLIE was sheriff of Dickinson County of which Abilene was the county seat in 1870 and he was called into the conference which was being held to decide on what was the best course to pursue to find a suitable man to act as town marshal, the qualifications necessary being absolute fearless- ness, quick on the trigger, an impartial adminis- trator who, while giving everybody a fair deal, would hold his own and uphold the law, at the same time using proper discretion. Several men were suggested to this conference but Tom Smith who had established a reputation for dare-devil bravery in Utah during the building of the Union Pacific Railroad east of Odgen, was selected as being the most suitable amongst all those proposed. An arrangement was made with Tom Smith and he arrived in Abilene a short time before the arrival of the first herd of cattle in 1870. One of his first actions as town marshal was the posting of notices in large prominent print in the hotels and all public places notifying every one to refrain from carrying firearms during their stay in town. This order he enforced strictly and impartially but with discretion, so that the earlier arrivals from Texas learned to recognize his authority and showed that apprecia- tion for his nerve which all real red-blooded men are at times willing to show. BIL HICKOK (Wild Bill) during most of the year ‘1870 was city marshal at Hays City, near Fort Hays and about one hundred and twenty miles or one thirty miles west of Abilene on the Smoky Hill River, but it was reported that, owing to an attack being made on him by a bunch of raw recruits when Bill was down with chills and fever, which resulted in his killimg two out of the five attackers and wounding the other three, he left Hays City and migrated to Kansas City. Wild Bill was born in Missouri and during the latter part of the Civil War was scouting for the Northern Army. He had started a reputation for quick and accurate shooting when as a young man he was employed as a stock-tender, I believe at Plum Creek, Nebraska, on the Platte River Over- land Stage Route where in self-defense he shot and killed one of the stage-drivers, who was a quite notoriously tough character and recognized gunman. Bill Hickok, with whom I was first personally acquainted in 1871, was appointed city or town marshal in Abilene in that year to succeed Tom Smith, who had been killed by a couple of home- steaders on Chapman Creek in the late Fall of 1870. Hickok (Wild Bill) had never been marshal of Abilene before 1871. Bill Hickok was not such a bad man as lots of people imagined, so far as my knowledge goes. True, he was a professional gambler, but so were many men of that day. He never sought a quarrel, but never backed down from a fight and was so quick on the draw and shoot that any ordinary man could have his six-shooter drawn before Bill reached for his and then Bill’s shot would be fired first. In other words, he was so proficient in handling a six- shooter that he had the advantage of about ten seconds on any of the gunmen on the plains, and it must be remembered that in those days the old cap and ball pistol was the weapon in use, as there were Comicbook =