Tapadero: The Making of a CowboyEverything about the Texas Panhandle of the 1880's was extreme; the vast prairies broken by endlessly winding draws; the climate, which paralyzed the land with blizzards in winter and parched it with sun in the summer; and the men. They were most extreme of all, and many had the seeds of violence in them. That in such a rough-and-tough world a boy from Maryland, who hardly knew a calf from a deer and who had never been on a horse, should gradually make his way without succumbing to the violence of his surroundings and, as a comparatively young man, acquire one of the great ranches in the Panhandle is little short of the marvelous--and to that extent, at least, in keeping with this country of extremes. It happened. William J. Lewis came from Maryland to the Texas Panhandle as a boy of fourteen. Mrs. Lewis shows how the polite young man, reared in a gentle and sheltered environment, brought his own brand of strength backed by confidence and courage instead of guns. In a country where the six-shooter was in every man's hand, he rarely wore a gun. Where swearing was part of the lingua franca, he seldom swore. Where no man would get on a horse without wearing high-heeled cowboy boots, he wore low-heeled shoes and admired the use of the Mexican tapadero, the slipper like leather guard over the front of the stirrup, to avoid the risk of being dragged. Always and individualist, he continued to assert his aloofness from the West, even though he loved the land and the life of the cowboy. By his early twenties William Lewis was a top hand of the R.O. Ranch; by his lat twenties he was a highly regarded cattleman who was able not only to purchase his first great Panhandle ranch, but also to lease a ranch of over half a million acres. Not too many years later he realized a boyhood dream by acquiring the R.O. Ranch. The subject of Mrs. Lewis's biography is pure Texas, but not the Texas so often portrayed in synthetic westerns. It is the Texas that grand historian of the cowboy, Frank Dobie, loved --Book jacket. |
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afternoon animal bedroll began Bernie Bill Birl Boney brand bronc buffalo bunch calves camp Canadian River Carhart Carson City cattle cattlemen CHAPTER Charles Goodnight Circle K Clarendon close cook Corrigan cowboy cows creek Diamond F dollars Donley County drought felt fence foreman Fort Sumner Fort Worth Fred free grass going Goodnight graze Half Circle hand head headquarters herd horse Indian Judge White Kansas Koogle Koogle's lake land lease Lewis liam look Menasco mesquite miles morning mother mount moved mules never night once Palo Duro Canyon Panhandle pasture plains pony prairie Prairie Dog railroad Ralph reached Red's ride rider river rode rope Rosie rounding roundup saddle saloon Salt Fork side soon steers stopped Texas thing town turned uncle wagon walked wanted watch weeks William's father young
References to this book
The Deadliest Woman in the West: Mother Nature on the Prairies and Plains Rod Beemer Limited preview - 2006 |