Legends and Tales of the American West
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9. “Two Mexican Officers”: Kelsey, Pioneer Heroes and Daring Deeds, p. 348.
10. Won’t You Light, Stranger?: Slightly abridged, from T. C. Haliburton, The Americans at Home; or, Byways, Backwoods, and Prairies (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1854), vol. 2, pp. 237–39.
11. Ohio Poem: An early nineteenth-century folksong, one of many versions.
Chapter 4 RING-TAILED ROARERS OF THE WESTERN WATERS
1. “They resembled—those unwieldy vessels”: Seymour Dunbar, History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (1915; reprint ed. in 1 vol., Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 272.
2. “He was of the restless type”: Ibid., p. 292.
3. A Shooting Match: David Crockett Almanac, 1840, vol. 2, quoted in Walter Blair and Franklin J. Meine, Mike Fink, King of Mississippi Keelboatmen (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1933), pp. 133–35.
4. Did Such a Helliferocious Man Ever Live? My own version, a distillation of a dozen different accounts.
5. Like Father, Like Daughter: David Crockett Almanac, 1853, quoted from “Sal, the Mississippi Screamer,” in Jack Conroy, ed., Midland Humor (New York, 1947), pp. 9–10.
6. She Fought Her Weight in She-B’ars: My own version.
7. He Crowed and Flapped His Wings: Montgomery Bird, Nick of the Woods (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837), vol. 1, pp. 58–59.
8. A Fight Between Keelboatmen Averted: My own version, from a combination of several others.
9. Stranger, Is This a Free Fight?: Harper’s Monthly Magazine, December 1855.
10. The Screaming Head: My own version.
11. Stopped Drinking for Good: There are several versions of this story. I drew upon them for my own version.
Chapter 5 MOUNTAIN MEN
1. “The rendezvous is one continued scene”: George Frederick Ruxton, “Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains,” Blackwood’s Magazine, 1848, quoted in Glen Rounds, Mountain Men (New York: Holiday House, 1966), p. 6.
2. “The fur trader, trapper, or mountain man”: Robert Glass Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), p. 5.
3. Little Big Man: My own introduction.
4. “Discharging his rifle and pistols”: Emerson Bennett, The Prairie Flower (1849), quoted in Kent Ladd Steckmesser, The Western Hero in History and Legend (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), p. 37.
5. “Among the men congregated”: De Witt C. Peters, The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson (New York: Clark & Co., 1859), pp. 98–101.
6. Kit Carson and the Grizzlies: Ibid., pp. 82–86.
7. Run for Your Life, White Man!: My own version.
8. Old Solitaire: My version, incorporating the following quotations. “Williams always rode ahead”: Ruxton, “Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains,” quoted from George Frederick Ruxton, In the Old West (Cleveland and New York: Macmillan Co., 1915), pp. 184–85.
9. “When with a large party of trappers”: Ibid., p. 187.
10. “On one occasion”: Ibid., p. 189.
11. “A party of trappers were crossing”: Charles H. L. Johnston, Famous Frontiersmen (Boston: Page Co., 1913), pp. 221–22.
12. “Old and gray, marked with the scars”: Triplett, Conquering the Wilderness, pp. 430–31.
13. Pegleg Smith and Headless Harry: My own retelling.
14. Mind the Time We Took Pawnee Topknots? Lewis H. Garrard, Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail (1856; reprint ed., Palo Alto, Calif.: American West Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 153–54.
15. Lover Boy of the Prairies, Including the Saga of Pine Leaf, the Indian Amazon: My own version, gathered from many sources. Some quotations are from Thomas D. Bonner, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856). This work was reprinted many times, by several publishers—Alfred A. Knopf in 1931, the University of Nebraska Press in 1971, and various British publishers in the late nineteenth century.
16. Putrefactions: Ruxton, In the Old West, pp. 32–36.
17. The Injin Killed Me Dead: My own rendition of a many-times-told tale.
18. Heaven According to Old Gabe: My own story.
19. Damn Good Shootin’: My own retelling, from many fragments.
20. Uncle Joe, the Humorist: Abridged, from Frances Fuller Victor, The River of the West (San Francisco: Bliss & Co., 1870).
21. Ba’tiste’s Nightmare: Slightly abridged, from George Catlin, The Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indian (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1866), vol. 2, pp. 178–80. My own copy curiously bears the stamp of the Allahabad Light Horse Regimental Library. How it got there and hence to New York is a mystery.
22. Song of the Voyageur: William Henry Drummond, quoted in Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1931), p. 262.
Chapter 6 TIMBER!
1. Paul Bunyan and His Little Blue Ox: My own version.
2. Paul Bunyan Helps to Build a Railroad: My own retelling.
3. Kidnapped by a Flea: My own story.
4. Thunder Bay: James Stevens. The Saginaw Paul Bunyan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), pp. 141–46.
Chapter 7 GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!
1. Tommy-Knockers: My own version of a number of variations of this story.
2. It Had a Light Where Its Heart Ought to Have Been: own version.
3. He Ate All the Democrats of Hinsdale County: My own retelling, from a dozen sources.
4. A Golden-Haired Fellow: My own rendition of an anecdote many times told.
5. Treasures of Various Kinds: My own version.
6. The Missing Chest: My own version of a supposedly true happening.
Chapter 8 GIT ALONG, LITTLE DOGIES
1. “For the matter of a week”: William Savage, quoted in Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville Days (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1902), pp. 7–15.
2. The Saga of Pecos Bill: My own version.
3. The Taming of Pecos Bill’s Gal Sue: My own version.
4. Coyote Makes a Texas Cowboy: My own story.
5. The Heart-Shaped Mark: My own version.
6. The Skeleton Bride: My own version.
7. The Western Jack and the Cornstalk: My own version.
8. Better Move That Drat Thing: My own version, out of very many.
9. Being Afoot in Roswell: My own version of an old anecdote, many times told.
10. Outstunk the Skunk: Winifred Kupper, The Golden Hoof (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), p. 77.
Chapter 9 THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON
1. “The genus ‘KID’ wore his hair long”: James Cabell Brown, Calabazas (San Francisco: Valleau & Peterson, 1892), pp. 25–26.
2. “But Western life ain’t wild and woolly now”: Howard Thorpe, Songs of the Cowboy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908), p. 86.
3. No-Head Joaquín and Three-Fingered Jack: My own retelling.
4. The Headless Horseman of the Mother Lode: My own retelling.
5. El Keed: My own version.
6. El Chivato: My own version. The verses quoted are from John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Cowboy Songs (New York: Macmillan Co., 1938), pp. 140–41.
7. He Rose from the Grave: My own version.
8. A Whale of a Fellow with a Gun: My own retelling.
9. The King of the Pistoleers:
10. “Six foot one in his moccasins”: Kelsey, Pioneer Heroes and Daring Deeds, p. 474.
11. “He is a naturally fine-looking fellow”: Manhattan Independent, October 26, 1867.
12. “The man they call Wild Bill”: From contemporary local newspapers.
13. “Old Bill couldn’t hit”: From contemporary local newspapers.
14. “He was absolutely fearless”: William E. Connelley, Wild Bill and His Era (New York: Pioneer Press, 1933), p. 17.
15. “I suppose I have killed”: Ibid.
16. “Singlehandedly, ‘Magnificent Bill’ ”: George Ward Nichols, “Wild Bill,” Harper’s Magazine, February 1867, pp. 273–85.
17. “ ‘Now, you scoundrels’ ”: Kelsey, Pioneer H
eroes and Daring Deeds, p. 505.
18. “Bill jumped from his hiding place”: Ibid., pp. 493–95.
19. “It is disgusting”: Nyle H. Miller and Joseph W. Snell, Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 110.
20. “Bill was the darling”: Miller and Snell, Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns, p. 113; Eugene Cunningham, Triggernometry (Caldwell, Ohio: Caxton Printers, 1952), p. 266.
21. “He always had a mistress”: Peter Lyon, The Wild, Wild West (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969), p. 46.
22. A Western Duel: My own version.
23. The Nuptials of Dangerous Davis: Bill Nye, Bill Nye and the Boomerang (Chicago: Belford & Clarke, 1881), pp. 250–53.
24. Killing Off the James Boys: Ibid., pp. 48–49.
25. Theme and Variations: My own version.
26. The Winchester Ghosts: My own retelling.
Chapter 10 BUCKING THE TIGER
1. “All men on the plains were gamblers”: Triplett, Conquering the Wilderness, p. 336.
2. “Occasionally Calamity Jane took a hand”: Herbert Asbury, Sucker’s Progress (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1938), p. 356.
3. A Hard Head: George Devol, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi (New York: George Devol, 1892), pp. 267–68.
4. Indians Can Play Poker: Ibid., pp. 20–21.
5. Jim Bowie Takes a Hand: The quotations are from Asbury, Sucker’s Progress, pp. 207–8.
6. The Curly-Headed Little Boy: Abridged, from Charles B. Gillespie, “A Miner’s Sunday in Coloma: From the Writer’s Journal, 1849–50,” Century Magazine 42 (1891).
7. Shall We Have a Drop? My own tale.
8. Colonel Tubbs Strikes It Rich: My retelling of a long yarn in one of the Deadwood Dick dime novels of 1888.
9. Good for Our Entire Assets: Richard Erdoes, Saloons of the Old West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 161.
10. The One-Eyed Gambler: Eugene Edwards, From “Jack Pots: Stories of the Great
11. American Game” (Chicago: 1900), p. 321. Also quoted in Asbury, Sucker’s Progress, pp. 352–53.
Chapter 11 LADY WILDCATS OF THE PLAINS
1. Born Before Her Time: My own introduction.
2. “As far as real merit”: Deadwood Daily Champion, quoted in Watson Parker, Gold in the Black Hills (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), p. 168.
3. “The Joan of Arc of the Indian Wars”: Duncan Aikman, Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats (1927; reprint ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), p. 110.
4. How Old Calam Got Her Name: A potpourri from old dime novels, with missing parts rendered in the same Victorian style.
5. Calamity Meets a Long-Lost Lover: From a dime novel by Edward Wheeler, Deadwood Dick on Deck (New York: Beadle’s Pocket Library, 1887).
Chapter 12 THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS
1. Deadwood Dick: My own introduction.
2. Deadwood Dick and the Grizzly: After 1880s dime novels.
3. Deadwood Dick to the Rescue: From various fragments of dime novels in the author’s collection.
Chapter 13 AND THAT’S MY ROOLIN’
1. “H. P. Barber, the lawyer for George Work”: Quoted by Evelyn Wells and Harry C. Peterson, The Forty-Niners (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1949), p. 209.
2. The Law West of the Pecos: My own introduction.
3. “He was born one day at Toyah”: Charles J. Finger, Frontier Ballards (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1927), p. 277. One of fourteen verses.
4. Ah Ling’s Hommyside: One of a dozen versions, beginning in 1899. This one is from C. L. Sonnichsen, Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos (Old Greenwich, Conn.: Devin Adair Co., 1968), p. 121.
5. “Judge Roy Bean of Vinegaroon”: Omar Barker, “The Ballad of Roy Bean,” in Everett Lloyd The Law West of the Pecos (San Antonio, Texas: Naylor Co., 1936), quoted in Finger, Frontier Ballads, p. 276.
6. Fining the Deceased: My own version.
7. The Hanging of Carlos Robles: My own version. There are many others.
8. Roy Bean’s Pet Bear: My own version.
9. Judge Barker, Old Zim, and the One-Eyed Mule: From Greeley Tribune (Colorado), 1875. Reprinted in Colorado Magazine, November 1937.
10. El Cuatro de Julio: From the Mesilla Independent, July 7, 1877.
11. A Drink’s Worth of Punishment: From the Weekly New Mexican, September 1872.
Chapter 14 SKY PILOTS
1. “We had little or no education”: Strickland and Cartwright, Autobiography of a Backwoods Preacher (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856), p. 6.
2. Preachin’ One Can Understand: My own reconstruction from several fragments.
3. The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Nye, Bill Nye and Boomerang, pp. 87–90.
4. Lissen to the Heavenly Poker Player! My own version. The quotation “The ‘Ace’ reminds us” to “David, Solomon, and Herod” is from James Cabell Brown, Calabazas (San Francisco: Valleau & Peterson, 1892), p. 831.
5. Hear What the Great Herd Book Says! From a manuscript in the New Mexico State Library.
6. A Funeral Oration: Contributed by Robert Burnette, twice chairman of the Rosebud Sioux tribe.
7. A Black Hills Sermon: William DeVere, Tramp Poems of the West (Tacoma, Wash.: Cromwell Printing Co., 1891), pp. 21–22.
Chapter 15 CRITTERS
1. The Valley of Headless Men: My own version.
2. A Loup-Garou, or a Windigo, or Maybe a Carcajou: There are innumerable windigo and loup-garou stories. I have made one out of many.
3. The Call of the Wild: My own version.
4. The Windigo: My own version.
5. The Great White Stallion of the West: My own version, except for the quotation from Washington Irving, A Tour of the Prairies.
6. “Nor the team of the Sun, as in fable portrayed”: J. Barber, U.S. Magazine and Democratic Review (New York), 1843.
7. Until Judgment Day: My own version.
8. El Diablo Negro: This is my own version, combining several “demon horse” tales.
9. Snake Yarns: My introduction.
10. A Rolling Snake Gathers No Moss: My own version. There are innumerable others about the legendary hoopsnake.
11. The White Snakes: My own rendition.
12. A Pair of Fine Boots: Again, my own version.
13. The Young Man Who Wanted to Be Snake-Bit: One of my wife’s old stories.
14. The Peg-Leg Cat: Again, my rendition of a childhood story of my wife’s.
Chapter 16 MOSTLY LIES
1. Somebody in My Bed: From The Spirit of the Times, December 13, 1845, vol. 20, p. 518, quoted in Thomas D. Clark The Rampaging Frontier (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1939), pp. 112–13.
2. The Weather: Simply a bunch of old anecdotes.
3. It Gets Mighty Cold Around Here: My own rendition, from many different versions.
4. Texican Liars: Samuel Hammett, In Piney Woods; or, Sam Slick in Texas (Philadelphia, 1858).
Chapter 17 MIRACLES, SAINTS, AND WITCHES
1. The Three Lost Daughters: My own version.
2. The Two Witches: Helen Zunser, “A New Mexican Village,” Journal of American Folklore, vol 48 (1935), pp. 125–78.
3. The Owl Witch: My own version.
4. San Isidro and the Angel: My own version.
5. A Riddle: Maria Leach and Jerome Fried, eds., Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1950), vol. 2, p. 1070. These riddles occur in the Southwest.
6. The Many-Times-Killed Young Man: My own version.
7. The Caveman of the Hermit Peaks: This is supposedly a true story. I composed my version from various accounts and tales dealing with this hermit.
8. The Miracle of Chimayo: My own rendition.
9. The Miraculous Staircase: My own version.
10. The Hitchhiker: My own version.
Bibliography
Aikman, Duncan. Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats. 1927. Reprint ed. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
Applegate, Frank. Indian Stories from the Pueblos. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1929.
——. Native Tales of New Mexico. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1932.
Asbury, Herbert. Sucker’s Progress. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1938.
Barker, Ruth Laughlin. “New Mexico Witch Tales.” In J. Frank Dobie, ed., Tone the Bell Easy. Austin: 1932, pp. 62–70.
Blair, Walter, and Frank J. Meine. Mike Fink, King of Mississippi Keelboatmen. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1930.
Blair, Walter, and Frank J. Meine, eds. Half Horse, Half Alligator. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956.
Bonner, T. D. The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856.
Botkin, B.A., ed. A Treasury of Western Folklore. New York: Crown Publishing Co., 1951.
Brown, Charles E. Whisky Jack Tales. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Museum, 1940.
Brown, James Cabell. Calabazas. San Franciso: Valleau & Peterson, 1892.
Catlin, George. The Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indian. 2 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1866.
Clark, Thomas D. The Rampaging Frontier. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1939.
Clough, Ben C., ed. The American Imagination at Work. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.
[Crockett, David.] The Autobiography of David Crockett. With an introduction by Hamlin Garland. New York: Scribner’s, 1923.
De Vere, William. Tramp Poets of the West. Tacoma, Wash.: Cromwell Printing Co., 1891.
Devol, George. Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi. New York: George Devol, 1892.
Dobie, J. Frank. Coronado’s Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest. Dallas: Southwest Press, 1930.