According to this authority, the first class of cowboys include the genuine, honest worker on the prairie, the man who has due respect for the rights of all.  He is scrupulously honest, but yet charitable enough to look leniently on the falling away from grace of his less scrupulous brothers, and he is loyal to a remarkable extent to every one who has a right to claim his friendship.  In the second class is placed the less careful cowboy, who is not quite so strict in his moral views, although no one would like to class him as a thief.  The story is told of the Irishman who found a blanket bearing upon it the Government mark “U.  S.”  Paddy examined the blanket carefully and on finding the mark shouted out:  “U. for Patrick and S. for McCarty.  Och, but I’m glad I’ve found me blanket.  Me fayther told me that eddication was a good thing, and now I know it; but for an eddication I never would have found the blanket.”

Reasoning of this kind is quite common among this second class or division of the cowboy.  It is not suggested that he is exactly a thief, because he would scorn the acts of the city light-fingered gentleman, who asks you the time of day, and then, by a little sleight-of-hand, succeeds in introducing your watch to a too obliging and careless pawnbroker at the next corner.  But he is a little reckless in his ideas of what lawyers call the rights of individuals, and he is a little too much inclined, at times, to think that trifles that are not his own ought to be so.

The writer, to whom we are referring, includes in class three the typical cowboy, and the man used by the fiction writer as a basis for his exaggerations and romances.  Into this class drifts the cowboy who is absolutely indifferent as to the future, and who is perfectly happy if he has enough money to enable him to buy a fancy bridle or a magnificent saddle.  These are about the beginning and the end of his ideas of luxury; although he enjoys a good time, he looks upon it rather as incidental and essential to pleasure.  A steady position at a small salary, a reasonable amount to do, and fairly good quarters, constitute all he looks for or expects.  He is perfectly honest with all his indifference.  He is often whole-souled and big-hearted, constantly allows himself to be imposed upon, but has an inconvenient habit of occasionally standing up for his rights and resenting too much oppression.  He is exceedingly good-natured, and will often drive some stray cattle several miles for the convenience of a perfect stranger, and a man to whom he owes no obligation whatever.

It is said that such a thing as distress among the relatives or descendants of cowboys was impossible, because of the delightful tenderheartedness of men with rough exterior and whose daily life makes them appear hardened.  The working cowboy is seldom rich, even in the most generous acceptation of the term.  The small wages he earns are expended almost entirely on decorations for his horse or himself.