He waited around the station until the next train went East, and no passenger was more delighted when the conductor said “All aboard,” than was the youth who was going back home very much discouraged, but very considerably enlightened.

On another occasion a typical cowboy was traveling on the cars, and as is quite common with members of his profession, had been approached by a sickly looking youth, who asked him dozens of questions and evinced a great anxiety to embark upon prairie life.  There was very little to interest the cattle-worker, and after awhile he determined to get rid of his not overwelcome, self-introduced friend.  He accordingly pointed, out a rough-looking man at the far end of the car, and told the questioner that he was the leader of a dangerous band of train robbers.  The individual was probably some hard-working man of perfectly honest habits, but the would-be brave young man, who a few moments before had been a candidate for a life of danger and hardship, was so horrified at the bare idea, that he decided in a moment to emulate the Irishman who said he had left his future behind him, and jumped from the moving train, preferring a succession of knocks and bruises to actual contact with a man of the character he had schooled himself into admiring.

Every man who creates a disturbance, defies the law, and discharges fire-arms at random is spoken of as a cowboy, although in a majority of instances he has never done a day’s work to justify the name.  The tough man from the East who goes West to play the bad cowboy, is liable to find that he has been borrowing trouble.  He finds out that an altercation is likely to bring him up facing the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of a man much more ready to pull the trigger off-hand than to waste time in preliminary talk.  He soon learns the lesson of circumspection and, if he survives the process, his behavior is usually modified to fit his new surroundings.  A tragic illustration of the results that may come from a tenderfoot’s attempt to masquerade as a bad man west of the Mississippi River, took place in the winter of 1881-82 in New Mexico, on a southward-bound Atchison train.  One of the strangers was terrorizing the others.  He was a tough-looking fellow from some Eastern city; he had been drinking, and he paraded the cars talking loudly and profanely, trying to pick quarrels with passengers and frequently flourishing a revolver.  The train hands did not seem inclined to interfere with him, and among the people aboard whom he directly insulted, he did not happen to hit upon any one who had the sand or the disposition to call him down.

Toward the members of a theatrical company, traveling in one of the coaches, he particularly directed his violence and insults.  His conduct with them at last became unbearable, and when, after threatening two actors with his revolver and frightening the women to the verge of hysterics, he passed onward into another car, a hurried council of war was held in the coach be had just vacated, and every man who had a pistol got it in readiness, with the understanding that if he returned, he was to be shot down at the first aggressive movement.  But that phase of trouble was averted, for, as it happened, he remained in the car ahead until, at dusk, the train rolled into Albuquerque.