“Feb 16th 1893; Der Sir:  I see in the newspapers that your club the Daniel Boon and Davey Crockit you intend to erect a fruntier Cabin at the world’s Far at Chicago to represent the erley Pianears of our country I would like to see you maik a success I have all my life been a fruntiersman and feel interested in your undrtaking and I hoap you wile get a good assortment of relicks I want to maik one suggestion to you that is in regard to getting a good man and a genuine Mauntanner to take charg of your haus at Chicago I want to recommend a man for you to get it is Liver-eating Johnson that is the naim he is generally called he is an old mauntneer and large and fine looking and one of the Best Story Tellers in the country and Very Polight genteel to every one he meets I wil tel you how he got that naim Liver-eating in a hard Fight with the Black Feet Indians thay Faught all day Johnson and a few Whites Faught a large Body of Indians all day after the fight Johnson cam in contact with a wounded Indian and Johnson was aut of ammunition and thay faught it out with thar Knives and Johnson got away with the Indian and in the fight cut the livver out of the Indian and said to the Boys did thay want any Liver to eat that is the way he got the naim of Liver-eating Johnson

“Yours truly” etc., etc.

Frontiersmen are often as original as their names; and the originality may take the form of wild savagery, of mere uncouthness, or of an odd combination of genuine humor with simple acceptance of facts as they are.  On one occasion I expressed some surprise in learning that a certain Mrs. P. had suddenly married, though her husband was alive and in jail in a neighboring town; and received for answer:  “Well, you see, old man Pete he skipped the country, and left his widow behind him, and so Bob Evans he up and married her!”—­which was evidently felt to be a proceeding requiring no explanation whatever.

In the cow-country there is nothing more refreshing than the light-hearted belief entertained by the average man to the effect that any animal which by main force has been saddled and ridden, or harnessed and driven a couple of times, is a “broke horse.”  My present foreman is firmly wedded to this idea, as well as to its complement, the belief that any animal with hoofs, before any vehicle with wheels, can be driven across any country.  One summer on reaching the ranch I was entertained with the usual accounts of the adventures and misadventures which had befallen my own men and my neighbors since I had been out last.  In the course of the conversation my foreman remarked:  “We had a great time out here about six weeks ago.  There was a professor from Ann Arbor come out with his wife to see the Bad Lands, and they asked if we could rig them up a team, and we said we guessed we could, and Foley’s boy and I did; but it ran away with him and broke his leg!  He was here for a month.  I guess he didn’t mind it though.”  Of this I was less certain, forlorn little Medora being a “busted” cow-town, concerning which I once heard another of my men remark, in reply to an inquisitive commercial traveller:  “How many people lives here?  Eleven—­counting the chickens—­when they’re all in town!”