The American cowboy; Suited to his time

With the lonely skies shoving down on his shoulders and the dust of a continent taking his throat he left his brand on the front tier of our history. I squinted ahead into savagery. Civilization dogging his heels and we give him to you who can take him straight. The American cowboy. Now young man can you ride. Yes I can ride ahead and I will ride anything that wears off feathers. I don't care what. Radio television the University of Texas presents the American Council. A series of programs reflecting the true place and picture of the significant historical figure this unique folk hero the American cowboy has produced and recorded by radio television the University of Texas under a grant from

the National Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcast. Today. Program number one suited to his time. Look yonder. Over that rise of years into the last century. Raise up a little from history in the dust of the Dragon. But you can see I'm all right. The American cowboy. That man who worked on a FARs in the interests of cows who love living better need love life and who to side rather shoot. You can see him in that Mustang you rode. Thanks to Dick I could point with the tears like a setter dog and that slab sided the high end of the Long Horn steer traveling like a hard and flush it up on nothing but air and scenery. They're quite a sight that tree is

not much for pretty but strong for stuff you wouldn't of found another three anywhere willing much less able to meet a hopeless howling wilderness head on. And not only needed. Rope. Throwing. And set it on its head till the Settlers game slowed trailing along to take over. Well you know what they say they're cowboys they're tied to anything that jumps up and no doubt about it. There was plenty jumping up in those days on tame Buffalo and Indians more threatening than the buffalo and scallawag cattle more vicious than the Andean. And whether that put them all to shame all while listening it was so hot a jack rabbit had to carry a flop for sure they hadn't been more than two minutes since we was talking. When he didn't answer doing

there he said straight up and stiff as a macro to death in the saddle. The Boers were sheared Spurs not six shooters anything steal it attracted lightening like trisomy was running up and down and encounters horn curves like they were lived in rock. Took heed and Blizzard flood and lightning drouth and raging rivers and death dealing stampedes and all these threats and hazards and dangers of the cowboy time and many more besides. And it covered a lot of ground. As Joe Francis and John Bay show tell us in their book The American cowboy riding with only the sun and the stars for his compass. And with only a setting sun or an empty belly is a timepiece move through mountain passes of the highest range across waterless plains and hostile Indian country from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border. And from the Red River to the Yellowstone.

Until he crossed every divide and knows his Mustang into every draw from the eastern side of the Rockies to the seaward side of the Sierra Nevada. Well what was he doing out here anyway in this barren desolate land of Haros. Asked the historian and you get one answer. The front dear existed within the United States wherever Anglo-American forces were transforming a virgin wilderness into a civilized community on the outer edge of this wave. At the meeting point between savagery and civilization rode the cowboy playing his crude but effective civilizing role as the cowboy him self and you get another me mister. I was just trying to get a $4 cow to a forty dollar market. Didn't he know what he was up against. Walter Prescott Webb could have told him about that to the white man with his forest culture.

The planes presented themselves as a great obstacle one which served to exercise and often defeat his ingenuity to upset his calculations to hinder his settlement and to alter his weapons to institutions and social attitudes. In short to throw his whole way of life out of gear that was some obstacle All right. Who did he think he was to buck it. Well for one thing he was a solid proud top panel and a natural born cowers talk in Kalak talk with the other boys in the outfit around the fire in camp. I like natural noise goes with the herd. I want to hear blowing all creaking of the joints. Sure when Mary's in themselves in their bed.

Well after all when with you they're Catalin good is one thing. Making the noise told another money one time down in Kansas and. I got my ears cocked to hear nothing but long seen 300 yards across the hood from me now I can hear it clean as if you were seeing in my ear. Just like the. WAY OH where the. Hell is low. That's all right.

Using the force of guile yarn in a very early and easy to solve but I won't tell you boys on the next guard that the white €4 seem like you didn't want to bid down amongst the others. So I let him come out and lay down by saying you'll find him over on the far side of the her recollect how wild he was when we first started. Well where you can ride within three feet of him tonight. Next morning my offer to get in and I promised him he could sleep alone as long as he was going to you boys. One thing for sure I just. Draw.

He could rope the cowboy could he could ride and you count good things to know. Grit and gumption making things if he's going to throw in with a savage country that a double dog dare to civilization to put its toe over the line and throw in with it he did long about 1867 he came riding out into this forbidding land beyond the old law and the law books carrying his own new law strapped around his waist. God made some in tall and God made some in short. But Colonel Cote made a law. It came right not beyond the doctor's with youthen and Durrance and vitality that Riden and rawhide and engendered that the miles and the hazards and the hardships couldn't break to see her breakfast at Cousy we've been 16 hours in the saddle no supper.

Well don't come a point in it me about no 16 hours in the saddle. I've been the whole night and then some rest when a stuck chuck wagon around one of them two parter Oyez in a forest here had no mountain part of me and you to tighten your belt for breakfast that's what I was. Yes or the cowboy himself of that world and theirs and its teeth and claws and Stingers and horns and thorns and jagged edges. And far from harming him at home do ground him down fine until he was tough and keen and sharp as a hip bone of that a long gone he set such store by. Yeah. He wasn't a ridin man but he was smart about the things he needed to know. Now both are steering hard to death which lowers his head. She does eyes and comes in on one straight push. Would you take a cab. She likes to see what she's doing. Keep your eyes open ever blesse admit it

over Joyce or to take a side hook at you if she misses on the direct chart. He wasn't a prayer made man but he was master of his own conscience. Wicked sick shoes and drinking whiskey and playing poker. Why then things ain't neither moral nor yet more than facts. And in this land of survival for all but the fittest were bound to founder. He survived. Why. Well for one thing because courage was a primary essential and the cowboy had courage. You could say of him that he was a brave man. Yeah well I reckon that's right. And I get is that here one thing doing karaoke The next is apt to amaze just naturally going to be brave. You'd be a skid not to.

You could say further that he was an alert and resourceful man a man of steel spring reflexes always and never on the ready. Don't know of a bed down oh no matted grass. It slips you to sound. I knew some muddy cow tracks is dragged to a can of washboard roughness and if not them then slip you some sticks under your blanket keeps Oh man I need it to the point of why I can only quit and this is the way we should look at the cowboy of the passing west. Not as a curiosity but as a product not as an eccentric driver of horn cattle but as a man suited to his times. Suited to his time as radio television the University of Texas has

brought you program number one of the American cowboy. These broadcasts are based on source materials from the Texas History Library of the barker History Center and the western publications True West and frontier times edited by Joe small. A bibliography is available on request. The American cowboy is directed by Bill Burke from Scripps by Mary Dee Benjamin under the supervision of Robert F. shank producer Arsinoe original music by Eleanor page. Our narrator is Cactus prime student production assistant Alan Daniel Langfield speaking. Suited to his Times was produced and recorded by radio television at the University of Texas under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center and is being distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end E.B. Radio Network.