It is said that cowboys have so brought into camp a grizzly bear, forcing him to half walk and half slide at the end of the ropes.

No feat better than this could show the courage of the plainsman and of the horse which he so perfectly controlled.
Of such wild and dangerous exploits were the cowboy's amusements on the range.

It may be imagined what were his amusements when he visited the "settlements." The cow-punchers, reared in the free life of the open air, under circumstances of the utmost freedom of individual action, perhaps came off the drive or round-up after weeks or months of unusual restraint or hardship, and felt that the time had arrived for them to "celebrate." Merely great rude children, as wild and untamed and untaught as the herds they led, they regarded their first look at the "settlements" of the railroads as a glimpse of a wider world.

They pursued to the uttermost such avenues of new experience as lay before them, almost without exception avenues of vice.

It is strange that the records of those days should be chosen by the public to be held as the measure of the American cowboy.