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In 1873-74, grasshoppers cleaned us out. 1873 they came in millions and destroyed all of the corn. We had 50 acres of corn just tasseling out. We left home to attend church about 10:30 a.m. and when we returned home about 1 p.m. there was nothing left but stubs about a foot high. They cleaned up everything but the small grain, prairie grass and sorgum that a few people had planted to make syrup. They would not touch the cain and grain that had been harvested and stacked. Red pepper and tobacco was their delight. An old Yankee neighbor had a tobacco patch that they cleaned out. The old gent was peeved about his tobacco and said that they added insult to injury by sitting on thee poles of his corral and spitting tobacco juice in his face. After they had cleaned out the country they migrated but left millions of eggs that hatched out the next spring in time to destroy the wheat and oats but left after the small grain was gone. Then came another disaster, drouth and hot winds came and burned up the corn. That left the homesteads in bad shape. No food no money. Of course most of the pioneers were poor and came west to make homes for themselves. Many were discouraged for ample reason. Most of them stuck it out, some too gritty to leave and some too poor. In the fall of 1874, I was 18 years of age, went with an old hunter by the name of Abe Cox out of the Solomon river country in western Kansas to lay in the supply of buffalo meat. On that trip I killed my first and only buffalo. Mr. Cox got several. We jerked and dried the wagon load of meat that carried us through the winter and had enough to help some of the neighbors, too. The dry hot winds of the plains cured that meat so hard that the peices were nearly hard as a piece of stove wood and would keep indefinitely and was good "belly timber" as Abe Cox would term it.
After we left the settlement some 40 miles west of home we did not see a human being until we got back some 4 weeks later. Plenty of Cheyenne Indians in western Kansas in those times, but we met none of them on our trip which no doubt was fortunate for us. Uncle Abe Cox was a bad man for Indians to fool with, but I was not anxious to meet any the gentry. We lived, as I mention before 3/4 of a mile north of Swan City at that time, county seat of Saline County. Saline County was in the west tier of organized counties and the law such as it was taken care of by U.S. marshals out in the unorganized country. In May, 1871 Wild Bill Hickock was Deputy U.S. Marshall and brought 3 prisoners to Swan City for trial. There was no court house, no jail and as the next term of court did not convene until the following October. Bill Hickok had to herd those prisoners around there until Court opened. The sheriff lived 2 miles west of town, had no place to keep them, so it was up to Bill Hickock to "ride herd" on them which was an old cowboy expression. I got quite well acquainted with Wild Bill during the time he was there and found him a very quiet unassuming man but I should of hated to arouse the tiger in him without doubt. Those fellows he was "herding" were of the same mind as they were very lamb-like. He even borrowed shot-guns and took them (those prisoners) prairie chicken hunting. When they got to the hunting grounds he gave each a gun and started them out in front of him he following so 30 to 50 feet behind them with those six-guns right under his hands. Those fellows shot just chickens and no breaks toward Bill. They knew better. I was along once, driving the wagon for them and they got plenty of game. I have seen Bill at target practice many times. I have thrown up bottles and empty cans for him to shoot at. He would not draw a gun until the target left my hand, then, in a flash he drew and fired seldom missing often shooting with both guns.
Wild Bill afterwards went down to Kansas at Abilene. He was marshal of the town down there on the great cattle trails from Texas to the north. The law was so lax that the gamblers and wild cowboys made a living almost impossible there for law-abiding citizens. Wild Bill was employed to come and tame the town and he did a good job of it. From there he drifted to Deadwood, South Dakota where he was shot and killed by McCall. This was due because it was the first time that Hickok ever was known to turn his back to the door. He was playing cards. McCall shot him in the back.
I met Buffalo Bill in 1881, at North Platte, Nebraska. He lived on a ranch four miles west of town. Saw him often. I never was attracted to Buffalo Bill as I was to Wild Bill.
Wild Bill was kind of a fellow that young children would follow around. Never heard Wild Bill swear around children and very seldom swear. He was a quiet fellow.
I saw the "Plainsmen, "movie and Gary Cooper played a good part. One thing that was wrong, though, was the way that they shot their pistols in the movie. In the movie, they made a "cross draw," but in reality Wild Bill Hickok drew his gun straight up. Right hand gun from right side.
Big Bill Staley was one of the early frontier characters of Saline County. Big Bill opened a saloon at Swan City. My father, being a Methodist preacher and Bill being quite friendly with him, invited my father to preach a sermon in the saloon before he opened up. My father accepted the invitation and used the bar as a pulpit. Just at the beginning of the services, some hoodlums thought they would break up the meeting. Bill walked behind the bar and got his six-shooters, walked to the door and told the fellows to "stop that racket" and come into the meeting and if they continued the racket there would be a funeral instead of a meeting. The hoodlums left and the meeting went on undisturbed.
In traveling the highways laid by the government surveyors in long days ago, we find much jogging and angling in some of the woods due to the fact that a lot of surveyors were drunk when they were surveying. A good example of it is the roads around Beatrice, this is what the old settlers say, anyhow.
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