Old West glossary, no. 42

Montana cowboys, c1910

Here’s another set of terms and forgotten people gleaned from early western stories. Definitions were discovered in various online dictionaries, as well as searches in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, Dictionary of the American West, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, The Cowboy Dictionary, The Cowboy Encyclopedia, and The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

These are from Alfred Henry Lewis’ Wolfville, about life in an Arizona cow town, G. Frank Lydston’s Poker Jim, Gentleman, a short story collection, and John C. Bell’s The Pilgrim and the Pioneer, about lawyering in Colorado mining camps. Once again, I struck out on a few. If anyone has a definition for “corral count,” “Rocky Mountain Hanks,” or “bread pine,” leave a comment below.

black-and-tan = derogatory term for someone of mixed race. “The way he gets a bullet onder that black-an’-tan’s left wing don’t worry him a little bit.” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

bull luck = very good luck. “We are all betting on the ‘bull luck’ of old ‘P.’” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

Calumets

calcium light = limelight; a lamp consisting of a flame directed at a cylinder of lime with a lens to concentrate the light; formerly used for stage lighting. “There will be no villain clothed with a little temporary power to shut the calcium light out of these putrid beds of corruption.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

calumet = a highly ornamented ceremonial pipe used by Native American tribes, a  peace pipe. “As the circling smoke rings rose from the sachem’s calumet, the gentle breeze bore them slowly to the southward.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

capper = an accomplice in a gambling game who works to swindle other players. “The furtive glance which the dealer exchanged with his charming ‘capper’ now and then, was sufficient to enable even one of my limited experience to form a correct conclusion as to the status of affairs.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Thomas Corwin

Corwin, Thomas = Congressman and Senator from Ohio, known for his extravagant humor (1794-1865). “I have a lawyer friend here who has more imagination than John Bunyan, more pathos than John Calvin, more eloquence than Wendell Phillips, and more fun in him than there is in Tom Corwin.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

crack a cap = to fire a bullet. “‘If one of you-alls so much as cracks a cap,’ he says, ‘I blows the head offen this yere blessed child.’” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

cross vine = an evergreen, tendril-bearing woody vine native chiefly to the southeast United States and having showy red-orange, trumpet-shaped flowers. “If you smoked opium as the nervous Cherokee Indian smokes cross vine, I might recommend you because, while it might make you stupid, enervated, and dreamy, your sins would be probably only of omission.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

cuchillo = a knife. “Through his sash was thrust the inevitable murderous-looking cuchillo—the symbol of his individuality.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

drum stove = a stove made from a barrel-shaped container, e.g. an oil drum. “A cheery fire was burning in the stuffy little drum stove in the center of the common waiting room.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

glame = natural vitality involving the most vigorous impulse of the life-principle (from Book of General Membership of the Ralston Health Club, 1898). “If you think you can gather some of the gangleonic glame from the aromatic damsels skirting the banks of the San Isabel, you go.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

heel = to make a loan or provide with money. “I came away from ’Frisco in a deuce of a hurry, and without heeling myself properly.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Alexander Hermann

Herrmann, Alexander = a French magician (1844-1896). “It disappeared so mysteriously that it shrouded the young Missourians in as complete confusion as Hermann could have done in the days of his most clever legerdemain.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

hit the pipe = smoke opium. “I used to ‘hit the pipe,’ as you now express it, when I was on earth before.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Holland gin = the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands, from which gin evolved; also call Geneva gin and Dutch gin. “Our outside passenger would, in the next three days, get more color in his face and nose from the angry elements than he could get from a whole barrel of Holland gin.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

Jack Robinson = a mythical person associated with speed or quickness; the phrase “faster than you can say Jack Robinson,” dates from the 1700s. “The train’ll be here before we can say Jack Robinson.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Jackplane

jackplane = a carpenter’s tool for shaving off small amounts of wood; a plane. “This is the legal chisel, the lawyer’s jackplane, the symmetrical mould that will enable us to cut out, polish, and mould this contract.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

jar = a disagreement, quarrel, dispute. “The drenched eyes of Mrs. Warner bespoke a family jar.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

last run of shad = having a very thin, wretched, forlorn, or played-out appearance. “I don’t think I could accuse him of being personal—I look like ‘the last run o’ shad.’” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

leg bail = unauthorized absence. “We grabbed Jim an’ hustled him out, an’ made him take leg bail ’long with the rest uv us.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

long-headed = discerning, shrewd. “Peets, he shorely is the longest-headed sharp I ever sees.” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

mow away = to hide something. “Well, son, this yere Crawfish Jim is as a den of serpents. I reckons now he has a plumb dozen mowed away in his raiment.” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

nigger heel = racially derogatory reference to chewing tobacco. “My brawny friend cut off a huge chew of ‘nigger heel,’ stowed it away in his capacious cheek, and after a few preliminary expectorations that resembled geysers, continued.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

no chicken = someone who is no longer young. “I am free to say that I should be uneasy myself, were I to be similarly accosted, and they say I am—well, that I’m ‘no chicken’, you know.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

on tick = on credit. “We’re jest getting’ back from Frisco, an’ doin’ it on tick, too.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

out of fix = not in working order. “I got my gun out, all right, but the d—d thing was outer fix.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Wendell Phillips

Phillips, Wendell = an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer (1811-1884). “He is delivering a philippic that would beggar the best efforts of Wendell Phillips.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

pistol = whiskey bottle. “‘Gimme a pull at yer pistol, wont ye?” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

rubber = to look around, gaze at. “Some of your friends is likely to rubber down here to see what’s doin’.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

runner = a person employed to fetch and carry things, an assistant, messenger, courier, scout. “Mr. Smith, in addition to being a runner for the Planters Hotel was also the agent for the James and Miller Stage Line.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

sagamore = a chief of a North American tribe or confederation. “The most venerable sagamore of the tribe remembered that the old squaw was regarded as the only living relic of an age of by-gone majesty.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

shift the cut = to cheat at cards by undoing another player’s cut of the deck, i.e., to return the top cards back to the top. “But this yere Piñon Bill shifts the cut on ’em. ‘If one of you-alls so much as cracks a cap,’ he says, ‘I blows the head offen this yere blessed child.’” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

shot in the locker = ammunition and powder. “Ez soon as he got inter trouble he knowed whar ter find a fren’ whut’ll stan’ by him ez long ez there’s a shot in ther locker—savvy?” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

squaw bush = deciduous shrub of California with unpleasantly scented usually trifoliate leaves and edible fruit. “They stumbled upon the famished and demented Mr. Wickham, lying helpless in a squaw bush thicket.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

sweat cloth = a cloth layout used for dice games by early American gamblers. “Many a college education was wasted—or utilized, if you please—on the dealer’s side of a ‘sweat-cloth’ in some of those dens.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

toppy = of an animal, being of superior quality. “He was riding a vivacious sorrel stallion, and leading a nimble, toppy, diamond-eyed, bay mare.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

Assayer at work, 1916

wood-box assayer = an assayer who reports assayed mineral values based on guess work, the sample being thrown into a wood box rather than properly tested. “If he finds nothing in this material his reputation is established; if he finds that it carries values, it is demonstrated that he is a ‘wood-box’ assayer.” John C. Bell, The Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

yellow peril = death certificate. “I turned slowly to my desk, picked up a pen and wrote—‘Ptomaine poisoning—Acute Gastritis,’ then, without a twinge of conscience, deliberately signed my name to the ‘yellow peril’ and rang for my attendant.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons 

Coming up: Dennis H. Stovall, The Gold Bug Story Book (1906)