Old West glossary, no. 21

Montana cowboys, c1910

Here’s another set of terms garnered from early western novels. 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, The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, and The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

These are from a fiction by Hugh Pendexter, John Neihardt, James Oliver Curwood, and Harold Bell Wright about a world-roaming showman, frontiersmen and Indians, a splinter group of Mormons, and reclaiming California’s Imperial Valley. Once again I struck out a few times. If anybody knows the meaning of  “buzzle,” “cuggy,” or “picture-general hat,” leave a comment.

bobtail flush = a poker hand with four cards of the same suit. “You win; I pass; mine’s a bob-tail flush; but you stacked the deck!” John Neihardt, The Lonesome Trail.

bourgeois = master of a trading post. “We were loaded with supplies for the American Fur Company’s posts on the upper Missouri, and carried a number of engages of the Company, and a certain Frenchman, Jules Latour, who had been appointed bourgeois of the old Fort Union.” John Neihardt, The Lonesome Trail.

branch house = branch office. “Tib selected a young fellow that was coming out to hold down a stool in his father’s branch house in Melbourne.” Hugh Pendexter, Tiberius Smith.

brownie = a (racist) term for a brown-skinned person. “But these volunteers will never get her by hunting the brownies with a brass-band.” Hugh Pendexter, Tiberius Smith.

brunette = a (racist) term for a Black person. “I reckon the brunettes never before gazed on such wags as we must have appeared to be.” Hugh Pendexter, Tiberius Smith.

cordelle = a ship’s towing line. “Worked on a cordelle gang, handled mackinaws, hammered pack mules, fought Indians, starved and feasted, froze and roasted, like all the other who come out here.” John Neihardt, The Lonesome Trail.

donkey engine = a small auxiliary steam engine, esp. on a ship. “The donkey-engine was mounted in a trice and the big crates containing the mowing-machines were yanked out on deck.” Hugh Pendexter, Tiberius Smith.

  

elevate = to execute by hanging. “‘We’ve got a half-breed here,’ said he, ‘who’s got to be elevated.’” John Neihardt, The Lonesome Trail.

elflocks = tangled hair. “‘To be sure you’re not the man,’ he said, nodding his head until his elf-locks danced around his face.” James Oliver Curwood, The Courage of Captain Plum.

footpad = a highway robber operating on foot; figuratively, a villain. “I knew he must have ducked when enfilading my footpad.” Hugh Pendexter, Tiberius Smith.

  

Fresno = a horse-drawn scraper used for excavation. “The acres of land untouched by grader’s Fresno or rancher’s plow were many more than the acres that were producing crops.” Harold Bell Wright, The Winning of Barbara Worth.

green goods men = con men selling supposedly counterfeit currency. “The men who engineered this thing look to me like a bunch of green-goods men who live on the confidence of the people.” Harold Bell Wright, The Winning of Barbara Worth.

herring floater = swimbait; a fishing lure that looks like a fish in the water. “Will be dead as herring floaters if they show up.” James Oliver Curwood, The Courage of Captain Plum (1908).

Westernwriter inspiration, no. 11

Here is this week's omnibus of #westernwriter inspirations posted each day at twitter [click to enlarge]. If you are on twitter, you can follow me @rdscheer.

Plaza, Arcata, California, c1905

Toll Gate Saloon, Blackhawk, Colorado, 1897

Laying tracks on the Prescott & Eastern Railroad, Arizona Territory, c1898

Teacher and students, Helena, Montana, 1893

Monte Cristo gold mine, California, 1890s

Rounding the curves on Marshall Pass, Colorado, 1898

Skating party, Fort Keogh, Montana, c1890

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Old West glossary, no. 21

Photo-finish-Friday: out and about

A guitarist strums on a late autumn afternoon as a nude sculpture reclines nearby in the grass.

Photo-finish Friday is the bright idea of Leah Utas over at The Goat's Lunchpail.

Coming up: westernwriters inspiration, no. 11

James Oliver Curwood, The Courage of Captain Plum (1908)

An early example of pulp fiction, this is one heck of a potboiler. Set in 1856 on an offshore island in Lake Michigan, it’s a fevered and high-pitched adventure story that pits a young man, Nathaniel Plum, against a colony of Mormons. The entire story takes place within 48 hours and includes blood-curdling scenes of torture, pursuit, imprisonment, and death by execution.

That’s not all. Well mixed with all the adrenalin is a head-spinning concoction of romantic and sexual appetites. James Oliver Curwood (1876-1927) has given us a book intended for just about every prurient interest.

Far-fetched as all this may sound, it has some basis in history. A splinter group of LDS faithful, under the leadership of James Strang, did in fact not follow Brigham Young to Utah in 1846. Claiming to be the true church, they remained behind on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, with Strang proclaimed as their “king.”  

Escape through the swamp

In the novel, Mormons are a nasty cult, and Strang is their cruel spiritual leader and monarch. Charismatic and cunning, he is a violent tyrant, with six wives and plans for a seventh. While his name suggests the stranglehold he has on the hearts and minds of his followers, he also has a reputation as a ravager of peaceable settlements elsewhere.

  

Plot. Plum, the young captain of a sloop loaded with barrels of gunpowder, comes ashore on the island with plans to put Strang out of business. In short order, he meets an old man with all the signs of lunacy, spies a pretty girl, Marion, and instantly falls in love, and intervenes in the public flogging of a young man who turns out to be Marion’s brother, Neil.

The two men escape through island marshes with baying bloodhounds in hot pursuit. By evening, there’s a full-scale attack on the island by a force of combatants from the mainland. The Mormons beat them back and take Nathaniel and Neil prisoner. Thrown into a dank cell, they await certain execution.

Marion tries to stop the whipping

In all this, Plum learns that Marion is to be married to Strang, but that she will commit suicide rather than be the man’s unwilling bride. The young captain is distraught. Taken from the prison in the dead of night, the two men are rowed to the mainland where they are tied to stakes and left to die from strangulation, choked by leather thongs around their necks.

  

At the point of death, they are saved by Marion and Neil’s girlfriend, Winnsome. Returning to the island, Plum arrives in time for yet another armed assault, this time by a force of U.S. soldiers. Strang is taken, an old man who has befriended Plum is shot and dies after a long confession, and Plum and Marion fall into each other’s arms professing their undying love.

Mormonism. Historically, the novel is set at a time of open hostility between the U.S. government and the Mormons. The Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred the following year, in 1857. Meanwhile, the practice of polygamy had become illegal in Utah only as recently as 1890, within the lifetime of most of the book’s readers.

Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

What you immediately notice in this Boetticher-Scott western is that Randolph Scott is smiling most of the time. His character, Buchanan, is dead serious behind that smile, but he's "alone" in a bad border town, and the smile is open admission that he's outnumbered from the start. Gotta go along to get along.

It’s a family-run town. The businesses, the hotel, and law enforcement are all in the hands of the Agrys. Services are expensive--everything seems to cost $10. Scott casts a passing glance at a blonde in the saloon as he makes this observation. All of them ethically compromised, two Agrys eventually fall out over the promised payment of $50,000 for the release of a Mexican prisoner. The young man has killed the ill-behaved son of one of them, apparently over the assault of a woman. 

Scott gets involved because he’s already been aggravated by the victim, a mean drunk, and comes to the young Mexican’s defense when Agry henchmen gang up on him. There’s a quickly organized trial, and very shortly both end up with ropes around their necks.

What follows is a swiftly moving chess match, as the offer of a ransom brings a halt to the hanging.  Buchanan is released only to be attended in his departure from town by two men with instructions to kill him. One of them a Texan (L. Q. Jones) is a friendly sort and draws the line at killing another Texan. Soon he’s switched sides and is helping Buchanan get the Mexican safely back to Mexico.

Randolph Scott as Buchanan

In a closely plotted story that is far from over at this point, greed sets two of the Agrys at each other’s throat. Meanwhile, the prisoner is retaken and becomes a pawn in their attempts to outwit each other. Buchanan is called upon again for some quick thinking, and a final shootout leaves the street littered with corpses.

Craig Stevens (aka Peter Gunn) is a gunslinger dressed in black who gets mixed up as something of a bodyguard for one of the Agrys who’s running for public office. Dressed appropriately in black, he’s cool and professional. Clearly the smartest one of the lot, he’s capable of doing a better job of running the town than the Agrys. In the last scene, as one of the last ones standing, he gets his chance. Buchanan wishes him well with a smile, and rides off—alone.

Scott with his craggy face, mellow deep voice, and smooth physical presence is a pleasure to watch as usual.  L. Q. Jones, with his authentic western drawl, is a comic delight. The dusty border town and desert landscape look good and authentic, too. Neatly plotted, the story unfolds at a brisk pace. Lighter in tone than his other westerns, it’s another Budd Boetticher gem.

Buchanan Rides Alone is currently available at netflix and at amazon. Overlooked Movies is a much-appreciated enterprise of Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: James Oliver Curwood, The Courage of Captain Plum (1908)

Cowboy Wisdom

Montana cowboys, c1910

For several months, on twitter and Facebook, I’ve been posting daily gems of “cowboy wisdom” collected over the years. For those who missed any, here are all 101 of them:

Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.

When somebody outdraws you, smile and walk away. There's plenty of time to look tough when you're out of sight.

The hardest thing about learning to ride is the ground.

When you ask for free advice, you get exactly what you pay for.

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Don't judge people by their relatives.

Behind every successful rancher is a wife who works in town.

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

Talk slowly, think quickly.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life. When you're older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don't interfere with something that ain't botherin' you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.

The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.

Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker a man may ever have to deal with watches him shave his face in the mirror every morning.

Westernwriter inspiration, no. 10

Here is this week's omnibus of #westernwriter inspirations posted each day at twitter [click to enlarge]. If you are on twitter, you can follow me @rdscheer.

Randolph Scott, Buchanan Rides Alone, 1958

Chili con carne

End of Day. Frederic Remington, 1904

Alan Wood on the great bucking mare, Curio, 1953

"Cheyenne," sheet music cover, 1906

Cowboy getting fitted for chaps, 1972

 Old-timers, Leakey, Texas, 1972

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)