The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Nat Love (ebook reader that looks like a book .txt) 📗
- Author: Nat Love
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"Does the Wild Cow Boy Work With You?"
While the big cattle ranches were always kept well supplied with buffalo meat, on the stock of my rifle is one hundred and twenty-six notches, each one representing a fine buffalo that has fallen to my own hand, while some I have killed with the knife and 45 colts, I forgot to cut a notch for. Buffalo hunting, a sport for kings, thy time has passed. Where once they roamed by the thousands now rises the chimney and the spire, while across their once peaceful path now thunders the iron horse, awakening the echoes far and near with bell and whistle, where once could only be heard the sharp crack of the rifle or the long doleful yelp of the coyote. At the present time the only buffalo to be found are in the private parks of a few men who are preserving them for pleasure or profit.
With the march of progress came the railroad and no longer were we called upon to follow the long horned steers or mustangs on the trail, while the immense cattle ranges, stretching away in the distance as far as the eye could see, now began to be dotted with cities and towns and the cattle industry which once held a monopoly in the west, now had to give way to the industry of the farm and the mill. To us wild cowboys of the range, used to the wild and unrestricted life of the boundless plains, the new order of things did not appeal, and many of us became disgusted and quit the wild life for the pursuits of our more civilized brother. I was among that number and in 1890 I bid farewell to the life which I had followed for over twenty years.
It was with genuine regret that I left the long horn Texas cattle and the wild mustangs of the range, but the life had in a great measure lost its attractions and so I decided to quit it and try something else for a while. During my life so far I had no chance to secure an education, except the education of the plains and the cattle business. In this I recognize no superior being. Gifted with a splendid memory and quick observation I learned and remembered things that others passed by and forgot, and I have yet to meet the man who can give me instruction in the phases of a life in which I spent so long. After quitting the cowboy life I struck out for Denver. Here I met and married the present Mrs. Love, my second love. We were married August 22, 1889, and she is with me now a true and faithful partner, and says she is not one bit jealous of my first love, who lies buried in the city of Old Mexico.
One year later, in 1890, I accepted a position in the Pullman service on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, running between Denver and Salida, Colorado. The Pullman service was then in its infancy, so to speak, as there was as much difference between the Pullman sleeping cars of those days and the present as there is between the ox team and the automobile.
My First Experience as a Pullman Porter CHAPTER XVIII.
After my marriage in Denver, I rented a small cottage which I comfortably furnished and we, Mrs. Love and myself, started to housekeeping in a modest way. Then I began to look around for a job, but to a man who was used to the excitement and continual action of the range and the cattle ranches, the civilized and quiet life of the city is apt to prove stale and uninteresting. It was that way with me, and after passing up several jobs offered to me I thought I would try railroading for awhile, probably for the same reason that prompted me to leave home twenty years before; I still wanted to see the world. With that idea in mind, I went to the Pullman offices in Denver, and after making some inquiries I was directed to the office of Superintendent Rummels who was at that time superintendent of the Pullman service.
A Mr. Wright was his assistant. I found Superintendent Rummels in his office, and I asked him if he wanted to hire any more porters. He asked me if I had ever worked for the Pullman company. I told him no that I had been a cowboy ever since I was 16 years old. He then asked me if I had money enough to buy my pullman uniform. I asked him how much it would cost and he said $22.00. I told him yes, I had the price. He asked me if I knew any one in Denver. I told him yes and gave him the name of Mr. Sprangler who had my money in his bank. Supt. Rummels told me to get a letter from Mr. Sprangler and he would put me on. So I went and got the letter and with it the money to pay for my uniform, after having my measure taken and sending for my suit. I borrowed a uniform from one of the other porters and the second day after I called on the superintendent I was sent on the run between Denver and Salida. One of the old men put me on to my duties and showed me how to make up my car and the general run of things.
On my first trip I found a kind friend in the Pullman conductor, a Mr. Keely, who helped me in many ways and I suppose I made many blunders as the difference between a Pullman car and the back of a Texas mustang is very great. However I managed to get around among the passengers in my car, and attend to their needs in some sort of a way.
My first trouble commenced when I succeeded in getting the shoes of passengers which had been given to me to polish, badly mixed up. The shoes of a portly red faced man whose berth was in the forward end of the car, I placed by the berth of a tall and slim western yankee at the other end of the car, while a number 7 and a number 9 shoe were placed decorously by the berth of a sour spinster from New York. This naturally caused a good sized rumpus the next morning. And sundry blessings were heaped on the head of yours truly. Nearly all the passengers were mad and the tips were conspicuous by their absence. That made me mad and thoroughly disgusted with the job. On returning to Denver I again called on Superintendent Rummels and told him that I had enough of the Pullman service, and would rather go back to the cattle and the range. Superintendent Rummels tried to persuade me to stay with it saying I had done all right, and would improve with experience but I was thoroughly disgusted and wanted no more of it, so I turned in my keys, got my uniform and walked out. So again I was without a job.
After going around Denver for several days, it struck me that there was money to be made selling fruit, vegetables, honey and chickens around the town. Accordingly I purchased a horse and wagon and an assorted stock and started out on my new vocation. This proved profitable from the start and I made good money which caused me to stay with it for nearly a year, when my natural restfulness caused me to become discontented and to yearn for more excitement and something a little faster so I disposed of my stock, horse and wagon, and started out to look for something else to do, but that something else was about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the straw stack, at that particular time. Whether it was fate or the talk of the other porters whom I met I finally concluded to give the Pullman service another try. Accordingly I called on Mr. J. M. Smith who was now district superintendent of the Pullman service and asked him for a job. He asked me if I had been in the company's service before and I told him yes. He asked me how long and I told him one trip, and I told him why I quit, and that the tips were too slow for me. He asked me if I thought it was any better now, and I said I did not know whether it was any better or not but that I thought I could do better.
He told me the whole secret of success was in pleasing all my passengers. I told him I thought it was all right about pleasing two or three passengers but when it came to pleasing a whole car full of passengers, that was another matter. He said to try anyway. He than assigned me to a car running on the narrow gauge line between Denver and Alamosa, Creed and Durango. This was the real beginning of my Pullman service.
I ran on the Colorado roads under Superintendent Smith for a number of years and always found him courteous and obliging, always ready and willing to help us with advice and counsel, but what proved a mystery to me for a long time was how the superintendent managed to find out things that happened on my car when he was not present. Sometimes when I went to report or met him he would
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