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Title: The Life and Adventures of Nat Love
Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"

Author: Nat Love

Release Date: May 28, 2007 [EBook #21634]

Language: English

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Nat Love, Better Known as Deadwood Dick, and His Family
Nat Love, Better Known as Deadwood Dick, and His Family

The Life and Adventures OF NAT LOVE BETTER KNOWN IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY AS
"DEADWOOD DICK" —BY HIMSELF— A TRUE HISTORY OF SLAVERY DAYS, LIFE ON THE
GREAT CATTLE RANGES AND ON THE PLAINS
OF THE "WILD AND WOOLLY" WEST,
BASED ON FACTS, AND PERSONAL
EXPERIENCES OF THE AUTHOR

Published: Los Angeles: Wayside Press, 1907.

This book is dedicated to my wife,

MRS. ALICE LOVE

PREFACE

Having passed the half century mark in life's journey, and yielding to persistent requests of many old and valued friends of the past and present, I have decided to write the record of slave, cowboy and pullman porter will prove of interest to the reading public generally and particularly to those who prefer facts to fiction, (and in this case again facts will prove stranger than fiction). I assure my readers that every event chronicled in this history is based on facts, and my personal experiences, of more than fifty years of an unusually adventurous life.

While many things contained in this record happened many years ago, they are as fresh in my memory as if they happened but yesterday. I have tried to record events simply as they are, without attempting to varnish over the bad spots or draw on my imagination to fill out a chapter at the cost of the truth. It has been my aim to record things just as they happened, believing they will prove of greater interest thereby; and if I am able to add to the interest and enjoyment of a single reader I will consider myself well repaid for the time and labor of preparing this history.

To my playmates of my boyhood, who may chance to read this I send greetings and wish them well. To the few friends, who assisted myself and widowed mother in our early struggles, I tender my sincerest thanks, and hope they have prospered as they deserve. For those who proved our enemies, I have no word of censure. They have reaped their reward.

To that noble but ever decreasing band of men under whose blue and buckskin shirts there lives a soul as great and beats a heart as true as ever human breast contained—to the cowboys, rangers, scouts, hunters and trappers and cattle-men of the "GREAT WESTERN PLAINS," I extend the hand of greeting acknowledging the FATHER-HOOD of GOD and the BROTHERHOOD of men; and to my mother's Sainted name this book is reverently dedicated.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. Slavery Days; the Old Plantation; My Early Foraging; the Stolen Demijohn; My First Drunk. 7 CHAPTER II. The War; the Rebels and the Yankees; I Raise a Regiment; Difficulty in Finding an Enemy; Ash Cake; Freedom. 14 CHAPTER III. Raising Tobacco; Our First Year of Freedom; More Privations; Father Dies; "It Never Rains but It Pours;" I Become the Head of the Family; I Start to Work at One Dollar and Fifty Cents a Month. 19 CHAPTER IV. Boyhood Sports; More Devilment; the Rock Battles; I Hunt Rabbits in My Shirt Tail; My First Experience in Rough Riding; a Question of Breaking the Horse or Breaking My Neck. 26 CHAPTER V. Home Life; Picking Berries; the Pigs Commit Larceny; Nutting; We Go to Market; My First Desire to See the World; I win a Horse in a Raffle; the Last of Home. 33 CHAPTER VI. The World is Before Me; I Join the Texas Cowboys; Red River Dick; My First Outfit; My First Indian Fight; I Learn to Use My Gun. 40 CHAPTER VII. I Learn to Speak Spanish; I Am Made Chief Brand Reader; the Big Round-up; the 7-Y-L Steer; Long Rides; Hunting Strays. 46 CHAPTER VIII. On the Trail; a Texas Storm; Battle with the Elements; After Business Comes Pleasure. 52 CHAPTER IX. Enroute to Wyoming; the Indians Demand Toll; the Fight; a Buffalo Stampede; Tragic Death of Cal Surcey; An Eventful Trip. 58 CHAPTER X. We Make a Trip to Nebraska; the "Hole in the Wall Country;" a Little Shooting Scrape; Cattle on the Trail and the Way to Handle Them; a Bit of Moralization. 66 CHAPTER XI. A Buffalo Hunt; I Lose My Lariat and Saddle; I Order a Drink for Myself and My Horse; a Close Place in Old Mexico. 72 CHAPTER XII. A Big Mustang Hunt; We Tire Them Out; the Indians Capture Mess Wagon and Cook; Our Bill of Fare Buffalo Meat without Salt. 82 CHAPTER XIII. On the Trail with Three Thousand Head of Texas Steers; Rumors of Trouble with the Indians; at Deadwood, S. D.; the Roping Contest; I Win the Name of "Deadwood Dick;" the Shooting Match; the Custer Massacre; We View the Battlefield; Government Scouts; at Home Again. 88 CHAPTER XIV. Riding the Range; the Fight with Yellow Dog's Tribe; I am Captured by the Indians and Adopted into the Tribe; My Escape; I ride a Hundred Miles in Twelve Hours without a Saddle; My Indian Pony; "Yellow Dog Chief;" the Boys Present Me with a New Outfit; in the Saddle and on the Trail Again. 98 CHAPTER XV. On a Trip to Dodge City, Kan.; I Rope One of Uncle Sam's Cannon; Captured by the Soldiers; Bat Masterson to My Rescue; Lost on the Prairie; the Buffalo Hunter Cater; My Horse Gets Away and Leaves Me Alone on the Prairie; the Blizzard; Frozen Stiff. 106 CHAPTER XVI. The Old Haze and Elsworth Trail; Our Trip to Cheyenne; Ex-Sheriff Pat F. Garret; the Death of Billy the "Kid;" the Lincoln County Cattle War. 116 CHAPTER XVII. Another Trip to Old Mexico; I Rope an Engine; I Fall in Love; My Courtship; Death of My Sweetheart; My Promised Wife; I Must Bear a Charmed Life; the Advent of Progress; the Last of the Range. 123 CHAPTER XVIII. The Pullman Service; Life on the Rail; My First Trip; a Slump in Tips; I Become Disgusted and Quit; a Period of Husking; My Next Trip on the Pullman; Tips and the People Who Give Them. 131 CHAPTER XIX. The Pullman Palace Sleeping Car; Long Trips on the Rail; the Wreck; One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin; a Few of the Railroads Over Which I Have Traveled; the Invalids and the Care We Give Them. 137 CHAPTER XX. The Tourist Sleeping Car; the Chair Car; the Safeguards of Modern Railroading; See America, Then Let Your Chest Swell with Pride that You are an American. 142 CHAPTER XXI. A Few of the Railroad Men Under Whom I Have Served; George M. Pullman; the Town of Pullman, Ill.; American Railroads Lead the World; a Few Figures. 148 CHAPTER XXII. A Few Reminiscences of the Range: Some Men I Have Met; Buffalo Bill; the James Brothers; Yellowstone Kelly; the Murder of Buck Cannon by Bill Woods; the Suicide of Jack Zimick. 155

CHAPTER I.

SLAVERY DAYS. THE OLD PLANTATION. MY EARLY FORAGING. THE STOLEN DEMIJOHN. MY FIRST DRINK. THE CURSE OF SLAVERY.

In an old log cabin, on my Master's plantation in Davidson County in Tennessee in June, 1854, I first saw the light of day. The exact date of my birth I never knew, because in those days no count was kept of such trivial matters as the birth of a slave baby. They were born and died and the account was balanced in the gains and losses of the Master's chattels, and one more or less did not matter much one way or another. My father and mother were owned by Robert Love, an extensive planter and the owner of many slaves. He was in his way and in comparison with many other slave owners of those days a kind and indulgent Master.

My father was a sort of foreman of the slaves on the plantation, and my mother presided over the kitchen at the big house and my Master's table, and among her other duties were to milk the cows and run the loom, weaving clothing for the other slaves. This left her scant time to look after me, so I early acquired the habit of looking out for myself. The other members of father's family were my sister Sally, about eight years old, and my brother Jordan, about five. My sister Sally was supposed to look after me when my mother was otherwise occupied; but between my sister's duties of helping mother and chasing the flies from Master's table, I received very little looking after from any of the family, therefore necessity compelled me at an early age to look after myself and rustle my own grub. My earliest recollections are of pushing a chair in front of me and toddling from one to the other of my Master's family to get a mouthful to eat like a pet dog, and later on as I became older, making raids on the garden to satisfy my hunger, much to the damage of the young onions, watermelons, turnips, sweet potatoes, and other things I could find to eat. We had to use much caution during these raids on the garden, because we well knew what we would catch if someone caught us, but much practice made us experts in escaping undetected.

My Old Plantation Home
My Old Plantation Home

One day when Master and the family went to town mother decided to make some wine of which she was very fond, accordingly she gathered some grapes and after pressing them she made some fairly good wine. This she placed in a demijohn, and this for better security she hid in the garden, as she thought unknown to anyone, but my brother, sister and myself had been watching the process with considerable curiosity, which finally reached such a pitch that there was nothing to it; we must sample a liquid that looked so good. So Jordan went to the hay loft from where a good view could be obtained all around, while myself and Sally busied ourselves in the vineyard. Presently Mother thinking all secure left the house with the demijohn and proceeded to hide it. Jordan, from the hay loft, noted that mother never left the garden until she returned to the house, empty handed, but he was unable to see the exact hiding place.

It was several days later while passing through the garden that we ran across the lost demijohn. It did not take us long to discover that its contents suited our tastes. Sally and Jordan dragged it into a sweet corn patch, where we were safe from observation. An oyster can was secured to serve as a glass and the way we attacked

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