Three Cowboy Racers Rested
at Newport, Neb., Last Night.
TWO OTHERS AT LONG PINE.
The Rest Are Either Lost or Laid Up
- Great Care Being Taken
of the Horses.
NEWPORT, Neb., June 17.-Three of the
cowboy riders from Chadron to the world's
fair reached here last night and departed
this morning. They had been looked for
all the evening, a large number of Doe
Middleton's old friends and neighbors having
prepared to give him a warm welcome.
The first to arrive was James Stevens, who
reached here at 10:35. He proceeded immediately
to Barber's barn, and, after carefully
tending his horse and giving him
a drink of oatmeal water and feed,
lay down and slept soundly until 11:20
p. m., when the word was passed around
that two others had arrived. They were
found to be Dere Middleton and Joe Gillespie.
Both men were tired, as well as were
their horses, and after attending to the
animals all three went to the Lee Hotel,
where they found a bountiful supper prepared
for them.
James Stephens is abeut thirty years of
age, small and quick and with large bright
black eyes. He wears a white cowboy hat
ornamented with a blue ribbon band, on
which is a mosalc design of rattlesnake
rattles. Although a hideous looking ornament,
it was presented or rather made for
him by a lady in Chadron and gives point
to the name by which he is called out West,
"Rattlesnake Jim."
Joe Gillespie came in riding one horse
and leading another. He is an intelligent
looking man, about forty-three years old.
He is a farmer, living twenty-five miles
south of Chadron and has led the race so
far. His horses look well.
Doe Middleton is very tired, but his
horses are all right. The rest are either
lost in the sand hills or laid up for repairs.
All these departed fresh and bright from
here at 6 o'elock sharp thils morning.
They had several hours' sleep and their horses
were feeling in splendid condition. Word
was received from Long Pine that Campbell
and Douglass left there at 6 o'clock this
morning. They are following the railroad
on the south side of thè track.
STUART, Neb., June 17,-Doc Middleton
and two of the other cowboy racers from
Chadron to the world's fair passed here at
8 a. m. It is 221 miles by rails from
Chadron to this town.
BASSETT, Neb., June 17.-Joe Campbell,
the rider from Boomerang, and Dave Douglas,
riding the Elmo horses, arrived in
Bassett at 7:35 a. m. and took breakfast.
There are five cowboys ahead of them and
two behind. Joe Campbell will make the trip
with but one horse and has made a wager
of $250 that he will not come in last. His
horse looks fine and he himself is cheerful.
Campbell is not to spend a cent of money
between Sioux City and Chicago. One of
the Elmo horses is a little lame, but otherwise I
n good shape.
"Eastern people don't understand what
our western prairie horses are like and
this cowboy race will show them,"
said Colonel William F. Cody, better
known as "Buffalo Bill" as he
leaned back in a camp chair in his cool,
spacious army tent down at the Wild West
Show.
"No," the famous old scout continued;
“neither the eastern people nor the
Europeans know what is in that little rough
pony, without which the great development
of the western country would have been
delayed many years."
The colonel leaned back in an abstracted
mood for a minute, thinking, no doubt, of
some big spring round-up or a hard sweep
across the Bad Lands after a recalcitrant
band of redskins. Then he straightened up
and said: "Why, this little rat of a horse
can stand more pounding rides up hill and
down dale than most people imagine. What
would kill a thoroughbred just puts a keen
edge on the pony's appetite. In this cowboy
race from Chadron 1o Chicago the
hardiness of the western horse can and will
be amply proved.
"There is no necessity to call the race
brutal or apply any harsh epithets to the
men who ride or to even ask the intervention
of the Humane Society. The men who
are riding the race know how to treat their
horses and will not push them to any such
degree of exhaustion as was witnessed in
that race by the German officers. A cowboy
knows the value of live stock. His horse is
his best friend-the one that stands the
long night's vigil on the plains with him
and many times faces the norther, and of
the two the horse gets decidedly the best
of it.
