Licks and Slicks

Licks and Slicks

An Old West quiz: if you were a cowboy and had “licks” and “slicks,” what were you doing? You were on a cattle roundup. Thanks to the Federal Writer’s Project that sought stories of oldtimers, an unnamed ranch cook gives us a wonderful array of nicknames that...
Tunstall Ambushed

Tunstall Ambushed

February 18, 1878 Late afternoon light tips the tops of the foothills leading down into New Mexico Territory’s Ruidoso Valley. The Tunstall party crests a divide and starts down a narrow gorge leading down to the Ruidoso River—unaware that they are being pursued. The...
World’s Most Gorgeous Saddle

World’s Most Gorgeous Saddle

A pioneer who built the “largest Lima bean ranch in the world” owned the “most gorgeous thing of its kind in the world,” a Mexican pattern saddle that landed the top bid at Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction in Fort Worth, Texas, on June 6. Born in Topsham, Maine, in...
World’s Most Gorgeous Saddle

World’s Most Gorgeous Saddle

A pioneer who built the “largest Lima bean ranch in the world” owned the “most gorgeous thing of its kind in the world,” a Mexican pattern saddle that landed the top bid at Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction in Fort Worth, Texas, on June 6. Born in Topsham, Maine, in...
Liberty, Not Death

Liberty, Not Death

Children soothed their thirst by scraping their fingernails on barrack windows to capture frost and warded off hunger by chewing on leather. After four days of starvation, their elders declared they would rather die seeking freedom than perish like this. Thus, on...