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Show Page 11 for the Bassetts off and on. Ann's younger brother, George, was an expert roper when he was only five, but Ann herself also became a wizard with the lariat. The lessons in the corral must have been a success because from the age of three Ann was guiding real horses unaided and riding astride. This dismayed her mother, who, unable to completely abandon the old ways, believed young ladies should ride sidesaddle and never show their legs. Elizabeth Bassett herself was an excellent horsewoman who rode sidesaddle dressed in a dark blue, long-skirted riding habit trimmed with shining brass buttons. But, according to Ann, "capering about on a skittish bronc, plastered to a lopsided contraption called a side-saddle, while swathed in yard-long riding togs" was not her idea of fun. She turned a deaf ear to her mother's lectures and soon gave up the sidesaddle for a Western saddle, the skirts for "disgraceful" buckskin breeches. Sometimes she added an Indian headdress to her outfit. It sat on her head like a crown and it wasn't long before Slippery Jim-the ranch handyman-and the other ranchhands began calling her "Queen Ann," a title that followed her through life. A favorite haunt of the impish "Queen," especially when she was trying to avoid her mother, was the ranch bunkhouse. There she could always find some cowpunchers singing range ballads, squeaking out fiddle tunes, playing poker, or reading the Police Gazette, a newspaper full of gory stories. Ann's |