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Show OKLAHOMA, 203 cogee, to find matters worse than ever. As we sit down to dinner in the boarding- car, a half- blood Creek, crazy with smuggled whisky, is galloping up and down the row, brandishing a huge revolver, and threatening death to all opponents. At one moment he rides his horse into a shop, emerges the next, and gallops upon a group of wenches, who scatter* with a chorus of screams. A file of soldiers from a detachment on the road appear on the scene, arrest and disarm him, and the town returns to its normal condition of listlessness and idle chatter. Severe penalties are prescribed against selling whisky in the Territory, and that which is smuggled in, is the vilest compound known to the trade, familiarly called " tarantula juice," from the deadliest insect in the country. And this reminds me of the appro-priate names for intoxicating liquors, which have been evolved by a riotous Western fancy. Nobody says: " Will you take a drink?" At Chicago they say : " Name your family disturbance." At Omaha : " Nominate your poison." At Cheyenne : " Will you drive a nail in your coffin?" At Salt Lake: " Well, shall we irrigate?" At Vir-ginia City: " Shall we lay the dust?" But in Arizona and the more southern Territories the universal formula is : " Let's nip some tarant-ula juice." Such are the pleasing metaphors wherewith the frontiers-man invites to refreshment. The railroad was pushing southward as fast as a small army could lay track, to meet the Texas Central, which was in like manner push-ing northward toward Red River. From Muscogee we traversed the last section then built, to the main Canadian River. Between the two Canadians was the passenger terminus, near the Old Methodist Mis-sion ; and here we pause a few hours. Dusty and travel- worn pilgrims are coming in from all points in Western Texas, and spruce, clean looking people from civilization, starting out on long and toilsome journeys through the sandy plains between here and the Rio Grande. Thence to Main Canadian we traverse a dense forest; all the point between the two rivers is heavily timbered, and choked with under-brush. The main stream is now wide and rapid, apparently thick with red mud and sand ; but after standing a few minutes, it is sweet enough to the taste, and close examination shows the stream to be tol-erably clear, the red showing through the water from the bottom. We observed, with some nervousness, that Brad Collins, a " White Cherokee " desperado, with a dozen of his retainers had come down on our train. Soon the smuggled whisky they brought begun to take effect, and half a dozen young half- breeds were galloping about town, firing pistols in the air, and yelling like demons. My companion |
