(from Philip Rollins,
“A Conversation with Mr. Rollins”)
THE NOBLEST code of honor ever fashioned in America was the cowboy’s code.
“One of the first rules of the Code was courage,” wrote Ramon F. Adams in The Old-Time Cowhand:
“Men who followed the life of a cowboy wouldn’t tolerate a coward, for one coward would endanger the whole group. Through the hundreds of ways of makin’ the life of a coward unbearable, he was soon eliminated. If a man had a spark of courage to start with, the life he lived on the range soon developed it to a high degree. He had to have bones in his spinal column and know how to die standin’ up. His life was full of dangers such as mad cows, bad hosses rode over a country full of dog holes at breakneck speed, crossin’ swollen rivers, quick sands, and many other things, not countin’ the troubles the early cowman had with Injuns. If his craw wasn’t full of sand and fightin’ tallow, he wouldn’t make the grade….
“The cowman laughed in the face of danger, laughed at hardships when laughin’ was hard. Tragedy and its possibilities were all ’round ’im, and his cheerfulness was an attempt to offset this. As a man of action he had little time to mourn fatalities…. One of the cowman’s outstandin’ codes was loyalty. He was one class of worker who didn’t have to be watched to see that he did his work well. The nature of his work demanded that he be trusted. He took a pride in bein’ faithful to his ‘brand’ and in performin’ his job well. He needed no overseer, or advice…. He lived up to a law that held the obligation of friendship deeper than all others. Yet, accordin’ to the unwritten law, he stood ready to offer friendly service to strangers, or even an enemy, when necessity called for it. The rule required that whoever caught a signal of distress was to render quick assistance. It sometimes happened that a cowboy laid down his own life to save an enemy that he might live up to this code.”
Here is the true story of Phillip Rollins in Wyoming, circa 1880. As a boy, he punched cattle on his father’s ranch and drove herds up from Texas. At five he studied Latin; at eight, Greek. At college he majored in archaeology. A renaissance man, he was a lawyer, rancher, historian, author, and collector of Americana. As Rollins relates in this archival interview, three different cowboys saved his life on three separate occasions.
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND, said Phil Rollins with a little smile as he reached for a cigarette, “that I’m sentimental about the cowboy. I have a right to be—I had my life saved three times by cowboys when I was just a kid.”
Upon being pressed for details, Rollins said quickly, “You’re sure this won’t bore you? Well, once when I was riding herd in Montana, my horse went over a steep bank into quicksand—I was twelve then. He began to flounder as he was rapidly sucked down, but before I had time to do anything or to think of doing anything, I was pushed or thrown onto solid ground where the other riders could get a lariat to me and pull me up. That was all I knew at the moment. What had happened was that a cowboy had seen me go over the bank and had instantly spurred his own horse down into the quicksand beside me so that he could throw me with one powerful shove out of the saddle to safety. We never did find his body, though we waited for three days. Years later—I was afraid to say anything before then—I spoke to his brother about it. ‘Why, hell,’ he said, ‘you got no call to worry. Nothing else he could do. He had to do that or leave the range.’
“Another time I was riding a horse that was too much for me. He threw me out of the saddle, but my foot caught in the stirrup, and I was in instant danger of being crushed by the hooves of the excited, bucking horse when I saw a flash of steel: a cowboy dived out of his saddle at my horse, grabbed hold of the stirrup, and with his open knife cut it loose. They told me that horse stamped on his head ten times before it could be stopped. The cowboy had known it was certain death to try to cut off the stirrup, but that didn’t stop him. I was twelve then, too.
“The third time was in a blizzard in Montana. A blizzard could cause the loss of a whole valuable herd if it caught them in an unsuitable place, so when a bad storm came up the cattle had to be driven to a place where they would be out of drifts, preferably a low hill where the snow would be blown away so they could get to the grass but protected by higher hills from the full force of the wind. This night the wind was blowing in great wild gusts, driving and whipping the snow, which fell so thick that it was impossible to see more than a foot or so. It was a sudden and dangerous storm, and the cowboy who went out to try to head the lead steer into a safe spot told me not to come with him. I followed him anyway. Presently my horse stumbled, and I was thrown out of the saddle. When they found me next morning, I was lying on top of a steer that had been killed to provide me with warmth, and over me was not only my own bearskin coat but the cowboy’s. Beside me was a lump of ice—the cowboy.”