The History of the Early Settlement of Norton County, Kansas

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there was some misunderstanding; he overtook her near Fort Scott, and arrested all parties, took them back to Doniphan county.  I never knew the out-come of the affair, but remember of seeing an account of the arrest in the daily papers of a woman for stealing a team of horses and buggy, giving name, etc., which led me to believe that it was the same affair.  She did not inform me that the horses and buggy did not belong to her, and I supposed that they were hers.  My knowledge of the parties would lead me to think that there was no intention of wronging any body, but simply a misunderstanding as to the point she was desirous of reaching, as I don't think the lady would have been guilty of attempting to swindle anybody out of a team, but her anxiety to meet her husband may have caused her to have not stated facts at the time she procured the team, and also concealing the fact that the team was not hers from me.  She was accompanied by two children, a boy of about ten and a girl of twelve or thirteen years of age."

We present below a cut of the typical Kansas cowboy, Augustus S. Cook.  He was born in cook_gus.JPG (45727 bytes) Cook's Valley, Wabasha county, Minnesota, November 16, 1856.  He came to Kansas and settled on a farm near Almena in 1875.  In the winter of 1877 and 1878 he went to Texas and hunted buffalo on the Staked plains.  In the spring of 1878 he came to Buffalo Station, on the K. P., and hired out to Darting brothers to herd cattle, and in September, 1878, they started North with a herd of cattle, their destination being Beaver creek in Rawlins county, Kansas.  What occurred on that trip we will give in his own language.

He went into the confectionery business and runs a billiard hall in Almena in 1887 and has continued in that business ever since:

"On the afternoon of September 29, 1878, we pulled in on the South Sappa, a few miles southwest of Oberlin in Decatur county, just above Keefer's ranch, we were taking the cattle to Holstine & McCoy's ranch at the forks of the Beaver, near where the town of Atwood, Rawlins county, now stands.  On the morning of September 30, we started the cattle over the trail northwest, which was up a big draw.  We had not gone but a short distance when I heard several shots fired in quick succession right back of us in the direction of Keefer's ranch.  I looked back in the direction the noise came from, but being in the draw I could not see far enough back to see what was going on, but supposed it was someone shooting at antelope or something of that kind.  It afterward proved to be Indians killing a Mr. Lang and his son and capturing 

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