American Endurance

by Richard A. Serrano

  The cowboys were eager to shove on; their squinty red eyes scanned the crowd and strained past people’s heads for the first road into the Sioux City business section. They longed for a barn to stable their horses, a hotel to sign the race registration book, and above all a cool bath and a warm bed. Night was upon them.

  Middleton had looped his long brown beard under the handkerchief he tied around his neck. “I am a little tired,” he confessed, asking the spectators to hold off on the handshaking and backslapping. “But not so much. I will get over it with a good night’s sleep. My horse is in good condition and I believe I am a winner, even if I have but one horse left to finish with.” He explained how his other horse had gone “lame” in Nebraska, and though Doc had pushed Romeo to Coleridge, a near eighty-mile stretch by itself, “I decided to leave it there and go on with one horse.”

  Gillespie pulled himself back up on his lead horse, Billy Schafer. His second horse brought up the rear. Both seemed relatively fit, and the old cowboy itched to keep riding. A reporter for the Sioux City Journal elbowed through the crowd and eyed Old Joe carefully. He found him “well along in years and quite gray, but he appeared fresh and chipper as could be.” Gillespie’s pair of horses seemed “in splendid condition,” the reporter noted, “and appeared as full of life when brought from the boat as though they had just come from the stable.”

  Stephens was mounted on General Grant. With his second horse in tow, he jogged slowly over to Gillespie. He did not speak much. What he wore on his head, wet and soiled but still fixed tightly into the hat band, is what drew the eyes of the crowd. “He did not appear much fatigued,” the Journal’s reporter wrote of Rattlesnake Pete, his crown of snake tails gleaming under the lantern lights. “He is the youngest of the three men and the lightest. He has both of his horses with him.”

  But all was not sitting well for Stephens, the novice cowboy from central Kansas. His second horse, he complained, was “not just exactly right.” And Stephens was so exhausted that at times “I can’t seem to see across the street.” A Chicago Daily Tribune reporter was ready to count Pete out. “Stephens got up looking badly, evidently suffering from the heat,” he wrote. “One of his horses is not in good shape from an attack of colic.” He predicted that Stephens would have to abandon it soon. “And horsemen generally think that Stephens will be unable to reach the Mississippi with the other horse alone, as it is an inferior animal.”

  Humane Society inspectors Fontaine and Tatro headed up the Sioux City greeting party. They carefully examined the horses just off the river ferry ramp and eyed them again as the horses trotted onto the foot of Water Street. “They are in splendid condition and show every evidence of having received the best of care,” Tatro announced. He was, he said, genuinely amazed. “I have no complaint to make. And the riders in the race have acted very fairly.” But he predicted that Stephens would “lose a horse” before he reached the next big stop in Galva, Iowa, fifty-five miles ahead.

  Nebraska was done, but Iowa stretched on, with its black, broken topsoil and emerald cornfields, the occasional barn or distant homestead, some days just a railroad junction or farther on a small town square. More than four hundred miles had been covered since the opening pistol shot had rattled the rooftops in Chadron.

  Tonight, the race was nearly half run. At 8 p.m., Middleton abruptly mounted his remaining horse, Geronimo, and dashed past the crowd. He flew through the railroad yards and turned toward the Union Railroad Depot Hotel on Douglas Street, which had newly opened to accommodate railway passengers. Gillespie and Stephens hurried after Middleton. The Sioux City reception party mounted, too, or hopped aboard buggies or sped off on foot, chasing after the cowboys. Nearly trampled, several young boys scampered up a telegraph pole.

  At the hotel, race secretary Weir opened the registration book and flipped to the pages for the three men to sign. The crowd nudged in as the cowboys bent over the big book and inked their names, noting the time and the date as precisely 8:12 p.m., Monday, June 19, 1893.

  The cowboys then lumbered back outside and led their horses to a barn four blocks up at Seventh and Douglas streets, owned by veterinary surgeon Dr. J. J. Millar. The crowd scurried there, too, and jockeyed for a glimpse of the horse stalls filling up.

  With their horses bedded down for the night, the cowboys stumbled a block back to Sixth and Douglas and the Hotel Oxford, a three-story turreted structure that had begun life as a roller-skating rink and later housed a Unitarian church. Now it stood out as the city’s signature inn. The cowboys were wobbling on buckled knees and calloused feet. The crowd trailed after them.

  The hotel lobby filled up quickly. Landlord Hunt, a local musician, entertained everyone for a while. Many of the locals spilled into the hotel bar, eager to shake hands with some of the cowboys and, with a bit of luck, win a word with Doc Middleton. But the cowboys were spent. They climbed slowly up the stairs, one heavy boot step at a time. Each of them collapsed into a bath but later slipped back downstairs for dinner.

  Middleton took a moment to send a telegram to his fans in Chadron. “We arrived here at 8 p.m.,” he dictated. He was, he confessed, “short one horse.” But no mind, he advised his hometown. Doc Middleton was “still in the ring.”

  Shortly before 10 p.m., they trudged back upstairs, this time to bed. Middleton, Gillespie, and Stephens had now ridden for seven days and nights, from Chadron on the western Nebraska Panhandle to the Iowa state line. Their heads hit the pillows like rocks dropped into the rolling Missouri River, and the three of them sank into sleep.

  Downstairs in the rowdy hotel saloon, Tatro held court. Surprisingly, he thought the horses looked better that evening than when he last had examined them in Nebraska. He was eager to see how they showed up at the registration stops ahead, in Galva and Fort Dodge, Iowa. Iowa would be flatter and make a more pleasant ride, many of the men drinking in the hotel bar predicted, a lot smoother than the Nebraska Sand Hills and the Niobrara River range. “They’ve passed the worst portion of the route,” one fellow argued.

  From out in the street, rumors swirled into the bar about some of the other cowboys. Davy Douglas had dropped out, it was said, though Weir claimed no official word of that yet. Joe Campbell was hopelessly lost somewhere in Nebraska; Weir could not confirm that either. Emmett Albright and Charley Smith were thought to be four hours away from Sioux City, still thundering across what was left of eastern Nebraska. Those drinking in the bar, enjoying what remained of this amazing night, doubted that they could stay awake long enough to greet any more cowboys.

  The unknown was the railroad man, John Berry. While Middleton, Gillespie, and Stephens slept, Berry hit Covington, Nebraska. He napped outdoors, as the town was little more than a post office, and the post office was being closed down. He expected to reach the Missouri River around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, cross over, and strike for the Illinois line. With good fortune, the wind at his back, and his horses strong, he might catch up with the three lead cowboys at Galva.

  More dark whiskey was poured in the Hotel Oxford saloon, more glasses downed, and more eyes glazed over. The cowboys snored upstairs while the men in the bar below chewed over which was the healthiest horse and who the hardiest cowboy. Which horse would fail in Iowa? Which cowboy would win Chicago?

  The Western broncho ponies seemed in rather good shape, still able to carry the heavy leather saddles. One horse’s mane was elaborately groomed, and the bar patrons hooted over its pompadour hairstyle. Middleton’s horse was a charmer. “He rides a powerful bay,” enthused one man, “powerful from fetlock to ear tip.” Yes, the man said, “that horse was keen and wide awake as if fresh from the stable.”

  Old Joe Gillespie had been a sight, too. His lead horse, Billy Schafer, looked handsome and strong. Gillespie had not even ridden his spare horse yet, it seemed, and he had told some of the crowd back on the riverbank that he hoped to ride Billy Schafer clear to Chicago. In four days’ time, he expected to be sitting in the Wild West show stands, if not perform
ing in the arena there. Of this Gillespie seemed certain: he would be first to shake Buffalo Bill’s hand. “Can you beat that!” echoed one of the men, whistling across the barroom.

  Stephens had looked particularly tired, his eyes splotched, his head hung low. His second horse still suffered from an apparent bowel disorder. That horse might not be much longer for this race, they all guessed.

  As the men drank, a reporter headed back to Dr. Millar’s livery stable for another look at the horses. The veterinary doctor stood guard, still training a sharp eye on the horses. “They’re in unusually good condition,” he said, marveling at how well all five so far had held up.

  Weir was darting back and forth between the saloon and the stable. He said that if John Berry made it to Sioux City, he still would not let him register. But he would accept a formal affidavit on Berry’s behalf if the railroad man rode up to the registration book and announced his presence. “So far the race has been very fair and very satisfactory,” Weir told the saloon gathering. “The only difficulty experienced was with John Berry. He mapped the route to be followed, and his familiarity with it caused the other riders to protest against his being registered. The protest was sustained.”

  Otherwise, the Great Cowboy Race was holding up. “The weather has been splendid and the roads good,” Weir said. “The first night out the riders were delayed some by a storm in the Sand Hills, but since that time no difficulties have been experienced. There has not been any cruelty toward the horses on the part of the riders yet, and I do not believe there will be. So far as Messrs. Fontaine and Tatro have expressed themselves to me, they are satisfied with the way the horses have been used and have no cause for complaint.” The two Humane Society officials had “carefully examined the horses at each point,” Weir said. “I am of the opinion that their presence at the registering points has been rather a benefit, for if there has been at any time a disposition on the part of the riders to abuse their horses, they have served as a check on it.”

  The chief concern now lay with the cowboys. Would they last the backstretch? “Who knows how long they’re in the saddle each day?” Weir said. “You could estimate it by railroad miles but that would be incorrect. Best estimate is they are riding from 55 to 65 miles a day.”

  That night, Weir sent his own telegram back to Chadron. “The big three, Middleton, Stephens and Gillespie, crossed on the same boat at 8:05,” he wired. “Middleton left one horse at Coleridge.”

  Tatro told the bar patrons that he and Fontaine largely agreed the horses were running fine. But he was not completely pleased. “I cannot say that everything is satisfactory to us so far, or that we are dissatisfied,” he explained. “Since the race started I have given five warnings, and they have been complied with so far as I know. The last place I saw the horses was at O’Neill on Saturday. When the horses left Chadron they were improperly shod. At O’Neill, I required Doc Middleton to have his horse reshod and I superintended the work. I warned the men there against depriving their horses of sleep. Several of the horses went to sleep standing in the street while the riders were registering. The men promised to comply with my warnings and give the horses more rest.”

  He had a final word about Doc Middleton. He said the outlaw had bragged to a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper that the Humane Society officials favored him above the others to take first place. The top Chadron money was wagered on him, Middleton had said; now the Humane Society sided with him as well. Not true, said Tatro. In clear, flat words, Tatro stressed, “I wish to deny the statement and to say that we are not favoring anyone.”

  The whiskey at last ran low, the time swung late, and the men wandered off for home, tipsy and shaking their heavy heads, their shoulders sagging at the end of a long night in Sioux City.

  George Thorndike Angell, founder and president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was not pleased at all. Twenty-seven years ago, he had become alarmed when two horses were ridden to death in a forty-mile race over rough country roads. Now he feared the same fatal course or worse for the cowboys and horses racing to Chicago and likely ruin. To the influential Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper he addressed a new letter of protest, urging the cowboys to tie up their bedrolls and call it quits. Sioux City at the Iowa border was far enough. They had covered a week now; it was time to head home, Angell said.

  He was met with derision. “Any more words from him could cost him his life,” threatened an unidentified member of the Chadron race committee. “Ranchmen are not in the habit of being checked in their plans. If he does not shut up, his head will be blown off his body.”

  The Chicago Record also expressed concern. In an editorial, the paper warned that while the horses might appear fine today, they could be dead before reaching the finish line. “Certainly none of the powers of these horses or riders has been taxed” so far, the paper observed. “They may not be for many stages yet. But isn’t it more than possible that in the last stretch between the registering station in DeKalb County [Illinois] and this city, all the cruelty possible may be practiced upon overtaxed horses?”

  Dawn the next morning poked the three leading cowboys out of bed and into their boots. With spurs jangling, they clunked down the stairs, out the door, and into the morning sun. Gillespie and Stephens whisked out of Sioux City first, although Stephens still did not look well, and one of his horses appeared to be still struggling with colic. He purchased some whiskey for his horse and stuffed it in his saddlebag in case the condition became unbearable, and up ahead a second doctor prescribed a bottle of medicine to slow the horse’s lungs, which were in danger of hemorrhaging from all the jolting over hard roads.

  Middleton had hoped to have his horse Romeo, the one he had left in Nebraska, shipped by rail to Sioux City. But a telegram arrived reporting that the horse was “too badly used up” and unfit to be moved. “Cord of horse’s leg very badly swollen,” the wire advised Doc. “Hardly able to get it out of barn. Would not advise shipping.” His backup horse, Geronimo, the one that had carried him to Sioux City, was no gem either; it looked, Middleton confessed, “pretty well tired out.”

  So Doc needed time to think. If fate was kind and old Gillespie and young Stephens lost a horse, too, that might put him back on equal footing down the road. The flat patches of Iowa, unlike the loose sand of the northern Nebraska hills, might make one of their horses turn a hoof.

  But Middleton realized he was losing both time and ground. Gillespie, old but strong, a working cowboy with both horses bearing up well, was emerging as the front-runner to Chicago. His horses were performing magnificently. “Why, if I had those horses I would choke the rest of them to death with a thousand yards of rope,” Middleton told some of the locals in Sioux City, who were wondering why he had not left town yet.

  Doc stayed put and kept on thinking, lingering around town, searching for some way to get ahead of Gillespie and Stephens. He recalled how back near the Boiling Springs Ranch, not far from Chadron, when the three of them were resting, he had tried to wake quietly and sneak out ahead of the others. “But they were too sharp for me,” he recalled.

  Middleton concluded that the only sure way to make Chicago with two horses would be if he shipped at least one of them east by rail. For a man who had spent much of his life on a horse on the open range, the whole idea of coming in third or even last on one or more crippled horses or huddled inside a railroad train car seemed repugnant. “As long as I have one horse and he has four legs, I’m in,” he insisted. He thought he might be able to “pick up the leaders” in the race closer to the other end of Iowa at the Mississippi River, but for now “we’ll just set a while.”

  Doc Middleton’s tough-as-leather saddle. (Minnilusa Historical Association, Rapid City, South Dakota)

  Berry, Albright, and Smith turned up in Sioux City a little after 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Albright seemed ridden out, his voice strained and hoarse. Smith was worried that one of his horses was playing out. Both men had their horses reshod, and it was an ho
ur before they left Sioux City. Berry lost no time registering his late arrival; he was not allowed to sign his name in the official race book anyway. No legal affidavit awaited him, either. So he paused only long enough to water his horses and rest, and to hear Tatro predict that Stephens would lose one of his two horses on the road to Galva. Fine, Berry thought. That would just leave Gillespie as the cowboy to beat. Berry announced he was going to make Galva by nightfall, “with or ahead of Gillespie.”

  Middleton saw it the same way. “Old Gillespie stands the best show now to win, in my opinion, and I don’t count Stephens in the race because he is petered out,” he told reporters for the Sioux City Journal. Of the other cowboys, Doc said, “I think the race now is between Gillespie, Jones, and Albright. And one of Smith’s horses can’t go much farther.”

  Middleton saw Weir and the Humane Society officials off on the train to Galva. He stayed the next day, too. He finally left Sioux City, admitting by then it was unlikely he ever would reach the other end of Iowa and the Mississippi River. He would ride a bit longer, though, he thought, because a cowboy does not quit. Yet Doc knew that his race was effectively over. Once the odds-on favorite in all of northwest Nebraska, he now for all practical purposes was out of the running.

  When Middleton stopped in Galva, the other cowboys were well ahead of him, yet still he kept up appearances. He asked William and Mary Harrison whether he could water his horse and sleep in their barn. They offered him a bed in their house, but Doc said no. He would just sleep with his horse. In the morning, he offered to pay the Harrisons, and now they said no. So the former outlaw tossed the couple’s three-year-old son Bill an 1892 quarter and then galloped out of town, hurrying as if he still had a shot at winning the race. Ninety years later, the Harrisons’ daughter, Laura Penrod, said of that quarter, “We’ve kept it all these years.”