primitive experience, sensational literature, and five and ten-cent
illustrated descriptions of the adventures of "Bill, the Plunger," and
"Jack, the Indian Slayer," completed the education, until the boy, or
young man, as the case may be, determines that the hour has arrived for
him to cast away childish things and become a genuine bad man of the
West.

Just how he gets half way across the continent is a matter of detail.
Sometimes the misguided youth is too proud to beg and too honest to
steal, in which case he probably saves up his pocket money and buys a
cheap ticket. The more romantic and strictly correct course to adopt is
to start out without a dollar, and to beat one's way across the
continent, so as to be thoroughly entitled to recognition on the
prairie. Many a young man who has commenced the pilgrimage towards
glorified badness, has had the fever knocked out of him before advancing
100 miles, but others have succeeded in getting through, and have
arrived in Texas, Wyoming or Montana, as the case may have been,
thoroughly convinced of their own ability to hold their own in all
company.

The disappointment that awaits the adventurous one is almost too great
to be expressed in words. If the cowboys were one-half as bad as they
are painted, they would proceed to demonstrate their right to an evil
reputation by murdering the newcomer, and stealing his wearing apparel
and any money he might happen to have with him. Instead of doing this,
the cowboy generally looks with amusement on the individual who has come
so many miles to join him. The greeting is not of the exuberant
character expected, and frequently the heart of the newcomer is broken
by being told to go back to his mammy and spend a few years more in the
nursery. A runaway tenderfoot just fresh from school is not wanted on