Fifty Years on the Old Frontier

The keen-eyed, cool-headed, and fearless men (Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Buffalo Bill Cody, Big Foot Wallace, and Captain Jim Cook, among others) who were pivotal personalities for more than half a century in the almost ceaseless task of clearing the way for and guarding the lives and properties of explorers, emigrants, and settlers in the West, are an extinct type of pioneer, Accounts of the heroic deeds of this handful of men, however, remain today as indelible records that dramatize the melting away of this country’s vast frontiers.

James H. Cook known as “Captain Jim” Cook was for more than fifty years a cowboy and ranch “boss” in the Llano Estacado country of Texas; a big game hunter in the northern plains and Rocky Mountain areas; an Indian scout for the United States cavalry in its campaign to corral the troublesome Apaches; a trusted and intimate friend of the Sioux; and an outspoken champion of the Northern Cheyennes.

Born in Michigan in 1857, “Captain Jim” Cook first learned to handle a lasso in Texas shortly after the Civil War. He caught wild cattle with the vaqueros and drove them north to railheads, he fought Comanche raiders and New Mexico badmen, and developed a keen understanding of Indian methods which won for him the respect of cavalry troops assigned to capture Geronimo. Cook probably knew Red Cloud, the Sioux chief, better than any other white man. His graphic descriptions of the “superb but futile” Indian uprising, and of the mixed feelings of the army officers and soldiers assigned to quell it, reflect the genuine character of “Captain Jim” Cook cowboy, rancher, Indian scout, plainsman, and author of Fifty Years on the Old Frontier.