TREEING A TOWN ... AND HEROES ...

Bill Cody


In some of the old Western stories, the bad guys would get a wild hair and decide they were going to tree a town.

That means moving into the town in force and making the local population do whatever the bad guys said. 

Technically the phrase is related to hunting (as in raccoons or some such) where you chase your prey up a tree where it's trapped. If it sits tight you can shoot it out of the tree. If it tries to get out of the tree you can shoot it when it tries to get away. Essentially it's done for, at your mercy.

I never read a story where the bad guys actually succeeded in treeing a town, at least not for very long. Because you see, they never were all that smart. They forgot that, at the time and in the place, they weren't the only ones with weapons. It seems they never took into consideration that in the towns they wanted to tree there were plenty of folk who might find their behavior a mite unfriendly and not lined up quite right with the general good of the town. 

Back in those days the Civil War wasn't very far in the past so there were lots of veterans around, not to mention hunters, not to mention people who could and would shoot a coyote or a snake or a skunk or a bear or any other kind of varmint that might harm their homes, hearths, or herds.

So when a bunch of bad guys showed up thinking they could tree a town they were biting off a lot more than they could chew.

Frankly, I do believe it would do our world a lot of good for everyone, everywhere, to read the old Westerns that tell about such things.

I tell you true.

And it wasn't just the men who could and would defend what was theirs to defend.

Everyone has their own Western heroes. The ones pictured above are only just to make a point. The 'famous' ones are many and many. The ones who aren't famous were many and many more than those who are.

You want a list of American Heroes?

Go to the census files from our earliest days. Follow the names you find there as they make their way into whole new lives. Those names, the people they represent, my friend, are the heroes of this nation.