Tom Mix's Own Story -- Part 3 -- April 28, 2025

Photoplay, April, 1925

Not much of Tom's life story is true, but it is all entertaining. Victoria Forde was his fourth wife(!). They divorced in 1931. 

 

Tom Mix's Own Story

by Himself

Third Installment

TOM received $150 a week for his first motion picture work. Recently he refused a years contract with a circus at $25,000 a week His new contract with Fox calls for a salary, it is said of $17,500. Read this story and you will know why he refused the circus offer.

IT was sort of funny how I happened to go into motion pictures.

I've observed that destiny has got a mighty odd way of bringing some little thing to pass just at the psychological moment that'll revolutionize a man's whole life. That's the way it happened to me. If that telegram had been presented to me at another time in my career. I might have paid no more attention to it than to wonder what motion pictures were, anyhow. As it was, it brought me into a line of business as foreign to me then as could be, to a lot of success I was pretty far from dreaming I'd ever have, and to the woman I love.

It arrived at a time when excitement and danger had begun to pall upon me a trifle. After some of those little episodes I have mentioned to you previously, I had begun to realize that no matter how good a shot a man is, sooner or later the luck is bound to go against him. What with bullets flying around so promiscuous, it's against nature to suppose a man can always be absent when they arrive in his vicinity. And I kind of hated the thought of ending my career by being picked off while an innocent bystander to the alcoholic furor of some rough neck. Also, it was dawning upon me gradual but powerful that I was spending a heap too much time in hospitals, and that was dampening my enthusiasm for romance and adventure some.

I averaged up the sheriffs and rangers and marshals I'd known and most of them had ended their careers sudden and violent.

Well, I was sort of ruminating along these lines, when I went up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, along in 1909, to take part in the contests they were having up there as part of the Frontier Day celebration. I'd won the National Championship in contests that year, and I was figuring to do pretty well.

One morning I went into the bank at Cheyenne to cash a check that had been handed to me as a prize in some event -- rope throwing, as I recollect it, though it might have been bull-dogging steers.

A man named Stone was the head of this Frontier Day committee, and he was likewise president of the bank, and when I come in he says, "Tom, you're just the man I was hoping to' see in here this morning. I got a telegram here might interest you and if it does you can make your own play concerning it."

I walked over by the window and read the telegram.

It was signed by the Selig company, and it asked Stone, he being the main one of the Frontier Day affair, if he knew a man that could do some real cowboy stunts in some motion pictures, and if so they'd like to hire him, and maybe, if possible, rent his ranch and some of his horses and cattle, if he happened to have any. They stated mighty plain that they wanted a real cowboy, that was familiar with ropes and steers and broncs from actual experience.

Now I had a little ranch down in Oklahoma that I'd been fussing around with in between being sheriff and marshal, and Stone knew that. He said, "Tom, you're heading back for Oklahoma anyways, now that the celebration is about to conclude, so why don't you stop off down at Chicago and find out just how this game lays. Might be something you'd like. I am not familiar much with motion pictures myself, but I've heard considerable talk about them lately."

I says, " Well, I have seen a few of them and it looked to me like most of their cowboys learned their trade through a correspondence school. I can see how maybe they could use a man that has some personal acquaintance with horses and the west."

It wasn't much out of my way, so I pulled up in Chicago, and went up to talk the matter over with the folks that had sent the telegram.

The first thing they did was to offer me a hundred dollars a week. I spent the rest of the time trying to get out of that office as fast as I could, without being ornery, because I made out they must be crazy sure. I told them I'd let them know later, and I went down and stood on the street corner and I said to myself, "Tom, these men are crazy and no mistake. You better not get yourself mixed up with them anyways at all. Anybody that'd talk about paying a cowboy a hundred dollars a week is plumb loco."

I went back to my hotel and pretty soon they begun calling me up, talking about this and that, and finally they come right out and says, "If it's salary that's standing in the way, we'd be willing to make it a hundred and fifty, providing you'll use your own horse and take care of him."

Well, that settled any lingering doubts I might have had about them being crazy. I knew they were crazy then. But when I started figuring about it all, I decided there must be some way of finding out about these things, though I wasn't much of a business man. But I knew no business man would mix himself up in such a deal without being convinced proper that these lunatics could make good.

So the next day I went back and put my cards on the table. " Can you give me any sort of assurance whatsoever about this hundred and fifty dollars being paid every week and where it's coming from? I don't like going into any play blindfolded."

They asked me if I knew what Dun and Bradstreet was, and I said I'd heard tell that it was a kind of financial pedigree book. They brought out one then, and showed me where Colonel Selig was rated at a credit of a million dollars, so I said that was all right with me and I was now prepared to go ahead with it.

I went back down to my ranch in Oklahoma, and pretty soon two or three of these gentlemen came down and looked my place over, and then a lawyer showed up on the scene, and he looked it over, and then he brought out a contract and I signed it. That was my first motion picture contract and I made my first screen appearance in 1910. In my whole career on the screen I've only been with two firms -- Selig and Fox.

The troupe was to come down to my place and make some pictures, and when I got the telegram saying they were coming, I began to get sort of panicky. I had seen some of those theatrical companies that barnstormed the west in those days and I had sort of a picture of a lot of blondes with plumes in their hats, and gents with checkered vests and fancy shoes. I began to feel right guilty about importing a bunch like that into Oklahoma, which up till then hadn't had anything worse than some gun fights and a few raids and such like pastimes, which are legitimate in a new country.

The whole town and most of the surrounding country went down to meet the train, and I was there, too, but well in the background. I was sitting on an express truck back of the station with a clear track between me and my horse, that's where I was. I had made up my mind if they were too awful, I'd just make myself scarce by leaving precipitant for parts unknown.

But when they got off the train they weren't a bit like I'd figured them, but were just average human beings, so I got down off the truck and went over and introduced myself. Otis Turner was director of that company, and with him was Kathlyn Williams, and Myrtle Stedman, and William V. Mong and Charles Clary, and some other folks, as well as a lot of cameras and things.

They stayed down on my ranch about six months making pictures, and I got my first experience with acting, and I'm here to state that I didn't fall for it then to any appreciable extent. I didn't mind carrying out my own line of work, such as riding and roping, but I was sure distressed when I had to take any part in the actual picture story.

First thing we had a row about was me putting on any make-up. I'm a right easy cuss to get along with mostly, but in that instance I set myself like a mule and said no. Until I came with Fox and got to be a star, I never had a make-up on but once, and when Colonel Selig saw that picture he wired back to know was I sick or something. When I was a star and had to be as particular about the acting as anything else, they finally convinced me I ought to put on a make-up, and I do it now, but I have never got so I am very crazy about painting my face. It don't seem quite the thing for a big, rough man like me to do.

Well, we surely made a lot of pictures and fought a lot of wars on my ranch in those six months. Sometimes I got killed as many as seven or eight times in one picture. There was one scene I got so familiar with I felt real comfortable about it, and could do it without any protest from my inner conscience. That was the one of dying on the battlefield with my horse. Just at the end, while the battle was raging all around us, the old horse would raise up and look me in the face, and I'd crawl over and put my arm around his neck tight and say, "Good-by, old pal." Then we'd both keel over -- or maybe only the horse -- and the smoke of battle would drift around and hide us from view. I bet we used that scene as many times as George Cohan has used the American flag.

When they'd used up all the scenery that was around my place, we left there and went up to a location I knew in Colorado. While we was there I had a little difference of opinion about something with the company, and they fired me. I reckon I was sort of hankering to get fired, though, because the boys had been writing and asking me to come back and be city marshal of Dewey, Oklahoma, where they were having a little trouble one way and another with some boys that thought they were right bad. It seemed like a pretty good idea to me, so when I got fired that-away I went back to Dewey.

I hadn't been working at that very long, though, when the first revolution broke out down in Mexico. That was in 1910, you recollect, and it caused considerable commotion. Diaz had been elected president again -- he'd been president so long all the fellows that voted for him the first time were dead and it was their sons that were electing him now -- and a lot of people thought he was getting too old and that corrupt men under him were running things to suit themselves. Anyway, it was what you would call an autocratic rule and the people were crying for a little better treatment and a little more freedom. Anyways, the Liberals got together under Francisco Madera and attacked the government, and the fireworks started. The way it sounded up in Oklahoma I thought it might be worth going to see what it was all about, so I resigned and started for Mexico.

I joined the Madera forces and was with them when they captured Juarez, which brought about the resignation of Diaz and the election of Madera as president. It was open warfare of the worst kind and no better and no worse than what I'd been used to, but I did have one experience while I was down there that I can't say set any too well. I faced a firing squad for the first and, I hope, the last time. Of course it's been done a lot in pictures and is considered old stuff now, but when it actually happen and you're the chief actor it has a lot of excitement connected with it.

I was accused of breaking the military law. I don't know whether you've had much experience with revolutions, but as a rule both sides are fighting among themselves as well as fighting each other and little small-portion revolutions are apt to break out most any time. It was one of those things I got caught in, and after a sort of comic opera trial that I reckon wouldn't be considered as having been conducted strictly according to Hoyle, I was condemned to be shot. Anyway, they had marched me out and were getting all ready to use me for a target, when some witness that had testified against me got troubled in his conscience, and there was another upset in the ruling powers, and when he admitted the truth they set me free.

But that sort of took the edge off my ardor about the Mexican revolution, so I got five hundred dollars in gold from Madera for my services and started back for El Paso to have a good time. But I hadn't even got started on my celebration when a man I knew came rushing up, yelling at me like he was going to a fire or something. Well, he was what they call the exchange man for the Selig people, and it seems like they had been wiring him every fifteen minutes to locate me and ship me pronto to Chicago, being that they needed me pretty bad. In fact, it seemed like nobody but me would do.

Back in Pictures

So I went back to Chicago, and it didn't take long to find out why they'd had a change of heart like that and were so cordial.

It is no use to mention any names in telling about the following episode, because I don't aim to hurt anybody if I can help it.

But this is the way the thing was --

An actor had come on from New York and sold himself to the Selig company with a great idea, a story he had in mind. He said he could do it easy, and maybe he thought he could. He wanted to make this picture about a young man that had been ruined by the wolves of Wall street, and just had to come out west. While he was there he learned to be a man, it seems, and he got in a fight with a real pack of wolves, and the idea was that he was to be attacked by this pack in a lonely cabin, and whip them with his bare hands. Then, you see, having conquered the real wolves, he could start back to lick the wolves of Wall street. This leading man allowed he had fought wolves like that and maybe he had.

However, when it come to doing it in the picture it just seemed like he couldn't manage it right, so he decided maybe he'd rather not and they had better get a double. There was a lot of money tied up in the picture and they wanted me to be the double and fight the wolf pack.

It didn't appeal to me exactly, but wolves are mostly cowards and I thought maybe I could choke a couple of them so they'd be quiet and the others would take a lesson from that and it would do for the scene.

So we started. We built an iron pipeway for the wolves to come into from their cage, and put the mouth right at the window. When I rushed in, like the wolves were at my heels, and bolted the door, they were to jump through the window. It all come off according to schedule, except that the biggest wolf came first, of course, and I guess he wasn't pleased with the layout, because when I made a grab for him, he jumped over and took a hunk out of my arm.

That made me mad. I got him by the hind leg and he kept twisting and snapping and trying to get at me again, and I never did see a wolf act up so mean. By that time the rest of the pack had come through the window, and they were scared to death and slunk off in the corners and watched me and old granddaddy wolf having our little run-in. I kept on hanging onto his leg and he kept on trying to get at me and we sure waltzed all over that set.

In those days they built sets out of something that wasn't much stronger than tissue paper and glued them together and there wasn't a thing in that room was strong enough for me to get hold of. On the wall was a cupboard full of dishes and there was a table that looked like it had strong legs. I kicked the table over and sure enough one of the legs fell out. Then I rapped old daddy wolf through that cupboard, and it tore open and all the dishes fell on his head. That stopped him a second, and I grabbed the table leg in my left hand and tapped him on the bean with it.

I've still got a mass of scars on one arm where he got to me.

Well, I was mad clear through and I'd forgotten all about being a double and being supposed to keep my back to the camera, but funny thing was the scene looks all right in the picture. They brought the real leading man down then and he was supposed to stand with his foot on the wolf while he made his noble resolve about going back to Wall street. They told him the wolf was dead, but it wasn't dead at all, only stunned, and when he put his foot on it, it wiggled and looked up at him, and he fainted.

The humane society or something got after me about beaning that wolf, and I had to explain how it all happened, and how I hadn't started with any intention whatsoever to hurt him, but when it came to being either him or me, I naturally chose me. As a matter of fact, the folks around where I work say I'm too kind to animals -- that I spoil them. Maybe I do. Especially horses. But I don't regard horses as a heap different from human beings, only some a little better.

There's only one way to handle horses, and that's to be kind and firm with them, and I'd like to kill any man I ever saw abusing a horse. Once or twice, I have felt it my duty to reprimand men for not treating their horses right -- but that's another story.
Well, I got my job back with Selig all right, and after that I stuck and I have been in pictures ever since. Mostly for a while I doubled for leading men, and we went down to Florida to make those jungle pictures with Kathlyn Williams, and I did a lot of everything. Maybe you remember "Lost in the Jungle" and some of those.

Right here, before going into some of the adventures that befell us in Florida, I'd like to say that Miss Kathlyn Williams was a wonderful woman and that it sure was a privilege to work with her. It wasn't only that she was a mighty brave woman, but she had a fine disposition, and she was sweet and smiling no matter how tough the going might be, and sometimes it was pretty bad, for we worked under great difficulties and most of the time lived the same way. Making that kind of pictures was a heap different than the things they do nowadays and the animals were the chief part of it, too.

I remember that we had a troop of leopards with us, and their trainer allowed that they were tame leopards, but I have seen a lot tamer things in my time. We had built a great big corral, or cage of wire, and we worked inside that, with all the tropical atmosphere, but still where the animals couldn't get away. I had one experience with a leopard down there that was like what you read about in books but that is the only time I ever saw it happen in real life.

We wanted to show on the screen, the leopard finding Miss Williams asleep under a log and springing on her. And the way we planned to get it was like this -- Miss Williams laid down on one side of the log, right close to it, and on the other side was the leopard. We had a chicken pegged on the same side as Miss Williams, and we'd move the chicken and the leopard would leap high in the air, right over Miss Williams, and land on the chicken. Then we'd cut with him in midair. Then with another leopard trained for the part would continue the fight.

It went great the first time. The second time, just as the leopard started to spring, the breeze caught Miss Williams' hair and blew it around. It caught his attention and before anyone could move, he had sprung right on Miss Williams, one paw putting five deep cuts in her head. She fainted.

It was so quick no one could realize it. My gun was some five feet away, and I was afraid to move, for fear the sound would make him strike instantly. I was only a few feet from him, and right in front of me was his tail. I could see it twitching back and forth, back and forth, like the tail of a cat with a mouse.

As I told you, cats are my natural enemies, and for a second I didn't know what I could do, that wouldn't make him kill Miss Williams, or maim her, before I could stop him. Then an idea came to me, and I just reached forward and with all my strength grabbed that moving tail and swung. He was a big leopard, but I just managed to lift him clean, and someone snatched Miss Williams.

He turned on me in a fury, and we stood there, looking at each other, just staring. Some folks that was watching, thought I was right cool and collected on that occasion, but the truth was I was just paralyzed with fear, though I was trying to figure out if maybe I couldn't get him by the throat when he sprang.

And then, as we stared, that leopard suddenly began to shift, dropped his head and his tail, and slunk away into the trees.

The worst thing that ever happened to me, though, was when I was playing a northern spy, one time. I was the villain in that piece, and Miss Williams was supposed to come riding over a bridge and find me trying to bar her way, and knock me off into the river. It was a pretty good-sized river, and a drop of eighteen or twenty feet from the bridge to the water.

She pushed me off the bridge all right, and I managed to hit the water intact. I went down and come up easy, and found myself face to face with the biggest alligator you ever saw in your life. Maybe he was only yawning, but he had his mouth wide open and I thought he had made up his mind to swallow me whole. The way I went up those piles onto that bridge, I reckon the alligator must have thought I was just a streak of some kind.

As I come over the side the director yelled, "Hey, you stay down in the water till it's time for you to come up."

"Alligators Don't Bite"

But that didn't have any effect on me whatsoever I took him by the hand and led him over and pointed out the alligator, and I says, "Maybe some folks won't mind waiting down there in such company until you get ready but not me."

He says, very airy and bright, "Why, Tom, you don't need to be afraid of him. An alligator will never bite a man while he's in the water."

I says, "That's great, but does the alligator know about it?"

Anyway, that was one scene they never got.

We had a big, old lion down there with us, that had a reputation for being pretty ferocious. One day we had to let him loose to chase a horse. Now the lions were fed on horse meat, and so you can pretty well count on them chasing a horse most anywheres. I was to sit on the sidelines, and rope him when they'd got all the chase they wanted.

The old boy came galloping by me after that horse like so many pounds of speed done up in one package, and I threw for him. But I hadn't roped many lions, and this wise old bird just jumped right through my loop like a circus clown. All I got was one hind leg, and the old boy seeing me sitting there on top of a horse, charged at us roaring. Well, I turned and give my horse the spur, and all I could do was to keep moving fast enough to keep that old lion at the end of my rope and every time I'd slack a little he'd come after me with the evident intention of getting up on that horse.

So round and round we went, and if you've never had a large and unfriendly lion on the end of a rope that you didn't know what to do with, you don't know how I felt. I kept yelling for somebody else to rope him, and after a while one of the other boys managed to get a rope on his front leg. So we had him. but we couldn't get any closer to him than before, and then I let go my rope, and gave him another throw and got him by the neck, and we tied him up and put him back in his cage for his trainer to untangle.

And I want to tell you right now that the trees around there rained folks for hours after that. One actor had actually got two miles from camp, though he must have beaten Charlie Paddock's record to do it.

After that, I began to make my own pictures, and I was director, and story writer, and actor, and cameraman and props, and scenic artist and most everything but the horse. And I want to tell you right now, that there's no foundation in the world for a man's business like knowing it from every angle -- knowing what can be done and what can't be done, and all the difficulties the other fellow is under-going. I still keep up my camera work, and over in my workshop I've managed to work out some stunt camera stuff that we've used in our pictures, and some devices for cameras that have helped us a lot. And knowing about direction, and stories, has helped me one hundred per cent in my work in recent years.

Pretty soon after I came out to Hollywood, there happened to me the biggest thing that has ever happened in my life -- the thing that has made everything else worth while, that made the hard work easy, and the success glorious. I fell in love.

I did about as thorough a job of it on first sight as I guess any other young man has ever done, because two seconds after I first saw Victoria Ford she had me roped, tied and branded for life. That was ten or eleven years ago, and that feeling I had when I first looked at her has never changed except to grow bigger and finer as the years progress.

Tom's Courtship

It was in a little motion picture theater over at Glendale, that I first saw Victoria. Her mother, a character actress, had been making some pictures with me, and I went to see one. Outside, she introduced me to her daughter, Victoria, who was just a girl in her 'teens then, with a lot of golden hair, -- a little thing, she was, too, not much bigger than a minute. I just stood there looking at her and wondering how I'd lived all those years without her and how I was ever going to live another day longer if she wouldn't have me. I expect I'd have started proposing right there and then if I'd had the nerve.

I found out she was working at the old Universal studio in Sunset Boulevard and the next day I took this automobile I had bought, it was a second hand one and big as a house, and I commenced driving up and down in front of that studio, hoping maybe I'd get just a glimpse of her. I was so busy trying to peek inside the door that I ran into a roadster that was standing at the curb and it cost me two weeks pay to get it fixed up.

It wasn't the whirlwind courtship I would have had it, because Victoria was young, and one thing and another interfered, but when I went down to Arizona and established a studio there to make a series of western pictures, she and her mother went with me. Victoria as my leading woman. Perhaps you remember her in some of those early westerns.

We have been married eight years now, and I know we are pointed out frequently as one of the ideal married couples of Hollywood. I know that we are one of the happiest couples that ever lived in Hollywood or anywhere else, and I guess I'm more grateful to God for that than for anything else -- that and its crowning joy, our little daughter, Thomasina, who came to us nearly three years ago.

This is not a history of the motion picture industry, so I shan't go into a lot of detail about my picture career. After making a lot of westerns for Selig, I went with Fox in 1918 and I have been with them ever since and I have just signed a contract that makes it look like I'd be with them as long as I make pictures. In the years that I have been with them I have had every chance to make western epics, and I've tried to do it, and gradually they have grown in favor and popularity with people. I've tried always to make clean pictures and to show the west as I know and love it. I have been responsible for seeing that every angle of my pictures was done and done right, and though it's kept my nose at the grindstone it's been worth it.

Sometimes I reckon I get to laughing over the fact that I quit being a sheriff to lead a quieter and less dangerous life. Making western pictures hasn't been exactly a quiet and peaceful life. I had three ribs broken one day in a shuffle; I had to have nine stitches taken in my head when somebody hit me with the wrong chair; a spur tore the whole side of my head open one day when I was doing a fight and the man's leg flew up; a horse crushed my toe; I was filled plumb full of pieces of shot when a bomb exploded; I had a tooth smashed in a scene one day.

Those are just a few of the things that happen. I've had to jump horses thirty feet into a lake. I've had to jump them through plate glass windows and from the roof of one building to another. I've ridden up and down fire escapes. So sometimes I've thought it wasn't much of a change. As I heard a kid say to his mother in a theater one day, when they were showing one of my pictures, "If Tom and Tony aren't careful, they'll get seriously killed one of these days."

(By the way, did you know I bought Tony for twelve dollars, out of a bunch of colts, and he was sure the worst looking one of the bunch.)

The other night while I was sitting in front of my fire, a great feeling of gratitude came over me. I saw my home, with its comforts and beauties which are so dear to me. I saw my beloved wife, sitting opposite me. I thought of my cars in the garage, my horses, all the possessions which make life so full of happiness. Above all, I thought of that little girl of ours asleep upstairs, and I thought of her future, which will be protected as far as loving parents and education and money can protect it.

I thought of the great opportunity that has been given me to be a little influence for good in the lives of the boys and young men of this country, and remembered how not long before I had spoken to the boy scouts, and to other groups of fine future citizens. I thought of the fine health I have kept, because I have tried to take proper care of this machine we call the body -- not giving it more fuel to take care of than it can, always keeping it tuned up to its best pitch.

And I went over to my desk and wrote a letter to one of the finest men I have ever known -- William Fox. And in that letter I spoke of my life as it is today, and of all these things which have so blessed me, and I told him how wonderful it was to remember our long association in business, unmarred by any disagreement or discontent. And I said, "Some folks may say that if you hadn't done all this for me, somebody else would have. But the fact remains that you did it, and I feel mighty grateful."

That's true, I tell you.

And so I can just end by saying that I thank God for all his goodness, for the fine work I have to do, for the love folks have been kind enough to shower on me, for the appreciation they've given my efforts, and above all for my dearest blessings -- Thomasina and Victoria. And just let me say this one word -- the greatest happiness there is in the world is in doing right, trying to live straight, have the respect of your neighbors and a true and faithful home life.

I've lived a lot of different places and a lot of different ways since I was born in that log cabin in Texas, and I know.

Photoplay, April, 1925

Tom Whips a Wolf

"I was engaged to fight a pack of wolves. The biggest wolf came first and when I made a grab for him he jumped over and took a hunk out of my arm. That made me mad. I got him by the hind leg and he kept twisting and snapping and trying to get at me again. I never did see a wolf act so mean. The rest of the pack were scared to death and slunk off in the corners and watched me and old granddaddy wolf have our run-in. Finally, I grabbed a table leg and tapped him on the bean with it. The humane society got after me about beaning that wolf and I had to explain how it happened."

A Quiet and Peaceful Life

"Sometimes I get to laughing over the fact that I quit being a sheriff to lead a quieter and less dangerous life. Making Western pictures hasn't been exactly a quiet and peaceful life. I had three ribs broken one day in a shuffle; I had to have nine stitches taken in my head when somebody hit me with the wrong chair; a spur tore the whole side of my head open one day when I was doing a fight and the man's leg flew up; a horse crushed my toe; I was filled plumb full of pieces of shot when a bomb exploded; I had a tooth smashed in a scene one day."

A Hand-to-Hand Fight with a Leopard

"Kathlyn Williams was a wonderful woman. I remember a scene we wanted to show a leopard finding her asleep under a log and springing on her. We had a chicken pegged near Miss Williams and the leopard would leap high in the air, right over Miss Williams, and land on the chicken. The wind caught her hair and the leopard saw it. Before anyone could move he leaped right on her, leaving five deep cuts in her head. I was afraid to move. Then an idea came. I reached forward and with all my strength grabbed his tail and swung. I just managed to lift him clean and someone snatched Miss Williams."

Tom's First Movie Offer

"The first thing the Selig Company did was to offer me a hundred dollars a week. I spent the rest of the time trying to get out of that office as fast as I could without being ornery, because I made out they must be crazy sure. I told them I'd let them know later, and I went down and stood on the street corner and I said to myself, 'Tom, these men are crazy and no mistake. You better not get yourself mixed up with them anyways at all. Anybody that'd talk about paying a cowboy a hundred dollars a week is plumb loco."

Facing a Firing Squad

Isn't Fun

"I joined the Madera forces in the Mexican revolution of 1910. It was open warfare of the worst kind and I had one experience that didn't set any too well. I faced a firing squad for the first and, I hope, last time. I was accused of breaking a military law. After a sort of comic opera trial I was condemned to be shot. They marched me out and were getting all ready to use me for a target when some witness, who had testified against me, got troubled in his conscience and when he admitted the truth they set me free."

Tom Mix's Own Story -- Part 2 -- March 9, 2025

Photoplay, March, 1925

Not much of Tom's life story is true, but it is all entertaining. Please excuse the racism.

Tom Mix's Own Story

By Himself

The second installment of the fascinating story of one of the screen's most capable actors written exclusively for Photoplay.

I SAW two real wars after we'd settled things with Spain, before I settled down to private gunplay in what was then in truth the wild and woolly west -- the Great West of Yesterday.

The first of these, as I mentioned last month, was the Boxer uprising in China and it included some mighty snappy and promiscuous shooting, and some guerilla warfare after the Indian fashion which I have never seen bettered.

Now a regular battle, to my way of thinking, is not exciting. Folks that haven't been personally present at one probably can't comprehend that statement, but what I'm getting at is that there is so much noise and confusion about a battle, and the action being en masse, sort of prevents you from appreciating the high lights of the occasion. But trying to build a railroad across open country in full sight of the enemy has more thrills to a mile than any serial ever made.

Now I reckon most folks remember the Boxer uprising, which enlivened the first couple of years of the present century. The Boxers were a lot of religious fanatics over in China who had an idea that anybody that thought different than they did hadn't ought to be allowed to live -- leastways not in their country. So they got together and decided to run all other kinds of folks out of China. They were egged on some by the Dowager Empress, who held similar ideas, and pretty soon they made the mistake of selecting a few American missionaries and French priests and British officials for their victims.

The foreigners had to hide in the hills, and those that were close enough took refuge in the British Legation in Pekin and then the foreign powers began shipping in armies to rescue their people and to subdue these crazy Chinamen.

I was shipped over there pronto, with the 9th Infantry, in charge of a Gardiner gun and took some little part in the long and famous siege of Pekin, which was pretty dull most of the time, though the day our victorious armies marched into the fallen city was about as fine a sight as I ever saw. It was a beautiful old city, and different from anything I'd ever seen, and as a good deal of my sight-seeing had been done during wars I'd learned to keep my eyes open.

But the real excitement was when we were laying the new railroad between Pekin and Tien Tsing. It was mostly flat, open country, with only some bushes and an occasional tree, and those Boxers knew every inch of it and were roaming about trying their best to keep us from making that little strip of road. I was with a gun guarding the men at work, and every hour or so they'd begin popping at us from behind some bushes. They were just the color of the ground anyway, and they could crawl along on their stomachs like snakes. We had some tough skirmishes and lost a lot of men, but eventually we got our work done.

It was outside the walls of Tien Tsing, while we were besieging that city under Colonel Listenn, who was killed there, that I was wounded seriously again. The gun I was with was pounding away at one of the gates, when all of a sudden a shell busted right in front of us. It blew up the gun carriage and one of the wheel spokes was split right in two. It shot through the air like a knife and came right over and scalped me just as neat as an Indian chief could have done it. It peeled the top off my head and skinned my forehead right down to the skull bone and left my eyebrows hanging over my eyes.

I tumbled over into a ditch with a lot of other fellows who'd been wounded by the shell, and after a while they carted me off to a hospital and shipped me home on a hospital transport. I spent the next few months in a hospital in Washington, while the top of my head grew back on. I've still got the scars to show for that.

Right here I'd like to tell you a funny little incident about that ditch. Just a short time ago I was introduced to a distinguished French army officer. The minute I looked at him I started pirooting around in my memory to find out where I'd seen him before, and he had that same feeling about me. We got to visiting and gassing like men will, and pretty soon we discovered where we'd met before. We had both been mixed up in that same ditch outside the walls of Tien Tsing, and had tried to help each other with our wounds.

When I finally got well I decided that for a while I'd hook up with more peaceful pursuits, because I didn't like hospitals a little bit. So I got my disability discharge from the Army and wandered up to Denver, which was still pretty rough and ready in those days. A man I knew up there had a big business breaking horses and selling them to the British government -- the Boer war was on by that time -- and he gave me a good job breaking bronchos for him.

Photoplay, March, 1925

In the interests of truth, I got to state that we weren't any too fussy about the way we broke those horses. Seeing they were going over to England and get into a war right away, and we'd probably never see them again, we mixed in a few outlaws in every load, too, just to sort of clear the country of them. We'd take them out to the corrals and spend a couple of days quieting them down sufficient to pass the inspector, and off they'd go to the war.

Pretty soon I got to thinking I'd never been to South Africa, where this little argument with the Boers was in progress, and maybe I'd better go and see what it was all about, for the sake of my education. So I shipped over with a boat load of our horses, getting a place as a hostler.

We landed in Africa just about the time the trouble was starting around Ladysmith and I took my string down there.

Those horses, as I've admitted, hadn't been broke so that a lady could ride them by any means, and being on ship- board so long they'd plumb forgot what little they had been taught. Moreover, those horses had been broke by cowboys without any artillery hung on them and entirely devoid of sabres.

I want to tell you that when those Tommy Atkins, with sabres a-rattling and all sorts of other instruments and buttons jingling, mounted my bronchs, it sounded in two minutes like somebody had thrown a dozen kitchens down the side of a mountain. Those horses had no sabres in their curriculums whatever, and they objected to them with what you might call ostentatious vim and vigor. The British army was busier with those cayuses for a few days than they were with the Boers. But pretty soon we got them all rounded up again, and I started in breaking them right and proper.

The Tommies were crazy about American riding, and I used to give exhibitions on the parade ground in the afternoon, combining my work with their pleasure, because some outlaws in that outfit sure needed right smart attention before they could be brought to see life in the right way.

Just the same, my sympathies were with the Boers and I decided, they being the underdog as it were, that as soon as I got my work cleaned up I'd go off and join the Boer army. Being on the sidelines was getting a little tiresome.

Photoplay, March, 1925

Tom Is Taken Prisoner

Well, I want to tell you right now that the most flabbergasted I ever was in my whole life was when I first saw part of the Boer army. I never saw so many whiskers in my whole life. All I could see in every direction was whiskers. They weren't just little beards, they were full length muffs, those were. I got an idea at first maybe they gave out the best jobs to the biggest whiskers because General Cronje and Oom Paul Kruger, president of the Dutch Transvaal Republic, had the two finest sets I ever saw. They were short, round, little men and didn't look much like our American troops, but they were grand fighting men, with the courage of lions.

I didn't turn out to be much help to the Boers, though, because in my very first battle, the battle of Spinecob, we were overpowered and forced to surrender and I was taken prisoner. The British government didn't know exactly what to do with us at first, because while we were prisoners of war -- there were quite a lot of Americans who had been captured with the Boers -- we were still American citizens. So they decided that the best thing to do was to ship us back to the United States, which they did. There were about a hundred of us, and I don't mind telling you that it was a pretty wild bunch of young adventurers and soldiers of fortune.

When we landed at the Philadelphia navy yard and I showed my honorable dis- charge papers -- some of the boys had left the United States Army without stopping to say good-by to Uncle Sam -- I started back west, and joined up with the 101 Ranch outfit, owned by the Miller Brothers.

From then on until I went into motion pictures in 1910, I lived my life on the plains and in the mountains of the Great West. And the Great West it was -- a land of adventure, of danger, of rich reward. It was a new country and law and order were by no means fairly established. The West of Yesterday has made unbelievable progress in the last quarter of a century, and its great ranches, its vast herds of cattle, its romantic and picturesque cowboys, its miners and its raw, wild little towns are gone forever. They had to go, to make way for the advance of civilization, but their passing makes many of us a little sad.

With them, has gone the cowboy of the old days, the most picturesque figure this nation ever produced -- the cowboy sitting so loosely and gracefully in his saddle, with his bronzed face and keen eyes, his bright handkerchief and big chaps. I hope the people of this country won't soon forget him, and I reckon they won't, for no one has been more splendidly sung in song and story and poetry.

I haven't room here to tell you much of the life we led. We worked hard, long hours. We slept under the stars. If I had a good horse and enough to eat, I was happy. And I learned there the simple philosophy that has never failed me and that will never fail any man -- to keep my mind and my body clean; not to eat too much; to sleep plenty in the open air; to keep myself physically fit always; to respect all women, shoot straight, play fair, care for the weak and overcome the evil.

I roamed all over Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Wyom- ing and the two Dakotas. I worked on the ranches, I drifted back to the 101 Ranch outfit and went out with their Wild West show, I did exhibition riding and shooting and won a few contests, and I was an officer of the law in this great new country in a lot of different places.

Tom Meets "T. R."

It was during those years that I met Teddy Roosevelt again -- in San Antonio. I was sitting around singing some cowboy songs, or I guess it'd be better to say I was trying to sing them. The Colonel came over when I was through and said, "I am Teddy Roosevelt. I enjoyed those songs a lot." And I said, "Pleased to meet you, Colonel. I am Tom Mix." Well, if he didn't remember me, and when he came out to Oklahoma once to do some hunting, he asked me to be his guide. That was the biggest honor I ever had, and I'll never forget the man -- the big man -- I saw in those days. He typified all that was best of the Great West that he loved. When he was inaugurated, I went up to Washington to see it. I was so proud I reckon I acted like I'd been made president myself. And he hadn't forgotten us and entertained me and my gang that I'd brought along.

It was early in those days, too, that I got married for the first time. She was the daughter of a rancher in Oklahoma. Young folks make some queer mistakes like that. We did. And later my wife got a divorce -- and the second time I was the luckiest man that ever lived, but I'll come to that later on.

Most of my really thrilling adventures came while I was acting as officer of the law, and because of that and before I tell you about a few of them, there's one point I'd like to make. Those were the days of the war against the cattle thieves, the rustlers, and I suppose to folks nowadays it looks like we handled them in a pretty summary fashion. Well, I'll admit we didn't mince matters any with those birds, and we handed them out justice in severe and large doses. But it was necessary, and much as some of us hated it, it had to be done.

I expect our courts were kind of crude, but we never forgot our point and we had to settle things quick or we'd have been wiped out ourselves. We were fighting for our very existence in those settler days, and fighting against great odds, because cattle stealing was profitable and because of the vast stretches of unpopulated country it was easy and so the rustlers formed great organizations, and what was almost civil war prevailed. Cattle thieving had to be put down or the west could not survive. Distances were tremendous. Population was mighty small. The rights of property had to be guarded above everything, if we were to advance.

After the first great years, cattle raising was a hard toilsome business and a man was ruined if he lost many of his animals. Often, too, a man's life depended upon his horse, and to steal a man's horse was to aim at his life, so that horse thieves also were treated to swift punishment.

The cattle rustlers menaced all that was good in the west and feeling against them ran high.

At different times, I was sheriff of Montgomery County, western Kansas, of Washington County, Oklahoma, and of Two Buttes, Colorado, city marshal of Dewey, Oklahoma, and special enforcement officer in the same state, and I was a marshal in Montana. New Mexico and Arizona and a Texas Ranger. I allied myself with what looked to me was right, and I went ahead and acted for what seemed best under trying circumstances.

T guess when some of us look back now we wonder how we ever did some of the things we did, but in those days danger was so ever-present a man never gave it a second thought. I got a reputation for being pretty fast with a gun, but I reckon they thought I was better than I was. I was pretty quick on getting the drop, but a man had to be or he didn't last long. I could break a piece of thread held horizontally at thirty paces, but there were plenty of other fellows could do that, too.

I guess the biggest feather in my cap in those days was when I captured the Shonts brothers single-handed. They were a couple of famous desperadoes and rustlers down in New Mexico. And one spring they shot a couple of ranchers and run off the herd of horses they were waiting to bring down and sell for the round-up. That was the last straw and there was $750 reward offered for their capture.

Now in those days, $750 was a lot of money, so there was a posse formed and we started up into the Capitan mountains, where they were hiding, after them. Well, every fellow had his own ideas, and was looking to get the glory and the reward for himself if he could, so several of us left the posse to follow trails of our own. I was pretty sure I knew where they'd headed for and I wanted to bring them in myself if I could.

As it happened, I was right, and the next day I came upon their camp hidden down in a canyon I remembered. I hid up on the mountain that night, watching the smoke from their dugout and trying to keep warm, because there was a little snow falling, and along about dawn I slipped down into the corral. I knew there were two of them, and a cook, and I knew I'd have to get the drop on one of them so I'd only have one to fight, because I never did see a cook that was any good at fighting. Both the Shonts boys had the reputation of being quick on the trigger and dead shots, so I wasn't taking any more chances than I could help.

On the Trail of Outlaws

I hid behind a little shack in the corral and pretty soon one of the brothers came out to water the stock. He looked around, but the snow had kept on falling and covered my trail down the hill, so he didn't see anything to make him suspicious. I waited until he came in the corral and then I told him to stick up his hands quick. Well, in spite of me having the drop on him. he reached for his gun and I knew him too well to take any chances, so I had to let him have it and I damaged him quite a little.

The shot brought the other brother running with his gun in his hand. The sun was just coming up, and on the sikw it made an awful glare, so that for a minute when he opened the door it blinded him completely. He had on a belt buckle that caught the light, and showed him up to me like he'd been a target. I shot low. and got him through the leg. It brought him down hard and his gun flew out of his hand. I collected their guns then and took them into the dugout.

Well, I couldn't move them, because of the way they were shot up, so I had to stay in their dugout with them for four days. I'd told the boys which way I was going, and I figured when I didn't show up they'd come looking for me. I didn't trust that cook, so I had to cook and nurse those men alone and I didn't dare to go to sleep. I knew they were desperate -- capture meant death -- and would take any chance. They were part of a gang, too, and their men might come before mine did. So I couldn't go to sleep, and being shut up in a dugout for four days with men who want to kill you, even if you have got the drop on them, isn't good for the nerves.

At the end of four days my posse arrived and we made out to take them back to town.

I got the seven fifty reward all right, along with a lot of compliments, but it didn't do me much good, because I found out after those two boys had gone further west a whole lot than New Mexico, that they had a mother. And she hadn't known they were bad, and they'd always taken good care of her. It left her pretty flat broke, besides breaking her heart, and being as I was responsible for one of her boys going and indirectly for the other, too, I made her a little present of the money. It wasn't anything, because I didn't need money in those days, anyway.

Shot by a Woman

That reminds me, that I got shot once by a woman. Can you beat that! It happened over in Arizona somewheres. There was a white man over there who had an Indian wife, and he'd been sticking up trains and stages a little too frequent and yet nobody had seemed to catch up with him. So one time after he'd stuck up a train and scared a lot of women into fits and shot the engineer, we made a concentrated hunt for him. It took me a couple of weeks to locate his hideout, which was a good one, and then I stayed up on the hill for three days with a pair of glasses, watching him. I wanted to learn his habits, and figure out how was the best way to come at him, because he was a dangerous customer and one of the greatest shots in the West.

I noticed he came out real early every morning to feed his horse. So one night I crept down -- it took me most all night, because I know men like that don't sleep very sound and if they saw a shadow they thought hadn't ought to be there they'd sure take a shot at it for luck -- and I hid in the manger.

When he came in, in the morning, I sure had the drop on him and there wasn't anything for him to do about it. I put him on a pony he had and tied his hands to the pommel of the saddle and his feet together under the horse and started him down the trail to get my own horse.

Well, I had sure overlooked his squaw complete, but in about two seconds I remembered her and I've never forgotten her since. She let go at me with a shotgun from the cabin, and it ripped a furrow along my back that looked like the Erie canal. It dropped me, stunned, and the horse with that bandit tied on him ran off down the trail as fast as he could go.

I lay there feeling sort of sick and scared to raise my head for fear this time her aim would be better, but everything was quiet and I decided she was through. I began working my way down the trail, and finally found my own horse. I rode on until I met a cowboy, and I deputized him and we started hunting this train robber. We found him, and he was pretty glad to be found. Nobody likes riding around on a horse he can't get off of and can't stop. We took him into town and I got my back washed up and everything was all right.

One little row I was in is pretty well remembered by old-time Westerners -- they call it the affair of the Lone Tree Ranch -- but it really didn't amount to so very much. At that time I was sheriff of Two Buttes, a Colorado town about 36 miles from the railroad and close to the Kansas border. It was right in the heart of the cattle country, and we were having a lot of trouble with organized rustlers.

It was funny how I got onto this man Blair, and how that battle actually started.

There was a man and his wife named Driscoll lived in Two Buttes, and one afternoon while Mrs. Driscoll was coming home, three Mexicans insulted her. Well, I didn't hear anything about it then and that evening while I was standing in the saloon talking to the proprietor, Driscoll came in. He never said a word, just walked right through and out the back door, into a little room behind the bar. There wasn't anybody around -- it was just about closing time. In a minute the barkeeper says to me, "Tom, there was a shot fired in that back room." I says, "Well, if there was they must have used a cap pistol, because I didn't hear it."

Just then the door swung open and Driscoll came back in. He looked kind of white and had his hand held close to him and I saw a little blood on it, but he didn't say anything and I thought he'd just got shot in the hand and wasn't hurt bad. I said, "Say, what's going on in there?" He says, "Three Mexicans insulted my wife and I found out they were in there, but -- they got away." Well, I didn't stop to listen. I started into that back room and out through the window, looking for any greaser that had insulted a white woman.

One of them I caught up the road aways, and I dropped him with a bullet in his ankle so he couldn't run. But it was an awful dark night, and there were barbed wire fences everywhere and the other two got away. I took this one Mexican back into the saloon, and there I found Driscoll had been shot through the stomach and was dying. I got the lights pulled down quick and stuck the Mexican under there so Driscoll could see him, and he identified him all right, and told me who the others were. I says to him, "Driscoll, why didn't you come and tell me about this, instead of taking the law in your own hands?" But he just looked at me, and I understood. It was his wife. He died that night.

As I came out of the saloon, a fellow came up and said he'd seen a Mexican hiding in a big mortar mixer down the street. We looked, but he was gone, but the next day I saw a Mexican riding out of town and he had mortar on his shoes, so I brought him back.

Well, I was busy with the trials and hangings for a couple of weeks, I had to testify and all, and couldn't get started out after the third murderer. When I did, strangely enough, it led me right into the biggest gang of cattle thieves that I was ever mixed up with. I found out that this Mexican was pretty smart and was a sort of lieutenant for a man named Blair.

Among Cattle Thieves

Now Blair owned the Lone Tree Ranch, and I'd had my eye on him and it for some time. It was a bum ranch that had been practically abandoned before he took hold of it, because of its location. But it was near the borders of two other states. This man Blair was sus- pected of being the head of a lot of rustlers, and a sort of fence for the cattle thieves. I was sure all the stock he had was stolen, but he was an oily customer and none too easy to trap with the goods. He was a dangerous man to handle, and he had his gang pretty well organized as I soon found out.

I was pretty sure he was driving four or five steer off at a time, from across the state line, butchering them right on the Lone Tree Ranch, and selling the meat at outrageous prices to the big railroad grading camp down the road, and finally one day when I was trailing this Mexican that had shot Driscoll. I got evidence that satisfied me and that I reckoned would satisfy any Colorado jury that ever sat.

I rode back into town that night looking for some of my deputies to start out, because I wanted to move fast. But it just happened that there wasn't a soul I could lay my hands on. They were off on other jobs. I know this Mexican suspected what I'd got, and if he got to Blair in time, they'd cither get away or they'd barricade themselves in the ranch so it would mean a lot of people would get hurt when we tried to take him. So I decided the best thing to do was to ride over quick and quiet and try to take Blair myself, and take a chance on rounding up the others afterwards.

I started off at dawn on my horse Old Blue -- he was the most wonderful horse that ever lived and I loved him like a brother -- crossed east. It was a cold, bright February morning, and it was awful rough country. There wasn't much use trying to make time on those trails, but Old Blue knew I was in a hurry and he did his best. Along about noon I got a peek at the big old pine standing up all by itself against the blue sky -- that's where the ranch got it's name.

I slowed up and looked around cautious, but the place seemed deserted. I rode up as casual as I knew how and knocked on the door of the ranch house with my six-shooter. No- body answered and I got suspicious and pretty sore, for fear they'd beat me to it and got away. I knew Blair was one of the worst men and the biggest influences for evil in the country and I wanted to take him.

As I came around the corner of the house to the side that faced the barns and corrals, some'.hing hit me like an express train and knocked me off my horse. As a matter of fact, there were fourteen slugs of buck shot in me, and they all hit me right then.

Well, I was sure shocked and enraged, not only because it hurt like blazes, but to think I'd ridden into it, like some tenderfoot, and let those low-lived cattle thieves plug me that- away. It sure riled me worse than I'd ever been riled before in my life.

It happened that when I'd fallen off Old Blue I held onto my shot gun -- had that much sense left anyways. And while I lay there on the ground with it under me, cussing myself, I looked up through Old Blue's legs and saw something moving cautiously in the corral. I didn't know what it was, but I reckoned it must be evil or it wouldn't be around here, so I moved my gun under my stomach and shot. Well, it seems I got old man Blair right there and then. He thought he'd killed me when he saw me fall and was starting over keeping me covered when I fired. He had cashed in his whole stack of chips right then.

Tom Does Some Shooting

The two Mexicans ran into a kind of tool shed and barricaded themselves and I got up and started for it, shooting everything I had for all I was worth right at them. I shot so fast and so hard I made a kind of screen for myself I guess. I was plumb crazy by that time anyway. That buckshot was driving me loco and I was convinced that one of those men was the Mexican I wanted.

I kicked the door in shooting all the time, and then I jumped in sideways, quick, so they couldn't get me while I was in the light They both shot, one took some of my hair off and the other went through my left side.

I think it must have dazed me, for a second. Because I just stood there -- it was very dark -- thinking how sorry I was for those two poor ignorant souls. Low and ornery as they were, I felt sorry because I knew wrong never paid, and even if they killed me now. someone else would kill them later, and maybe thev'd never know any better.

And then, like a flashed warning, I saw in the man's eyes that he had located me and was going to shoot again. I must have moved pretty quick. One of them had climbed up onto a rafter, and I let him have it from my six-shooter just as the other guy fired. The man on the rafters fell and spoiled his partner's aim, and as they went down I shot again.

I got on my horse and rode the six miles over to the grading camp -- Old Blue doing most of the work and going as easy as he could because he knew there was something mighty wrong with me. We got there all right, and they took care of me, and finally shipped me up to Denver where they dug the lead out of me and in a year I was as good as new, though there were plenty of times in there when nobody would have offered you a white chip for my next breath. I was too tough to be killed by cattle thieves.

But maybe that was one of the things that started my mind to working on the trail that eventually led me into motion pictures -- a sort of desire to settle down.

(end of second installment)

---

AT the Los Angeles opening of "Merton of the Movies" a group of titled English vis- itors were watching the screen celebrities arrive, with a good deal of interest.

It was a typical movie opening, with a great many stars present, and after she had seen forty or fifty of them parade to their seats, one of the English ladies said breathlessly, "There doesn't seem to be anything but motion picture stars. Isn't it amazing?"

Just then a man came down the aisle. The lady regarded him with interest. He was tall, and very dark, his black hair showing just a few distinguished threads of silver. He carried himself with an air, and his evening clothes were cut in most elegant fashion, but just suffi- ciently different from those about him to make him stand out from the crowd.

"Now there," said the lady, "is someone who isn't a movie star. That's the first person I've seen that made me think we might be at home in London, or at the opera in Paris. He looks rather like — " and she mentioned a certain grand duke, "I wonder who he is? Probably a diplomat or one of their Californian million- aires— they used to be dons, didn't they?"

She continued to wonder who the distinguished looking gentleman could possibly be, until finally I took pity on her and told her.

It was Tom Mix.

---

My Life Story by Tom Mix -- February 10, 2025

Photoplay, February, 1925

Not much of Tom's life story is true, but it is all entertaining.

MY LIFE STORY

By Tom Mix

Tom Mix is not only one of the most popular stars, and justly so, but he is considered the best director of Western pictures in the business. Then, too, it was he who directed the famous chariot race in "The Queen of Sheba," which has never been surpassed.

He has lived the life he portrays in his pictures, and while he modestly discounts himself as an author, he need not do so. Some college professor might have written it in more flowery language, but no one could tell it more interestingly than Tom has done.

Tom Mix's story is much more than a mere personal record. It is an inspiring narrative of self-reliant manhood -- of a courageous chap who has always stood firmly on his own strong legs.

FRIENDS, I do not pretend to be an author. I have always believed in letting every man rope on his own range and I am not what my fellow cowboys in the old days used to call a "literary gent." Therefore, in putting down these facts about my life, I hope you will take into consideration that I don't aim to adorn the tale with any gems of language. I'll just try to set it down like you and I were sitting around the campfire, and I was spinning a yarn for you.

Such educational advantages as I have hooked up with have been mostly in the school of experience, as you might say, but I was considerably too busy as a youth to spend much time in schoolhouses.

It's funny, too, when you set down and take pen in hand to unveil your past as far back as you retain any impressions at all, what fool things a man'll remember. My life has been pretty full of action, one way and another. I have been a cowboy, and a soldier, a scout and a sheriff and a U. S. marshal, a Texas Ranger, and an enforcement officer, and in childhood I was a swipe and a lumberjack and a football player and a bicycle racer. And I find it's hard to pin down some right important fact and maybe a whole sequence of events will have departed complete, while all sorts of trivial and unimportant ideas keep popping up, making you laugh and cry right unexpected. If I had known I was ever to be called upon to write my life story, I reckon I'd have kept one of these diaries, but usually things were moving too fast for any such endeavor, even if I had considered it, which I never did.

Photoplay, February, 1925

Anyway, my plum first recollection is of my mother using a shotgun in an argument with a mountain lion. I guess I must have been about two and a half or three years old when that little fracas took place. And I can recall, all right, how I began my career in the face of danger, because when mother opened up the crack in that window and began welcoming those cats with a few rounds of buckshot, I got right down on my little stomach and crawled under the bed. I reckon you could rightly call it a bed, though it was used for a couch, too. in the day time. But it had one of those ruffles hung around it, and I felt safer there, somehow, and I could peek out and watch mother squint along the gun barrel, and then pull the trigger. Every time the gun would go off, I'd hide my face and then when it was quiet, I'd peek out again.

I don't mind relating this because I was pretty young at the time and perhaps later happenings will wipe the stain off my name. But there's one funny thing come out of that. A cat animal knows I am just his natural enemy. I can't get along with cats, not any way at all. Don't make any difference whether they're big or little, either. Even house cats that belong to my wife's friends get up and leave the room when I come in. And when I worked with the old Selig company and had to be around the lions and tigers, we both knew right off the bat that we weren't going to be friendly.

I was born in that log cabin in Texas, in 1879. It was a mighty lonely spot, up north of El Paso, and in those early days our neighbors were a long ride away. My father built that cabin with his own hands, and it was snug, and weather-tight, but it was as small and primitive as any pioneer cabin ever was. Anyways, I got the right start in life, because I've heard a lot of times since that being born in a log cabin is one of the best ways to cinch success later on in life. It's now regarded as a heap more lucky than being born with a gold spoon in your mouth. A lot of men would have laid the scene of their entrance into this sphere in a log cabin if they'd been writing their own scenario.

Father was off on the range most of the time, either looking after our stock or riding herd for the other ranchers or working for them, and my mother and I and my sister, and my half-brother and his sister, lived alone in that cabin. We were snowed in a lot of the winter, at least we had to dig paths wherever we wanted to go, but in the summer we had the run of all the hills and prairies for miles around. There was plenty of game around there and plenty of excitement, too, because those were sure enough pioneer days. It was a long ride into town, and the town itself was typical of the early West. It was a long ride to anywhere, for that matter.

My mother was part Scotch and part Cherokee Indian. Her grandfather lived on the White Eagle Reserve and he must have been a marvellous old buck in his way. He was looked up to by everyone on the Reserve as a grand type of our redskin Americans, one of the greatest races that ever inhabited the face of the earth. More than that, he must have been an intelligent and educated man, because he translated the Bible into the Osage language, which stacks up as a job that took some doing. Most folks feel they've done their duty if they get to know the Bible in English, let alone trying to put it into Osage, which is a mighty difficult language. I learned to speak four Indian dialects during my life in the West, and Osage is one of the hardest.

I am proud of that great-grandfather of mine. He represented all that was best of that glorious race of outdoor braves upon whom we now may all look with admiration and pity.

My Dad was mostly Irish and now that I stop to think of it, looks to me like I started life with considerable of what you might term inherited pepper -- Irish, Scotch and Cherokee. I suppose that's responsible for the way I was always looking for a war, or a new territory that was opening up, or something like that. Adventure was the thing that was drilled into every boy's head in those early days in Texas and the border region was always alive with gunplay and private feuds and law and order hadn't been established to any great extent.

My Dad was once a captain in the 7th U. S. Cavalry and he was pretty well known in Texas in the early days as a man of parts. Everybody knew him and respected him. That's why when there was some talk of me being adopted by Buffalo Bill and taking the name of Cody, I couldn't quite see it. I thought a lot of Buffalo Bill and he was all right, but I was born with the name of Mix and I've got every reason to be proud of it. We've had something to do with making this country of ours. We were pioneers and endured the hardships and fought the battles against odds that every pioneer family fights. The name Mix stood for square-shooting and fearlessness in Texas when Texas was pretty rough and ready, and so, I'm satisfied to die as I was born -- plain Tom Mix.

It was sometime while I was living in that log cabin in Texas that I learned to ride and rope. But I've got to admit I can't just remember how nor when nor any of the circumstances surrounding this part of my education. My mother says I could stick on a horse considerable before I could navigate safely on my own pins, so I guess I got saddle broke right early. I can only tell you this -- I can't recollect any time when I couldn't ride and a horse has always been intimately associated with my thoughts of childhood. A horse to me, as a kid, was a necessity, like your own legs. I never could conceive life without horses. It was a long ride to town and I used to have to make it when I wasn't but five or six, to bring stuff from the store for mother, and I always felt perfectly safe as long as there was a horse under me. I reckon if I'd been alone I'd have been scared half to death.

I can still see the big room of our cabin, rough finished inside. About half the room was taken up by the big stove, and one little thing about that stove comes back to me and I shouldn't wonder if -- like the wild cats -- it left its impress on me and that's maybe why I've never used tobacco. I had an uncle that wasn't accounted to be a very respectable citizen. Most every family's got one of those blots on its escutcheon, I've noticed. Well, the game law was out on uncle most all the time, and mother didn't have any too friendly a feeling for this old coyote, but she was awfully loyal to her folks, and she used to let him come in off the range and sit in front of the big stove and warm up. The snow'd be packed up tight outside the cabin and the fire'd be blazing away, and every few minutes uncle would open the door and spit tobacco juice on that bed of red hot coals. He wouldn't do another thing all day, and it fascinated me so I'd creep closer and closer to watch him. But it sickened me of tobacco.

We kids ran pretty wild in the summer and we had all kinds of exciting adventures. I remember one time my sister and I -- we were awfully good pals -- were playing busting bronchos in the corral and I saw a big black thing hanging on the corral fence. The pony I was busting had been acting up and I thought this was a long, black whip and would be exactly what I needed to throw a scare into him, so I went over and grabbed it. Just then I heard a shriek from my mother and she came prancing in there like a wild woman and hit this thing with an ax. Then I discovered it was the biggest black snake you ever saw. Sure did look enough like the whip they called a blacksnake to fool me. We chopped him in half and then watched and waited for the sun to go down, because we knew if we didn't watch him close until after sundown he'd join himself together again. Then we buried him.

When I was about seven or eight, the first circus come to El Paso, and we rode over to see it. It was Buffalo Bill's, and my goodness, I don't reckon I'll ever get such a thrill again, no matter what happens to me. I was crazy about the wild west show, of course. They had a lot of the best broncho busters and I knew them all by name and they were my heroes, just like Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson are heroes to kids nowadays. But what got me most was a knife-throwing act they had there. I'd never seen anything just like it before and the way the man flipped those knives fascinated me. I could have watched him all night. He had a lady in red silk tights that stood up against the wall and he'd surround her with knives, not missing her more than an eighth of an inch anywhere.

Young Tom Decides to Be a

Knife-Thrower

I decided right then and there I'd been mistaken in my calling. I didn't want to be a cowboy. I wanted to be a knife-thrower in a circus. And one day my father came home and found my sister tied to the cellar door and me practicing knife throwing on her. I had a couple of jack knives and a butcher knife I'd swiped from the kitchen and I wasn't paying any attention at all to the yelling my sister was doing when I'd sling one of these knives and just miss her right eyebrow. Well, father was pretty emphatic in exhibiting his disapproval of my conduct, so I had to abandon my career as a knife-thrower. That was one of the few times father ever laid me cold, but thinking back I can't see my way clear to blame him much.

When I was eight, we moved up to Pennsylvania. Dad had a good job offered him up there, caring for the stock in some lumber and construction work. We lived in a regular house and I went to school for the first time. But school didn't appeal much to my ideas about life. Besides, there was just as much work to do in Pennsylvania as there'd been in Texas. When I come home from school, I'd start throwing down hay for the mules and horses and tending them generally. I had some stable work to do, but I felt pretty much at home because it was around horses. They had some real thoroughbreds, too, that belonged to the man that owned the place and my heart was won by them without wasting any time at all. Every minute I had a chance I made trail to the thoroughbred barn, and it was a big day for me when I got to be a swipe and had wages of fifty cents a week for doing it.

A lot of motion picture stars have started their careers at pretty low wages, but I reckon I get the booby prize with fifty cents a week. But then I was only nine. But don't get the idea that that was pocket money. I worked as hard for it as a stoker.

It was around that time that I got into a real scrape. I was pretty proud of what I could do with a rope. Pennsylvania was quite a place, but the boys around there hadn't had my advantages in education, the way I looked at it, and I daresay I was a little cocky when it come to showing them the stunts I could do with a rope. But I discovered to my amazement that ropes weren't the common thing in Pennsylvania they had been down Texas way. Rope was considered something to tie things up with, or lead horses around by. and that was all. Everybody didn't have lariat, the way I'd been accustomed to think they should. So I started out making me a collection of ropes, so's I'd be safe. And the best rope I saw around there was the one on the flag on top of the ball park. Seemed to me it was wasted up there and so I climbed up on the roof of the grandstand and nearly broke my neck getting it down. There was quite a riot when the folks discovered it was gone and Dad's eagle eye lighted on it right away, where I had hidden it away in a stall under some hay. I had to give it back, all right, and besides that, Dad sure took a lot of elbow grease explaining to me how it was bad form and bad manners to go climbing roofs taking what didn't belong to you.

Tom Yearns for Texas

Pennsylvania was all right, I guess, but I always had a hankering for Texas, all the time I was there. The West was in my blood. It was the life I loved and was always to love best, the life to which my whole work has been dedicated. So, as soon as I was old enough, I started back to Texas. I'd saved up some money from my fifty cent pieces and what other money I could earn and so when I was fifteen I was back on the range, working as a regular cowboy and getting along fine. I was pretty young but just the same I was a good hand and folks were more than willing to hire me.

Photoplay, February, 1925

The next months of my life were wonderful. I've never forgotten them. I was happy as only a boy can be happy. I had no responsibilities and all the things I loved best. And those were the days when the West was the real West. A cowboy was a right romantic figure in those days. Guns were just as much part of a man's equipment as his shoes, and his lariat was as important to his wardrobe as his toothbrush is today.

The ranches were enormous places, big as a lot of these European principalities where they have kings and queens, and the herds were mighty herds and the round-ups were stupendous affairs never to be forgotten. They had a majesty, and a danger, and a thrill all their own. We had some of the finest horses down there that any man ever put a leg over. There was plenty of danger, too, and I was a good shot and learned to take care of myself, even if I was the youngest cowboy on the Texas ranges. I slept in my blankets by the camp fire, under the bright Texas stars. I rode miles every day, on one of the best ponies that ever wore a saddle. I got into a little disagreement with a couple of Mexicans and came out on top. I measured myself man to man against my fellows, and sometimes I won and sometimes I lost, and the code of the West and of the ranges was that you must be a good loser and a good winner both. Altogether, those days stand out in my memory as being rare and fine.

But my folks got anxious to see me again, and I began anyway to think about seeing something of the world beside Texas, even if that was the best spot on the globe. When I was young I had the wanderlust some, I reckon. A man ought to travel around some, and get an idea what a big place the world is and then there isn't much chance of him getting any exalted idea of his own importance. So I thought I'd go and make my folks a little visit, though as a matter of fact I wasn't ever home to live with my folks after I went back to Texas that first time. I always took care of myself and earned my own bread from the time I left Pennsylvania on.

I went to work in a foundry when I got back there, and that was hard work. I was what was called a pincove boy and I had to go round with my wheelbarrow, supplying the men with pincoves to put in the red hot molds when they needed them. And, believe me, they needed them fast and frequent. Those foundry workers were what you might term rough and ready customers, too. They were a fine set of men, but I couldn't exactly recommend them for delicacy of speech or anything like that. When they started to bellow for the pincove boy was like a lot of pirates yelling for the cabin boy. But it was good discipline. It made a man out of me; I guess. And it taught me a right good lesson that has stood me well many a time since. And that's how far a little joke and a smile and amiable ways will go with folks. I was a good-natured kid, husky and well-set-up, too, and life was a lot of fun to me. So I nearly always could think up something to say that'd make 'em laugh and they liked me and my work was easier as I went along.

It was while I was there that I first played football. We had a team at the foundry, and I got to be regarded as a fairly good player. It's the game I like best -- and it's sort of a regret to me a man can't play football by way of recreation afternoons, the way they play golf and tennis and such fiddling games as that. Funny, Andy Smith, who is now the coach for the California Bears that hold the Western football championship and have held it for four years, was on that team with me. He was pretty good, too, having some intelligence about the matter and depending on his head as well as his feet to get him down the field. Now he's regarded by experts as one of the biggest authorities in the game and whenever he comes to Los Angeles with his wonder teams, he comes out to my ranch and we ramble along talking about old times. I played end, then, because being still in my 'teens I was pretty light. Later, I developed into a half, and when I was in the artillery in the army and played on the championship army team in 1901, I got to be a fullback. That's the position I liked best.

Off for the War

Now it was just about here that the Spanish-American war broke out, and that was the biggest thing that had ever happened in my life. I don't suppose I'd been praying for a war, exactly, but deep down somewhere I'd surely been estimating that a war would be a heap of fun and excitement.

I was working as a lumberjack when this come off, cutting lumber up in the Pennsyl-vania forests. And it's my private opinion that there isn't anyone in these here United States recalls the day of April 25th, 1898, any better than I do. I was way up on top of a mountain, swinging my ax and plum deaf and dumb to everything around me, calculating on what I'd do next in life and where I'd better go to find me a little excitement. Up comes the little tram car that brings us our news and supplies. After if stops, I hear the men give a big yell and commence dancing around, and first thing I know somebody hollers over to me, "Hi, Tom, America's declared war on Spain and the President has issued a call for volunteers."

It must have dazed me, being as I wasn't expecting anything like that, for I didn't exactly keep up with international questions in those days, and I just stood there like a plumb idiot, and pretty soon the little tram car turned around and went back. That woke me up. America was going to war with Spain. That meant we would send troops to Cuba. It meant -- and right there in my thoughts I took my ax and threw it as far as I could, and I started running down that mountain like a pack of coyotes was after me.

The Navy Decides it Doesn't

Want Tom

When I got to the little town that had been our lumber headquarters, I started figuring what I'd better do and pretty soon I come to the conclusion that the best thing for me to do was to enlist in the navy. Goodness knows why a man like me that hadn't ever seen the ocean, besides being fairly expert and familiar with horses and guns like I was, should have picked the navy. But it was something I'd never done and besides it seemed to me the navy was pretty apt to be sent over there and get in the excitement. I knew about the Maine, and that sounded to me like where the real scrapping was going to be was in the navy.

The big difficulty that confronted me then was that I didn't have any money. The only thing I had any legal ropes on was a bicycle and all my savings had gone into that. You see, bicycle racing had become quite the thing and it was considered to be a sport that a man could compete at and gain himself quite a lot of glory. In those days, anything like that appealed a lot to me, and so I'd been indulging therein some frequent. I had grown to be estimated as one of the best bicycle riders in that neck of the woods and I'd won quite a few races. Being some set up over these aforementioned victories, I'd squandered all my pay on a racing bicycle. I was buying it on the weekly installment plan, so I went to the man and asked him if I could sell my share of it for enough to get me to Philadelphia. That's where the navy headquarters were that I wanted to reach. He said all right, so I sold him back the bike.

And then, by gosh, they wouldn't let me enlist in the navy.

I pretty near landed in jail trying to convince those officers they were wrong. I was pretty argumentative, one way and another, being that I had always been able to back up my differences of opinion with my gun or my fist, and I was all for fighting the whole navy right there and then. It seemed that they didn't need any more people in the navy that had never been to sea before. I don't even remember how I got on board, but I recall distinctly that I was standing up fighting it out with a lot of officers on a big warship and they had enough gold braid on them to decorate a band, so they must have been influential.

Anyway, they were influential enough to keep me out of the navy.

I was awfully sore and disappointed. But I wasn't discouraged. I was plenty filled up with determination that I was going to be in that war somehow. If they wouldn't have me in the navy, maybe the army wasn't so particular. President McKinley was calling for volunteers, all right, but the thing that was worrying me quite a bit was getting into a regiment where I'd see some active service. I wasn't looking any to get stuck somewhere and carry a musket on my shoulder on parade grounds, or play chambermaid to a lot of army mules while the other boys were hunting the Spaniards in Cuba.

I didn't have but five or six dollars left, but I was willing to gamble my last chip that the best thing to do when things are a little scrambled and don't seem to be going your way, is to go to headquarters and talk to the boss. So I started for Washington to interview the adjutant general. I'd made up my mind that he'd know where the fighting was going to be pulled off and if I could get him to share that information with me I'd know where I ought to try to be.

As it turned out, the adjutant general was right sympathetic and when I told him the experience I'd had with horses and guns, and how I'd lived in the border country and knew Spanish well, and my father had been an officer in the cavalry, he sent me right down to see Captain Grimes. He said his battery of artillery was sure to see service at once, and if there was a vacancy left and I could get Captain Grimes to take me, I'd see all the fighting I wanted.

Tom Gets into the Artillery

I got it and it wasn't long till I was a full-fledged member of Captain Grimes' battery. I think if I hadn't been taken in there, I'd have busted.

We went to Tampa. Florida, on the 21st of June, sailed at once for Cuba, and saw our first fighting in the battle of Guaymas. soon after we landed. We were with the Rough Riders at Cristabel Hill, where things were pretty hot and heavy for a while. And then, because of my knowledge of the language, I became a scout, and was made courier to General Chaffee who had known my father well in the old days.

Being a scout and a courier was great sport and was pretty near enough action to suit even me. The island was a tough place to get around and I had a lot of little skirmishes one way and another. I can't tell you a lot of detail about those months of fire and fight. It all blends into one in my mind. But it was great. It was pretty much hand to hand fighting, raiding nests of Spaniards that were hidden in all sorts of impossible places. We fought hard and the climate was hell, and the living conditions were terrible, but nobody cared. We'd come out to do a job and we were doing it.

From it there shines in my memory the thought of a man I only saw once during the service, but that once at Cristabel Hill was enough to stamp him forever upon my thought as my idol and hero -- Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.

It was a great experience and great training for any man.

After the Spaniards had surrendered in July, I was picked with the scouts who were sent out to bring in a lot of promiscuous Spanish sharpshooters that didn't seem to have got word that the war was over. They were always popping folks from behind things along the hill roads and stirring up considerable trouble and inconvenience for everybody. So we started out to explain to them that it was all over and they could come in and be good.

I remember I was going up a hill looking around to see if anything was likely to happen and I decided I'd never seen such a peaceful, quiet-looking place in my life. And just then a shot came right at me from a mango tree.

A Close Call from a Spanish

Bullet

The shot wasn't a bit peaceful, and it blew a good-sized hole in my sleeve, but I couldn't see a thing. No man likes to have something shooting at him that he can't see to shoot back at, but all I could do was to open up on that mango tree on general principles. Well, we had a lively little argument for a few minutes, and he poked his head out like a turtle, and I started to yell at the fool not to be silly, the war was over. I had just got my mouth open to holler when he fired his last bullet at me and got me in the roof of the mouth.

I've always been grateful that bullet was going plenty fast, because it came out the back of my neck and lit somewhere on the Cuban landscape, which was a better place for it than hatching trouble in my head.

I toppled over and some of the other scouts ran up and settled the bird in the mango tree and carried me down to camp. They took me to the hospital at Santiago and I was laid up there better than a month, and that being the first time I'd ever spent anything but the night in bed I nearly went plumb loco. I still have the scars from that sharpshooter's final argument and there are just a few words I can't quite say on account of something it did to my tongue. I don't reckon anyone else would spot it. because there are only six or eight of them, but when I start to use one. I have to rope something else out of my vocabulary pretty quick.

Well, I got back to the States in September and I thought I was a grown man sure enough, having been to war and not done so badly for myself, besides being mentioned a couple of times and getting wounded.

I tried to settle down then, but I couldn't. Soldiering had got into my blood. Everything else seemed so almighty tame and quiet to me after what I'd seen in Cuba. And I liked the companionship of the men. It was the only life I'd struck since I left Texas that suited me and it seemed to me like it was a good chance to get a look at some more of the world.

Photoplay, February, 1925

So I hadn't been mustered out of service many months when I joined up with the provisional army again in the artillery, for service in the Philippines and started back across the water, not knowing, however, that I was going to see some of the most exciting and desperate warfare the world has ever known in the Boxer Rising in China before my return to United Stales soil.

[ END OF THE FIRST INSTALLMENT ]

Davenport Daily Times, 21-February-1925