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26
u/tn
February, 1931
"Yup", said the stars. Porter intrc duced them to the cowboy and re' marked with a smile, "You've prob' ably seen these people in the movies."
The cowhand peered at Cooper and Pallette, then shifted his tobacco from one cheek to another as he thought it over.
"Nope," he drawled finally. "Never did." He shifted the tobacco back again and thought some more. "Don't go t' many movies. Went t' one last year. Two th' year before. Didn't see you fellers in any o' them."
DOWN through the years Porters has been a happy hunting ground for Indians, too. The firm's roster of regular mail order customers includes such intriguing names as Aaron Skunk Cap, Jeffery Dull Knife, Earlwin Deer-With-Horns, Vincent Black Dog and the On-The-Tree brothers of South Dakota — Albert and Elmer.
In the early days, many of the reservation Indians who came in to Porters could speak no English. They made known their desires by sign language.
Even today the Indian has his own characteristic, unhurried way of doing business. He stands around, sometimes for an hour or so, trying to make up his mind. He goes out of the store and comes back in. When he finally decides to buy, he turns his back to pull out his money and count it; so the salesman won't see how much he has. And he keeps his eyes glued coldly on the pneumatic tube until it swishes back with his change.
The saddle department is the principal object of fascination for Indians — and white men, too, for that matter. Porters displays its saddles on special
wooden stands, resembling saw horses. They're set at just the right height so that a customer can mount for a sort of test ride and jiggle up and down and back and forth, to the imaginary rhythm of a horse in motion. After all, a saddle has to fit, just like a pair of pants.
Salesmen in the saddle department long ago discovered that a cowboy trying out a saddle in the store invari' ably mounts the saw horse from the left side, as he would mount a fleshand-blood horse. Indian customers mount from the right. A dude is liable as not to slither on from the back end.
Porters makes its own saddles. Expert leather workers turn out more than 2,000 fine saddles every year, most of them custom-built to the customers' specifications. It isn't uncommon to find a cowboy hunched over a workman's bench, kibitzing every step of the process to make certain that the saddle he ordered comes out exactly the way he wanted it.
A good average Porter saddle costs about $165. Rather often, though, the firm gets an order for a triple-superspecial, usually for show purposes and frequently costing far more than the horse it's to be ridden on.
One of the most expensive saddles Porters ever turned out was one specially made a year or so ago for Fowler McCormick, chairman of the board of International Harvester Co., with lavish silver trimming and corner plates inlaid with turquoise. It set McCormick back nearly $5,000.
Sometimes Porters' saddle customers show an unconventional turn of mind. A woman asked for a saddle with a