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could watch the rest of the rides. Even though her knee hurt terribly, she was glad she had done it, because she ended up winning “day money” with that ride.
    â€œI really didn’t want to ride anymore,” she confessed later, “but there I was, all alone in a foreign country and no money to get home until I earned it.”
    So Marie came back later for more trick riding. “That was the toughest for me. Every once in awhile my knee would slip out of joint,” and when she stepped off her horse afterward, she felt it go again.
    â€œI went to a doctor to have it reset. He told me to lay off, but I had two days to rest, so I rode again. I had to have help saddling and mounting and they had to carry me from the stadium, but any prize money I might be able to get looked powerfully good to me,” she wrote. “And for just a shilling a day I got transported to and from the arena in a wheelchair. Felt like a celebrity. That beat walking any day.”
    Because of that dislocation, she suffered further falls and injuries. The pain became so bad that sleeping was nearly impossible. Marie said, “I laid awake at night feverish in my hotel and for hours stared at the reflection of the street lamps that shone on the wall. And I wondered if I would be all right by the next afternoon’s performance.”
    Without the help of her landlady, she was unable to dress herself. When the pain became too severe, she soaked in the bathtub, and one morning she awakened still in the tub.
    Other cowgirls were injured too, Marie wrote, but after being treated they would get right back on and ride again. A newspaper article told of an injury to Anita Studnick, “a cowgirl who specialized in encounters with bucking horses, was carried the length of the arena by her vicious mount and thrown over his head. The injury was a broken collar bone.”
    Another rider, who had a horse fall on her and wrenched her neck in a relay race, received a letter from a woman who wrote she was sorry it had not broken her neck and killed her. The woman lambasted the cowgirl and all her “barbarian friends” who were so cruel to the animals.
    In the course of events, a couple of steers broke legs and had to be shot. The Animal Protective League put out a pamphlet denouncing rodeo as “too dangerous.” Tex Austin and the riders responsible for the injuries were arrested.

    There was a trial, the courtroom was packed, and it was front-page news every day. The case was dismissed, with the judge ruling that rodeo was not a form of cruelty to animals but all a part of working Western life, and if an animal was injured, it was quickly and humanely put out of pain.
    â€œOf course, fox hunting did not look cruel to the Lords,” Marie commented.
    One of the London newspapers wrote, “When asked if rodeos were cruel, American trick rider Tad Lucas answered, ‘Yes! But only for the cowboys and cowgirls.’”

    But most of the English people were supportive of the performers and sent Marie letters, some addressed “To the Lame Cowgirl,” congratulating her on her rides and her spunk. Others swarmed around her asking for autographs, and some offered to pay her bus or train fare while the troupe traveled.
    Marie received a letter from a Dr. Gibson of Aldershot, who said he had relatives in America and wondered if Marie might be a relative of his brother John in Alberta. “I was,” she wrote. “I had married his son.”
    Dr. Gibson came to meet her and they “had a wonderful time” getting acquainted. He told Marie he didn’t want anyone with the name Gibson to be alone and without care for her injuries.
    The performers were nearly mobbed when they went out onto the streets of London. Eager crowds followed them, asking for autographs. One boy, about age ten, walked twenty-five miles to see the performance. He approached one of the men. “Please, Cowboy, I would love