When I was a child in Oklahoma, cowboys were the super heroes of the day. Pretending to be the likes of Wyatt Earp, Matt Dillon, and Roy Rogers was my favorite pastime. I had a leather vest with leather fringe and a Stetson-like hat made of woven straw, and I galloped about the yard as if riding a horse, saying giddyup and whoa at the appropriate times.

Fifty years before that — back in 1909 — in the same town where I lived, there was a kid who didn’t have to pretend. His name was Temple Abernathy. He was a real cowboy. He had a Stetson hat and a rope, and was an excellent horseman. He was five years old.

Temple had a nine-year-old brother named Louis, whom everyone called Bud. Following the death of their mother, Temple and Bud, along with their sisters and their father, Jack, all moved from their ranch in southwestern Oklahoma up to Guthrie, where Jack was to serve as a federal marshal.

In the 1950s, I’d never heard of Temple and Bud Abernathy. But back in 1909, everyone in America knew their names. Teddy Roosevelt admired them. Parades were held in their honor. Newspapers ran stories about them. People turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of these two young cowboys. They were the most famous kids in the United States.

This notoriety was because of something amazing they’d done: they had ridden their horses from Guthrie, Oklahoma to Santa Fe, New Mexico and back — a trip of 1,300 miles — alone.

Why would their father allow a nine-year-old and a five-year-old to go unsupervised and unprotected on such a long ride through wild country? Because he, himself, had had many adventures as a boy, and his sons, hankering for adventures of their own, had presented him with a plan, including routes marked on maps.

As a test, he had them ride from Guthrie down to the family ranch in Frederick, Oklahoma. If they made that 150-mile trip okay and in good time, he’d allow them to head to Santa Fe. They passed the test, so he gave them a note stating they were not runaways, opened a checking account for them with $100 in it, and sent them on their way.

Following that trip, the Abernathy boys were hungry for more. The next year they rode horses from Oklahoma to New York City to see Teddy Roosevelt, then shipped their horses home by train and drove themselves back in a car. Bud was ten and Temple, six. The year after that, they rode horseback all the way across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

There are several excellent books about their journeys. One, entitled The Ride of the Abernathy Boys, by Miles Abernathy [an uncle, I think], was published in 1911 and can be found online for free. Another is called Bud and Me and was written by Alta Abernathy, Temple’s wife.

As a child, I admired TV cowboys. Today, that admiration rests on two young real-life adventurers.