Memories of Old Montana

CHAPTER VII
IN THE JUDITH BASIN COUNTRY OF MONTANA

When I was a kid, an old Indian told me a story about the badger and coyote and said they hunted together as partners. I had a very good chance to test that story when I was living on Milk River, as the badger and coyote were very plentiful. I have watched them travel together all right—but came to the conclusion the coyote forced his company on the badger. I think the coyote is the smartest animal that stands on four legs and a natural thief. I have watched them travel together for miles. The coyote would be about 50 or 60 yards behind. Now the badger is a natural digger and when he comes to a squirrel hole or prairie dog hole, he digs him out. I have seen a coyote watching him while he was digging and as the badger would always bring his game out of the hole to eat it, the coyote would grab it and run, and the badger being slow on foot and the coyote very fast, he would always get away with the spoils. I am sure there is no affection between them—and the coyote would kill and eat the badger if he could.

I have seen a coyote watch a band of sheep for hours and shift his position every few minutes—always watching behind, too, so that nothing would slip up on him. Then when he thought the time was right, he would dash through the sheep and pick up a lamb right in sight of the sheepherder and his dogs.

The wolf is a better killer than the coyote but not near so smart.

One morning on a roundup, we left camp just at daylight and we had gone about four miles and was riding at a gallop when we came over a little hill. We rode right into a bunch of wolves. They had killed a big fat cow and was eating on her. They evidently had been eating for some time, as there wasn’t much of her left. They were so full of meat they couldn’t hardly run at all. There were about thirty of us and not many had guns that morning—but everybody had ropes and we sure went to making loops. Of course, they scattered every direction and every cowboy was trying to catch a wolf, as the bounty that time was $5.00 a head. It was sure an exciting morning. Some of those cowboys’ horses wouldn’t go near a wolf and when they got a smell of them would snort and run the other way. Sometimes when a cowboy did catch one and took his wraps on the saddle horn, the horse would stampede, wolf and all. Sometimes when they would throw at one, he would snap at the loop and if he hit it, would cut it in two like a razor would.

It was a strange thing to me—but I was riding a young horse that morning that had not been broke long, but he cocked his ears forward and took right after them wolves. I believe he thought he was chasing a colt. I got two wolves and choked and dragged them until they were dead. One had been shot through the shoulder by the boss, so he was easy to catch. I met the boss coming over a little hill. He was sure smoking this one up with his six-shooter, and as I had killed mine, he hollered, “Get this one, Con. I saw a black one back here. I want to get him.” (The others were all gray wolves.) He had lost his hat and he had been chasing those wolves so hard his pants legs was up to his knees and he sure looked wild. He didn’t get back to camp until night—but he didn’t get the black wolf.

We got nine wolves out of the bunch—I don’t know how many got away—but we didn’t have any roundup or gather any cattle that day, as the cowboys kept stringing in all day, one and two at a time.

I have tried several times since that time to rope a wolf but always found them too fast for me when they were empty. Those wolves were a great menace to the stockmen. One couldn’t poison them, as when they got hungry they killed whatever animal they wanted, and they were sure plentiful.

I have seen places on Milk River when it had froze up and fresh snow had fell on the ice, it looked like a bunch of school boys had been playing where there had been a bunch of wolves.

They weighed about one hundred pounds and measured almost seven to eight feet long. Their first move to make a kill was to ham-string the animal by grabbing the animal by the fleshy part of the hind leg. That usually brought the animal to the ground and then, of course, they made short work of the job.

I broke a bunch of horses one time for a man by the name of Gordon near Ubet in the Judith Basin. He told me when I started he would give me sixty dollars for one month’s work—that was all he would pay out on them. He didn’t want them roped, but must catch them in a chute. Above anything else, he didn’t want them to buck, and as there was twelve head of them, it was impossible to do much of a job on them in that length of time.

I got along fairly well with them for awhile. I think I had rode about five head. I was out on the range riding one of them one day and saw a big wolf. This colt was pretty fast. So I thought I would give the wolf a little run. When I got close to him, I seen he was crippled, evidently had been in a fight with another wolf, so I roped him. Now when I started dragging that wolf, the horse went plumb crazy. He whistled, snorted, kicked and bucked and run away, but I still had the wolf and dragged him to the ranch. Of course, the wolf was dead. When I got there—well, that horse never got over that scare. He jumped in the manger, kicked the side out of the barn, and whistled and snorted like a lion and got worse from day to day.

The old man wasn’t there the day I brought the wolf in, but did come out in a few days to see how I was getting along with the horses. When he went in the barn, this horse started kicking and snorting, bumped his head against the walls and run the old man out of the barn—and to make matters worse, he was his favorite colt. He asked me what was the matter with him. I told him I didn’t know—but I didn’t tell him about the wolf. Then another day he saw one buck with me—that did settle it. He said I was spoiling his horses instead of breaking them. Anyway, I stayed the month out and I think him and I were both glad when it was over and I was on my way.

I went from there to the Horse Shoe Bar Ranch on Warm Spring Creek in the Judith Basin. It was owned at that time by T. C. Powers, who was a pioneer of the state and quite a politician of his day.

I remember a rather amusing thing happened to him. He was running for Senator one year and was having a pretty hard race and it was known he was spending plenty money to get votes. There was a precinct about fifty miles from the railroad on the Teton River where there was about fifty votes—mostly half breed Indians. There was a half breed lived there and claimed he had great influence among his people. So he looked up T. C. Powers and told him for one hundred dollars he could swing every vote in his precinct. Powers gave him the hundred. When the votes were counted in that precinct, Powers had not got one vote. Some time after he met this big politician. Powers said, “What was the matter in that precinct of yours? I didn’t get a vote out there.” The breed said, “I just couldn’t get them to vote for you, Mr. Powers.” He said, “Why?” and the names he called him wouldn’t look good in print, “You didn’t vote for me yourself!” He said, “I dassent, Mr. Powers, they would have kill me out there if I do.” Evidently Powers wasn’t very popular in that precinct.

When I got to this ranch I found a man there alone in bed and very sick. The outfit had left a few days before on the fall roundup, and as he was not feeling well at the time he figured to stay at the ranch a few days and when he got better would follow up, but he got worse. I stayed with him a couple of days and still he got worse. At night the only way he could rest was to prop him up in bed, then I would put my back against his and my feet against the wall, and move to any angle that suited him. I would have to change his position every few minutes and his back was becoming hot, as he had a high fever and wanted water very often. So he finally wore me out and I decided to go for a doctor, who was twenty miles away. At this time it was about nine o’clock at night. There was a good-looking horse in the barn, so I saddled him and started. It was very dark and for the first few miles he bucked several times (if anyone reads this that has rode a bucking horse in the dark he will know what the sensation is). I didn’t know where I was half the time—whether I was in the air or in the saddle. But after I got him going, I didn’t give him any time to buck anymore until I got to the doctor.

Well, when I found the doctor he would not come to the ranch that night, as he had been up with a sick woman for a day and a night and was very tired. After describing the symptoms of my patient, he gave me a bottle of quinine and a bottle of morphine with directions. I went back to the ranch.

This fellow was suffering terrible when I got there. I gave him a shot of quinine first, which I believe was in powder form and very bitter. Then shortly after I tried to give him some more quinine but he refused to take it, so I gave him some more morphine, but didn’t seem to relieve him. Now I was very tired and he was cussing me all the time, so when he would get very bad and in pain I would give him some more morphine. Along about morning he went to sleep and wouldn’t wake up, which was all right with me as I was getting some sleep myself.

About noon the doctor came. He tried to wake him up, but he couldn’t. Then he took his pulse. While doing so, he picked up the morphine bottle and said to me, “Where is the rest of that morphine?” I was sure scared then, I knew I had given him too much. I told the doctor I had spilled some of it. He said, “I guess you did!” He told me to heat a tub of water at once. We put that fellow into it—and I don’t know what the doctor done but we finally brought him to—and was I glad! I know now I gave him an overdose, but I believe I saved his life at that, as he was suffering terrible. The doctor said he had a bad case of pneumonia and made arrangements to take him to a hospital and I took his place on the beef roundup.

The boss put two of us night herding the cattle. We moved camp every day and they put new cattle in the herd every day that they gathered and the nights were long and cold—so we sure had a hard job.

We had a good cook that year—but like most good cooks he was sure cranky. He couldn’t drive four horses, so the boss told me to drive the mess wagon from one camp to the other, and we didn’t get along well at all. We called him “Big Nose George” and he was so mean I think he hated himself. I have seen him drop something out of his hands when he was cooking and would jump on it and stamp it in the ground.

After we had night herded about a month we had about a thousand head in the bunch—and the nights got long. We used to get hungry during the night. One day I asked George for a lunch to take with us. My partner spoke up and said, “How about a pie, George?” He looked at us like a grizzly bear and said, “Yes, I will give you fellows pie.”

That night when we started for the herd, he handed us what looked like a nice pie. On the way to the herd we talked about it and decided George wasn’t such a bad fellow after all. That was a tough night and the cattle drifted about three miles. We couldn’t carry the pie very handy, so set it down by a cut bank where we thought we could find it if the cattle settled down, but we didn’t get back to where we left it, which proved to be a good thing for us.

When the day-herders came out at daylight, they began kidding us about the pie. They thought we had tried to eat it. George had told them the joke he had played on us. So we went back and hunted up the pie to see what the joke was. We found it was made out of potato skins, onion peelings and clay, and other filth around the camp, with a cover on it in a pie tin and nicely baked.

So we held a council of war to decide what to do about it. My partner wanted to take it to camp and hit him on the head with it. I suggested we make him eat it. He said that was a fine idea. Now I told him, “He is a big guy. Let’s double up on him.” So we planned our attack right there, and George not expecting it, we had him at a disadvantage. We unsaddled—walked into the cook tent.

He said, “How did you like your pie, boys?” We said, “Fine—but brought part of it to camp so you could enjoy it with us.” I had the pie in my hand and he knew what was coming. He said, “The hell with you,” and started for a butcher knife—but my partner met him head on and they clinched. I nailed him from behind and we brought him to the ground with both of us on top of him. I got the pie to his mouth but he wouldn’t open, so I used the pie tin for an opener (not very gently) and got his teeth apart. I don’t think he swallowed any of it but he at least got a good taste of it—and any other dirty thing I could reach. When the pie-eating contest was over and had worked out to the messwagon tongue, and when we let George up, the first thing his hand found was the neck-yoke which was about four feet long, and a bad weapon just at that time, and George was sure going to clean up on us. But my partner had a forty-five Colts stuck in his chaps that George didn’t see and before he could get the neck-yoke into action, the gun was right against his stomach—full cock. He throwed the neck-yoke over his head and both hands in the air and said, “Don’t kill me.” Then we gave him some not too kind advice what his actions should be towards us in the future, and I will say George was a pretty good dog from that time on.

That is the only time I ever double-teamed on anyone but felt justified that time under the circumstances.

When the men came in off that day’s ride, George took his troubles to the boss, told him how we had doubled up on him and abused him. All he got was a hearty laugh from the boss (he was a Texas man). He said, “Did they sho ’nuff really make you eat the pie, George?”

When we got to the railroad with that herd, there was two other big outfits shipping beef and we had to wait several days to get cars for our cattle. Big Sandy was the shipping point. The town had two saloons, one hotel, one store, stockyards and livery stable, and a jail. We had plenty of help and we took shifts holding the cattle. Those that wasn’t on shift spent most of their time in town, and it was sure lively during shipping time—and looked as good as Chicago to some of them cowboys.

There was also a lot of half breed Indians gathering buffalo bones and brought them there to ship. Most of them drank plenty whiskey and with their families had dances every night. The musician would be some half breed with moccasins on, and he kept time with both feet while he played.

The town had a constable to keep order, and he was quite lame. One night he arrested two half breeds and was taking them to jail. One got away from him. He let the other one loose to catch him and he ran away, and he didn’t catch the first one, so he lost them both. Them breeds with moccasins on could sure run.

One night a fist fight started between the cowboys and the breeds. There was several fights going on at the same time. An old buffalo hunter was in among them, with his hands in his pockets, looking on. It was dark and some cowboy thought he was a breed. He took a run at him and hit him on the side of his head with all his strength and he went down. About that time he discovered his mistake and went to help him up. He said, “Fred, I am sure sorry. I didn’t know that was you.” Fred said, “I guess you are sorry all right—but that don’t help my ear any.”

There was several commission men in town that night, trying to get cattle consigned to their different houses in Chicago. One of them had never been West before. There were some of them playing a social game of cards in one of the saloons. Every little while some cowboy would shoot his six-shooter off right in the saloon. This fellow was very nervous and could not get his attention on the game. Finally he went to light his cigar. About that time somebody shot a gun off and his match went out. He jumped up right quick and said, “Quit playing cards. This is getting too damn close for me!” That tickled Charlie Russell and he told the fellow he saw the bullet go right by his nose. He said he knew it did.

Somebody stole my saddle that night off my horse which was tied to a hitch rack. So next morning I was in a pretty bad way. We hunted and searched all the breed camps but didn’t find the saddle. Everybody had given up when Charlie Russell came in and had found the saddle and the way he found that saddle shows what a close observer he was. He was following a dusty trail, looking for tracks, when he saw the print of a cinch-ring in the dust. He said he knew nothing else would make a mark like that. He looked around and saw a little box-elder tree about a mile away. He went to that tree and there was the saddle. That cost me a good many drinks but it was sure worth it. We joked Charlie and told him it took one Indian to trail another one.

There was a man by the name of Marsh kept the hotel in Big Sandy and was a great friend of the cowboys, as when they were broke they could always eat and sleep at his hotel until they got a job. I had known Marsh for some years.

One day we had got through loading cattle and I was in the hotel and he told me he had just bought two fine dogs, Canadian stag hounds, and he was anxious to try them out and see how fast they were, and asked me to borrow one of the cowboys’ horses for him to ride and we would take a ride with the dogs and maybe jump a coyote out on the range. Well, we got the dogs lined up and started.

He also had a bull dog and a fox terrier. They couldn’t run but just trailed along.

We hadn’t went very far until we jumped a jack rabbit and away went the hounds, the bull dog and the terrier bringing up the rear—all dogs barking, Marsh hollering and laughing at the bull and terrier. The hounds were making a pretty run and Marsh was trying to keep in sight of them and his horse was running his best, when he stepped in a badger hole ... and down they went. This was an unusually big saddle horse and Marsh was a very big man, and when they piled up it looked like a box car had jumped the track. Marsh must have fell on his head, as he had lost $80.00, his watch, pocket knife, and everything—it was all scattered around the wreck. He was not hurt bad any one place, but was jarred all over. While I was picking up his stuff I was so full of laugh I could hardly hold myself. In the meantime, the bull dog and the terrier had caught up and was licking his face and he was cussing them. Then I exploded and laughed ’til I cried—I don’t think he ever quite forgive me for that but I couldn’t help laughing at the pile-up.

CHAPTER VIII
WITH THE DHS OUTFIT

In 1892 I went to Wyoming and broke horses there for a couple of years. Then I heard of the Cripple Creek gold stampede in Colorado. I sold my rig and went to Cripple Creek and it looked like everybody in the world went there. There was two railroads in there and every passenger coach would be loaded with people. The roads were lined with people of every description—some walking, some riding donkeys and some with wagons.

About every other house there was a saloon and gambling house. Of course, there wasn’t work for everybody and lots of them were broke when they landed there—that was in the month of November and shortly after the weather turned bitter cold. I have seen men lay down on the floor to sleep in those saloons which kept open day and night, and when the house man started to clean up in the morning he would find dead men under the tables and on benches. The altitude was very high. Those people had no place to sleep—and nearly all of them contracted mountain fever and that went into pneumonia and they would sometimes die in a few hours after taking sick.

New Year’s night in 1894 was sure a wild night in Cripple Creek. Every man that filed on a mining claim prior to that time had to have one hundred dollars’ worth of work done in order to hold it by law and, of course, there was the usual contention when people are crazy for gold, some claiming the required amount of work was not done—and others claiming they had fulfilled the requirements of the law. The results were that every man owning a claim was on his ground at midnight with a gun to protect what he thought was his property.

I was in a good spot that night to get a view of the Big Mountain around Cripple Creek, and the lanterns moving around from claim to claim looked like a bunch of stars. There was reported nine men killed that night over claims and I didn’t hear of one arrest.

I had a little money when I landed in Cripple Creek but soon lost it all gambling and then took down with mountain fever. An old prospector took me into his cabin and he took sick, too. We were both broke and had nothing to eat but a half sack of potatoes, but had plenty of wood and kept warm. We took turns, when one was a little better than the other, going out and gathering mountain sage and making tea out of it—and I am sure it saved our lives, as it broke the fever. When I got a little better I made a little money to buy food, gathering that sage and selling it to sick people.

When I got a little stronger I got twenty dollars for digging an assessment hole on a fellow’s claim, so I got in a poker game with that and won about a hundred dollars. I will never forget that night. People were being help up every night—sometimes hit on the head—sometimes killed, and the amount of money didn’t mean anything, as some of them birds would hold you up for five dollars.

This night when I had won that money quite a crowd gathered around me in the gambling house. I didn’t know any of them but bought a drink for everybody and thought I would slip away. There was one big tough-looking guy persisted in shaking hands with me and gave me some kind of a sign that I did not understand, so I was rather nervous when I got out of there.

I had to walk about a mile to my cabin following an old mining ditch. I had got about half way home when I saw a man’s head raise up out of the ditch just in front of me. That sure scared me. I turned the other way, back towards town. The farther I went the more scared I was ... and the faster I ran. I think even if a jack rabbit had seen me he would have admired my speed, and I didn’t stop until I got into town where there was light. I could not get a room in town, so sat in a chair all night in one of the gambling houses. I kept my hand on that hundred dollars and sweat with fear.

A few nights afterwards I was going home late. I had to go by a lot of wagons—a freighting outfit. Just as I got opposite the wagons I saw a man in the dark coming towards me. I had a gun that night so I got it in my hand and backed up against one of the wagons. This fellow came up about twenty feet from me and stopped—neither of us spoke for several minutes (but seemed to me to be an hour)—finally he said, “Hey, there.” I said, “Hello.” He said, “What are you doing here?” I thought quick and said, “I am working for the man that owns this outfit,” and said to him also, “Who are you?” He said, “I am the night marshal.” I believe I would have kissed him if he had been close to me because I sure had him sized up as a hold-up.

I stayed around there a few days longer and hung onto the hundred dollars, but decided it was no place for a moneyed man, so took the train for Denver and lived quite respectable for awhile until I was pretty near broke and started for Montana. I rode box cars the most of the way and saved my little money to eat on.

When I got to Helena I heard Charlie Russell was in Cascade and as I was badly in need of money, I headed for there and found him batching in a cabin with plenty grub—and he sure looked good to me.

After my experience in Cripple Creek I decided that I belonged back on the range among the cows, and wrote to the foreman of the DHS outfit at Shelby, Montana, for a job. I had known him several years before and he told me to come on, he would give me work. So after being outfitted by Charlie, which meant everything a cowboy needed, including some money, I went to Shelby.

I worked for the DHS outfit the first time in 1889 for only one season. They were one of the pioneer cow outfits of Montana and was owned by Granville Stuart and Reese Anderson, and were located near Fort Maginnis and ranged on Flat Willow country in the year of 1887. They moved all their cattle north of the Missouri River on what was known as the Little Rocky Range. They swam this big herd across the Missouri River at an old steamboat landing called Rocky Point.

The cowboys had a dance while I was in Shelby that I believe there is a record of in the files of some of the old newspapers of that day.

There was an opera troupe on their way to Spokane, Washington. For some reason they were sidetracked at Shelby and as they were from New York, some of the ladies had never seen a cowboy, so they said (I guess they thought cowboys eat grass and were only half human). Anyway, some of them left the train and went to the hotel where the dance was going on and mingled with the crowd and as those cowboys were very easy for a lady to get acquainted with and as there was considerable liquor consumed, the dance was a great success and the ladies found the boys much nicer than they had anticipated and invited some of them over to their train.

Now the male population of the troupe did not take to the cowboys too well and finally ordered them out of the car which, of course, insulted the boys and a fight started. But some of these fellows in the troupe were good boxers and the cowboys didn’t have a chance in a fist fight, so they brought their guns into the play. They didn’t shoot anyone but made the car very smoky, and the troupe quit the car and most of them scattered out in the sagebrush, Shelby being a little cow town on the Great Northern Railroad.

It seems that the worst thing that happened was one of the cowboys shot a lantern out of a brakeman’s hand. So in a few days there was railroad officials around there, thick as flies, but they couldn’t get any information and there wasn’t a cowboy in fifty miles of Shelby. The railroad sent several detectives there at different times but the population of the town was all in sympathy with the cowboys and nobody knew any cowboy’s name that attended the dance. So they could not get any evidence and didn’t know where to find anyone to arrest, and had to drop the matter.

My old boss was one of the leaders in that mix-up and he, of course, made a couple of days ride away from Shelby. It happened he stayed a few days in a locality where there was considerable stock rustling going on and he didn’t go to that part of the country very often, so his presence there created quite a commotion and fear among those fellows living there, as they thought he was after them. But the old man was simply dodging the railroad officials and was more frightened than they were.

At that time the DHS ran two outfits—one at Shelby and one at Malta on Milk River about two hundred miles apart. Those big outfits in the course of a few years all accumulated quite a few spoiled horses for different reasons, sometimes from bad breaking and sometimes on account of putting strange riders on them so often, sometimes from getting away when they were half broke, and maybe not finding them for a year. They would then be harder to handle than a green bronc and would buck a few riders off. They would get pretty tough and the average cowboy could not ride them. So the boss would hire a bronc fighter to ride the rough string. A strange thing about it was that most of those kind of horses were the best ones in the bunch when they were thoroughly broke.

The DHS had accumulated about twenty head of those kind of horses. So the boss sent me to Malta to ride some of those horses. They also hired another fellow to help me. The only name I ever knew for him was “Red Neck Davis” and he was a good bronc fighter.

The outfit was getting ready to go on the spring roundup and we went to their horse ranch on Milk River and gathered all the saddle horses—maybe two hundred head—and there was quite a lot of those horses needed touching up before we went to work on the roundup. The first day Red Neck and I caught two of the worst horses in the outfit. The boss had put two men to help us and herd for us (they are called pick-up men nowadays).

One of the cowboys had put his bedding out to air that day and had a nice woolen blanket laid on a pile of poles on the ground. When I mounted my first horse, he went up in the air and landed right in the middle of that blanket, and the poles being hard all four of his feet went through it. I believe the blanket belonged to the fellow that was herding for me, so I laid the blame on him.

Shortly after Red Neck mounted his horse, a big buckskin. He had quite an old man herding for him and rather cranky. He caught the best horse in his string that morning, one he was sure was gentle so he could pick up Red’s horse if he stampeded. As soon as Red hit the saddle the buckskin went in the air and let a roar out of him like a lion, which scared the old man’s horse and he stampeded. We were only about fifty feet from Milk River and it was time of high water, and into it he went and swam across. The old man was sure wet and mad, and cussed the whole outfit—horses and men—and said he wouldn’t have any more to do with such a damn wild west outfit.

That year—I believe it was 1896—our outfit was cleaning up their Malta Range on Milk River with the view of closing out their holdings in that part of the country. A fellow named Tom Daly and I worked with all the different outfits owning cattle in that part of the country. We were representing the DHS brand and all cattle we gathered we shipped to Chicago. We had orders to clean the range of our cattle the best we could, as they had missed several steers from year to year. We found steers 12 to 13 years old and some of them were sure wild and hard to gather and bring to the railroad for shipment.

It was quite comical and interesting to outsmart some of these old renegades. We usually found them in the roughest country. They would try to hide when they saw you, and when you got too close to them they would fight and as most of them had bad horns if you crowded one of them in a rough place he could easily kill your horse.

The outfit had a big old steer that had made his home in the Missouri River Badlands for several years, which was pretty rough and when the cowboys would find him with other cattle and he got a glimpse of the riders he would quit the bunch. As he was plenty fast, he would get somewhere and hide, and as the outfits only worked this part of the country about once a year on account of not many cattle ranged there, this old steer had gotten by for several years without being brought out and shipped.

I was repping with a wagon that worked that part of the country this time that I write about and we knew the day that we would camp and ride the locality that he was ranging in and several of the boys knew this steer, as he had gotten away from them at different times before. They were joking me about him several days before we got to this place and called him “Con’s steer,” and made me a small bet I wouldn’t get him.

We camped the chuck and bed wagon on a nice level spot of about 200 acres, just on the edge of the Badlands, and rode from there to the river, which was about 20 miles. Coming back we found him in a long canyon that led out to the camp and the rodeo ground. We put riders on both sides of the canyon on top of the ridges and some stayed behind. We had about 200 head of cattle, so we just drifted the band along slow. I told everyone to keep as far away from this old steer as possible so he wouldn’t break or get on the fight. When we got out to the roundup ground, some of the other boys had gotten in off their ride and had found quite a lot of cattle. We had about a thousand head in all. We bunched all the cattle together as easy as we could so as not to give this old fellow any excuse to break.

Now we had to cut out the cows and calves (to brand the calves) and also cut out the beef steers to ship, and turn the rest loose, and we knew as soon as anyone went to riding among those cattle this steer would break for the Badlands and we would lose him. He was going through the bunch ringing his tail and hooking everything that came in his way, as he was getting suspicious that everything wasn’t just right.

So we left about ten men to hold the cattle. The rest of us went to camp to catch fresh horses to work the cattle and cut out what we wanted.

I had a little Spanish horse in my string, didn’t weigh over 900 pounds, built kind of squatty and close to the ground, about 15 years old, but he knew more about working cattle than lots of men. I caught him. We went back to the roundup and started to work. I stayed on the outside of the bunch with my eye on this old bird. The boys had gotten out about 50 head when someone got too close to this old steer, and here he comes as fast as he could run, headed for the Badlands! I had a big grass rope about 40 feet long and had one end tied hard and fast to the saddle horn and when he came out of the bunch my little horse was watching him and went right along with him. I run him about 50 yards. He was going down a hill. I dropped my loop over his pretty horns and let him jump over the slack with his front feet, and turned my horse the other way as fast as he could run. When that rope tightened that steer went about 10 feet high and hit the ground with his head doubled under his body. One of his pretty horns was broken off right close to his head and he was bleeding badly, and he was bawling like a calf—where otherwise he would only snort when you got in his way.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the boys that I had made the bet with had framed on me—and it was understood among them that nobody was to help me—just to have a joke on me if the steer got away.

So after a few minutes, when nobody came to help me, I let him up with the rope still on him. The fall had taken most of the sap out of him. He made a kind of a weak attempt to get to my horse, so I busted him again. The next time he got up I led him back to the roundup and into the bunch where I wanted him, throwed him down, took the rope off, and he never made a break to get away. We took him to the railroad and shipped him to Chicago. He was a rather funny looking old fellow with one of his long pretty horns gone and blood dried all over his face. I don’t think he made very good eating but I tallied him: “One beef steer shipped to Chicago.”

In the year of 1897 the Circle Diamond outfit turned loose 5,000 head of Arizona yearlings on their range on Milk River in Montana and instead of settling down and locating there they kept on going north until the outfit heard of some of them 200 miles up in Canada.

So they sent an outfit of about 20 men with horses and bed and chuckwagon to bring them back and try to locate them on their own range.

The DHS outfit sent me with them, thinking some of their cattle had drifted with the Arizona’s.

The country was all open—north, south, east and west—for miles (I don’t know how far) and no ranches after we crossed the Canadian border. We didn’t know any particular place to go to find those cattle, so we just wandered around for days, first one direction, then another. After we got as far north as Moose Jaw, which is well north in Canada, we began to see some signs of cattle, and would pick up a few each day. And those cattle hadn’t seen anybody for four or five months and were plenty wild and, of course, we had to nightherd those cattle every night. And badger holes were so thick in that country you could almost compare them to a saltcellar—and the grass was thick and tall so a horse or man couldn’t see the holes. Somebody would get a fall every day and night.

One morning we were making a circle, looking for cattle, and we saw two animals standing on a butte. We got close to them—could tell they were two head of cattle—and away they went like a couple of antelope. We finally got ahead of them and got them stopped. They ran around in a circle for awhile, just like they might be tied together. One wouldn’t get no distance away from the other. When we got them to the roundup and could get a good look at the brands, we found they both belonged to the DHS outfit, and we knew from the Arizona brand on them and the year the outfit bought them as yearlings that they were 13 years old. They were pals and had ranged in that part of the country for several years alone, as we did not find any sign of cattle anywhere within several miles of them.

It was quite a problem to get those two old fellows to the railroad. They were easy to hold in the daytime but at night it took all of one man’s time to watch them two. We would bed the herd down at night and those two would lay down in about the middle of the bunch—and sometimes they would lay ten minutes when they would come slipping through the herd, heading back the way they came from. They wouldn’t make any noise and reminded one of two big cats trying to steal away. When they got to the edge of the herd, the man watching them would holler at them—they would shake their heads and go right back into the herd and lay down for a short time and then try again, and would keep that up all night. We finally got them to the railroad and shipped them to Chicago.

The man that had charge of that Circle Diamond wagon, or that part of the outfit that year was Win Cooper. He came from Jack County, Texas, and was a wonderful cowboy. He used to carry a 45 Colts six-shooter and had the trigger filed so it wouldn’t stand cocked, but fanned the hammer with his thumb. He told me the reason he had his gun fixed that way was for quick action. He could fill the chamber with bullets and start a tomato can rolling and keep it going until his gun was empty. He used to tell me about the gun fights they had in Texas a long time ago ... and I think he sometimes got lonesome for those old feuds and would like to go back and have a little excitement.

As I remember, Tom Green County, Texas, and Jack County were enemies and had a lasting grudge at each other. Win said the reason for that was Jack County had the better men and always beat the Tom Green County men in a fight.

Win didn’t have any education and couldn’t read or write—and when he paid a man his wages he had to send him to the superintendent and tell him how long the man worked.

This year I am writing about was election year in Valley County, Montana, and the Circle Diamond ranch was supporting a man by the name of Kyle for sheriff. They had put up a black flag with white letters which read: “VOTE FOR KYLE FOR SHERIFF.” Now Win had been up in Canada with his outfit for about six weeks looking for those cattle that had drifted north and hadn’t had any news as to the happenings around home. So when he had got the cattle back on their range and turned them loose, he started for the home ranch with his outfit, but he started several hours ahead of the men, horses and chuckwagon—they were to follow. But when Win got close to the ranch and saw that black flag (and he couldn’t read) he got scared and turned back and stopped the outfit and said it wasn’t safe to take the outfit home, as he thought that some sort of an epidemic had broke out and the ranch was under quarantine. So he sent a man to town to find out what was the matter.

I worked with several of those old-time gunfighters from Texas and some that had left Wyoming during the Johnson County war between cattlemen and rustlers, and found most of them pretty decent fellows. Some of them were under assumed names and it seemed to bother them to have to carry that load—and usually when they did talk and tell me about their trouble most of them were victims of circumstances.

CHAPTER IX
JIM SPURGEON

The old man that run the DHS that I worked several years for was the finest old-tune cow boss I ever knew. Jim Spurgeon was his name. He always looked tough and hard and was about as good-looking as a bank robber, but he sure had a kind heart and would never let you know he sympathized with you.

I never knew him to fire but one cowboy. That fellow was supposed to stand second guard on night herd, but when the first guard went to call him, he was not in camp—had went to town and had not come back. The boy that came to call him woke Jim up and told him what had happened. Jim got up and stood the guard himself.

About the time Jim came off guard, the boy got back to camp. He had a bottle of whiskey and asked Jim to have a drink. Jim refused, which the boy knew was unusual for Jim. So he was suspicious things wasn’t just right and didn’t want to get fired. So he came into the bed tent about twelve o’clock at night, woke Jim up and said, “I believe I will quit.” Jim said, “Go to bed. You have been fired for three hours.”

Old Jim looked at him very pitifully next morning and I believe if the truth was known it hurt him worse to fire him that it did the cowboy. But he seldom ever talked much and few knew how tenderhearted he was.

One time we had lost about forty head of saddle horses on the roundup and Jim sent a man to look for them. He was gone a few days and came back without any horses.

Now Shelby was the great cowboy town of that time, and whenever a cowboy had any chance he went to Shelby. There was usually a dance or some other doings that a cowboy enjoyed—and maybe he had a sweetheart there.

So the night this boy got back from hunting the horses, we all gathered in the sleeping tent to get the news of Shelby from this boy, and it was quite interesting to the rest of us. I can see old Jim yet, sitting there smoking a big pipe, saying nothing, but listening to everything.

So he sent another man out on the range next day to look for the horses. He was gone a few days and came back without any horses ... but plenty news about Shelby.

The next morning he told me to catch a saddle horse and go and see if I could find those horses. I said, “Where will I go?” He said, “Damned if I know where to tell you to go, only there is one place there is no use going and that is Shelby. I have sent two men to hunt those horses and they both went to town and didn’t find the horses. So I know they are not in Shelby!” You could have heard a pin drop among those boys. They didn’t know the old man had been listening.

I remember one time the old man hired a stranger from Oregon to ride a rough string. Nobody knew the boy but he claimed to be a bronc fighter. The first horse he rode very near throwed him off. When someone caught the horse he was in a bad way, had lost both stirrups and his bridle reins. Someone made the remark he thought that fellow would ride that horse and whip him. The old man said he could if he had another hand, as he had to use the two he had to hang onto the saddle horn.

In those days the way we caught our saddle horses, when we made camp we pulled the bedwagon up behind the chuckwagon and tied a long rope to the front wheel of the chuckwagon and one to the hind wheel of the bedwagon. Then a man held up each end of those ropes and the horse wrangler took care of the gap. In that way we could corral quite a large bunch of saddle horses. But there was always some broncs in the bunch and the boys had to be careful in catching their horses that they didn’t scare them and cause them to break through the ropes.

So the old man gave orders for one man at a time to catch his horse—but Jim had hired a new man that was very fond of roping and he didn’t always obey orders, and he used a loop half as big as the corral. So naturally, when he throwed his big loop in among those horses he caught something. Sometimes two or three head of horses at once. Sometimes he caught one around the body and would cause the horses to stampede. The old man had told him several times in a nice way to be careful of that big loop.

This morning Jim was in the corral trying to catch his horse. It wasn’t quite daylight yet and the fellow didn’t see him. So he throwed that big loop in there and caught two broncs, the brake on the bedwagon and the old man—all in one loop. And believe me there was some commotion—the broncs jumping and the old man a-hollering. Charlie Russell helped Jim get out of the mix-up and he said Jim bucked worse than the broncs. He lost his hat and his big pipe and hurt his foot.

When he got straightened out, he went hunting this fellow. He said, “Where is that big loop S.B.?” and when he found him he told him plenty. He said, “I don’t think you are a cowboy at all. I think you are a damn sailor the way you handle a rope. If I ever see you throw another rope in that corral, I will shoot you. Somebody else will catch your horse from now on.” But he didn’t fire him, and the fellow was pretty tame afterwards.

There was a great friendship existed among those old cowboys of those days. They would quarrel among themselves and sometimes one would think they were bitter enemies, but if one of them got sick or hurt, even with their small wages they would soon raise a few hundred dollars for him, and as there was no compensation law those days it meant a great deal to them.

Old Bill Bullard, the fellow that used to put bacon in everything he cooked to give it tone, had a partner that he thought a great deal of, but when they were together they were always quarreling and when they were separated they would be lonesome. I believe they enjoyed their quarrels.

One time they made a trip together up in Canada. On their way back they had to make a long ride without water, and the weather was very warm. So the morning of their long ride, Bill told his partner to not put much salt in their food, as they wouldn’t get any water that day. But the old boy was out of sorts that morning and said he wanted plenty of salt—water or no water. All their breakfast was in one frying pan. So Bill got a knife and run a line through the breakfast and told his partner to not salt only half the grub. That made the old fellow very mad and he put plenty salt on his side of the frying pan. Bill said his partner nearly choked for water that day and it was dark when they reached Milk River and instead of stooping down to get water he walked right into the river so he could drink standing up.

CHAPTER X
TOM DALY

Tom Daly and I worked together for several years and I liked him very much.

One time we went from the DHS ranch at Rocky Ridge close to the main range of the Rocky Mountains to the ranch the outfit owned at Malta, which was in the eastern part of Montana. We had two strings of horses, which was about twenty head. We had our beds packed on two horses on that trip. One day Tom’s pack slipped and got down on the horse’s side. We roped him and fixed the pack, but while we were doing so we turned our saddle horses loose with the bridle reins on the ground (which is the way Montana horses were broke to stand). Mosquitoes were very bad that day and was worrying the horses, and when we turned the horse loose that we had been fixing the pack, we turned around to get on our saddle horses—they both run off and into the loose bunch, which got scared and away they all went, leaving us both afoot and I think it was at least 20 miles to any ranch and the day very hot. I never saw Tom excited before as he was very easy-going, but when I looked at him and asked him, “What are we going to do now?” his lips trembled and he said, “Damned if I know.”

Well, a lucky thing I had my rope that we had caught the pack horse with. So I picked it up and we started after the horses on foot. They run about a mile and stopped and went to feeding—but when we caught up with them, one of our saddle horses would drag his bridle reins around some of the horses’ legs and scare them—and away they would go again. Finally we got the bunch in between us and one of the pack horses had his head down feeding—I made a run at him and when he put his head up to run I throwed my rope and caught him. We unpacked him and I got on him bareback, with a rope around his nose, and rounded up the bunch and brought them back to where Tom was. He had made a loop in the pack rope and caught his saddle horse. And after a good many trials of roping, we caught my horse.

When we got our horse packed again and on our way, we were sure a couple of happy boys. Tom told me I sure made a lucky throw when I caught that pack horse.

In my younger days as a cowboy I had a hobby on saddles. I always wanted a light saddle with as little leather on it as possible. I used to use a Clarence Nelson saddle, made in Visalia, California, which was about the smallest and lightest stock saddle made in those days. Then after I had got it, I would trim and cut off all the leather I possibly could get along without. Tom Daly always rode a double rig saddle and wanted it quite heavy. He was always making fun of my saddle and said I might as well ride bareback.

One time a big prairie fire broke out and the best thing we used to have to fight those fires was a “green” or fresh cowhide. We could tie a couple of ropes to it and with our saddle horses drag it along the fire line. If the blaze wasn’t too big, it would smother the fire out completely. This fire broke out close to our roundup, and we had a big jaw steer in our roundup and he wasn’t any value as a beef steer. So the boss told the boys to catch him and kill and skin him and use his hide for a drag to put the fire out.

Everybody got their ropes down in a hurry. Tom roped the steer by the head and I caught him by one hind leg. He weighed about 1,500 pounds and Tom was riding a big strong horse, and when he saw I had the steer by the hind leg he never looked back but was spurring his horse and pulling on the steer to try to throw him down so we could cut his throat, as nobody had a gun. My horse wasn’t too well broke to roping, but I got my rope fast to the saddle horn and Tom was pulling so fast and so hard, it must of hurt my horse and he went to bucking. I couldn’t get my rope loose from the saddle horn and I hollered at Tom—but he kept right on going and pulled me—saddle and all—off the horse. The boys joshed me plenty about my little saddle. I asked Tom why he didn’t stop when I hollered. He said he didn’t know I was riding bareback or he would.

Another time Tom and I were gathering saddle horses for the spring roundup. When we left our camp in the morning we went different directions and I got back to camp quite a while before Tom did. I had loosened my cinch and tied my horse to a post and went in the cabin to cook dinner. I heard someone holler and looked out and saw Tom coming with a bunch of horses. Those horses were sometimes very hard to corral. So I run out and got on my horse but forgot to tighten my cinch. Those horses came by me pretty fast and I run my horse in ahead of them to try to turn them. They dodged by me and when I turned my horse to head them off my saddle turned and, of course, I hit the ground and my horse got away and went with the wild bunch.

I got Tom’s horse and followed them. After a little distance he quit the bunch and took off across the country by himself. I followed him about ten miles and finally run him into an old roundup corral and caught him. The saddle was under his belly and there wasn’t a thing left of it—only the saddle tree and the cinch—he had kicked it all to pieces.

When I led him back to camp I felt like crying and called Tom out to show it to him. In place of sympathizing with me, he smiled and said he didn’t see any difference in it than it was before.

I had to ride 40 miles to town to order another saddle. I tied a rope on each side of the saddle tree to use for stirrups and rode that distance. Tom went with me—I think he had the time of his life that day laughing at my rig.

We worked together on the roundup that year and slept together. We worked pretty late that fall and the nights got very cold. We were holding quite a bunch of cattle and, of course, that meant we had to guard the cattle at night. Each man guarded three hours and then woke up another cowboy. One night was very cold. When I came off guard my feet felt like chunks of ice and I had noticed Tom’s underwear was wore out where he had been sitting in the saddle. I pulled off my boots and went out in the frost—then slipped into bed with Tom. He was asleep and didn’t hear me. I got into bed easy and found that bare place on his body and planted both feet right on it. He hollered and went clear out of the tent. He said afterwards he thought somebody had burned him with a hot iron. I think I got even with him for making fun of my saddle!

CHAPTER XI
KID CURRY

Most of the big Montana cow outfits moved their herds north of the Missouri River between 1888 and 1894. The point of crossing on the Missouri was an old steamboat landing called Rocky Point where Jim Norris had a saloon.

When I crossed the river there in 1889, there was no one living there but the little old man. He had an old hand ferry boat that he took people across the river with. The night I stayed with him, he told me he had some fine gin and gave me a drink, which I found out was straight alcohol and the one drink nearly strangled me, but old Uncle Jim, as he was called, drank it like water and seemed to do quite well on it. Every little while he would go to the bank of the river and holler at the top of his voice, “Do you want to bring your wagon over?” There would not be anybody in sight, but he seemed to get a great kick out of make-believe.

I worked with Kid Curry that summer on the roundup. He worked for the Diamond outfit and I worked for the DHS. Both outfits worked the range together. Kid was a fine fellow at that time and a good cowboy—that was before he became an outlaw. I have read where some writers told what a cold-blooded killer he was and where he had held up banks and so forth, and I know from some of the dates given that he was blamed for a great many things he did not do.

I am not trying to make a hero out of the Kid or say that I approve of some things he done, but the public at large does not know all the circumstances leading up to where he first got into trouble.

Charlie Russell knew Kid Curry and has given me his analysis of his character (and he seldom made a mistake in the reading of human nature). Charlie figured any normal man might have went the route the Kid did.

I am going to set down some of the facts regarding the Kid’s becoming an outlaw. His name was Harvey Curry. He had an older brother, Henry Curry. They had a little ranch in the Badlands of the Missouri River and ran a few cattle and horses. Both the brothers were fine boys at that time and would give anyone the shirt off their back if they were in need.

Now there was a little mining town sprung up in the Little Rockies not far from the Curry Ranch. The outstanding character in that town was a man by the name of Pike Landusky, a prospector who had found some fairly rich prospects, and as there was some excitement about the find quite a lot of people went to the mining camp and Pike being about the first one on the ground, the town was named Landusky.

The town was about fifty miles from the railroad and farther from the Sheriff’s office, so Pike was appointed a Deputy Sheriff. Now Pike was not a bad sort of a fellow as a rule, but had a reputation as somewhat of a gun-fighter and was rather proud of it—he didn’t have much education and very little intelligence—but was proud of his authority as a Deputy Sheriff.

The Kid was in town one night with some friends, having a few drinks and celebrating in the ways of the early West, when Pike decided Harvey had violated some law and arrested him, and not having any jail in the camp, handcuffed him for safekeeping. During the time he was handcuffed, the Kid said Pike abused him shamefully and cast reflections even on his mother, who was dead and whom Pike had never known or seen, which burned very deeply into the Kid. During the abuse the Kid told Pike, “I won’t always be handcuffed, Pike, and when I get out of this trouble, you are going to get a licking you will remember.” Pike said, “I will be ready.”

Some time after this incident Pike and the Kid met in the saloon in Landusky and had a fist fight. Of course the Kid started it and Pike got a bad licking. When the fight started both men had guns on. Neither one knew the other had a gun. Pike’s gun was in a holster under his arm. Kid’s gun was fastened to his pants. In the fight, the Kid’s gun fell on the floor. A friend of the Kid’s picked it up and when the fight was over handed it to him. Both Pike’s eyes were pretty well closed, but he raised up on his knees and was trying to get a bead on the Kid—so he shot Pike and killed him.

Of course this was a very serious offense as he had killed an officer of the law, and the sentiment of the people was divided—and the Kid did not know whether to give himself up or not. Anyway, he and a few of his friends went to the ranch and talked the matter over and decided it would be best for the Kid to cache himself in the Badlands for a while. And his friends would bring him food—and, of course, the longer he stayed a fugitive, the less chance he had of getting acquitted if he did give himself up. So after dodging around for a while and having lost his older brother, Hank, as he was known, who had died and was always the leader and adviser, the Kid and a couple of his friends held up the Great Northern Railroad train which had a shipment of currency—they got away with it all right and got the money, but it was new money and had not been officially signed, so of course it was not much good to them. However, they did pass some of it. The Kid had two half brothers who come to Montana from Missouri. Their names was Lannie and Johnny Logan, and they tried to pass some of the money without much success. Lannie was caught in Kansas City and killed with $10,000 of it on his person. Johnny was killed in the Little Rocky country in a gun fight with another cowboy.

The Kid was caught in Tennessee after several years and sent to the Knoxville pen—I believe for life. However, he didn’t stay there very long. The papers said he roped a guard and tied him up and got away. My personal opinion is he got help in some other way. I was told by a very reliable party that he went to the Argentine country. Anyway he has never been heard of since. If he is alive now, he would be about 70 years old.

CHAPTER XII
FRED REID

Fred Reid was one of the old time deer and elk hunters in the early days of Montana. He told me the first bear he ever killed when he was a young boy, that he was so scared he didn’t go near it after he shot it until he saw some flies flying around its mouth. He said, he knew then it was dead.

Fred hunted for the market and said he often followed elk all day on foot until they got tired, then he would make the kill.

After his hunting days were over, Fred went to work as a cowboy and took charge of quite a big outfit. The man wanted a new range and sent Fred out to locate one. Fred found what he wanted and moved the outfit to the Judith Basin. Then he located his headquarters down in the Badlands of the Missouri River. It was surely a tough country, to get in and out of—had to pack in everything on pack horses.

I asked Fred one time why he picked out such an ungodly country. He said he wanted to be alone where nobody would bother him and he sure found the ideal place for that.

During the winter of 1891 he hired me to go there and ride what he said was some half-broke horses—about twenty head. He wanted them for the Spring roundup so he could use them to work cattle. Those horses were like Fred—plenty tough. I don’t know how he got so many mean ones in one bunch.

I never saw so many mean horses—they would buck, strike, kick, bite, or run away. Shortly after I went to work for Fred, very cold weather set in and I sure had a tough time with those horses. There was snow and ice everywhere and it was hard enough for a gentle horse to stand up. These broncs didn’t care whether they stood up or not when they made up their minds to buck or run away. The camp was on a ridge with very rough gulches and canyons on both sides. The ridge averaged about a mile wide and a good many miles long, and when I would get one of them lined out on this ridge I would sure speed him up and didn’t give him any time to think of his tricks. I had to dress pretty heavy in that cold weather and a lot of clothes on don’t go very good with riding broncs. But the worst trouble of all was, I would get two or three of them going fairly good and the weather would turn so cold I couldn’t ride at all, sometimes for a week and those horses would get bronco again and I would have all my work to do over again. I rode most of them with draw reins and I could always double or pile them up in a snow bank before they would get to a cut bank or a gulch, but one day I was out riding one without draw reins and the horse stampeded heading for a cut bank. If one went over it he would land in the Missouri River. I couldn’t stop him and that bank looked to be a million feet straight up and down, so when I saw I couldn’t stop him I quit him and that’s a hard thing to do when a horse is running away. I just let all holts go and fell off but he didn’t go over the bank as soon as I quit him. He turned and went to camp which was about four miles that I had to walk.

One morning one of those horses bucked pretty hard. Fred was there and saw it. He said, “I saw a lot of daylight between you and that saddle. Looked to me like you was about gone.” I told him, “Oh no, that’s the way I ride, kind of loose.” I don’t know if he believed it or not but the fact was I was just about thrown off.

The headquarters consisted of a dugout for a home, no floor in it and a couple of bunks made out of cottonwood poles, and a corral. We melted snow to make coffee and cook with as the water hole was frozen and about all we had to eat was sour dough bread and black coffee. Of course, Fred being a great hunter, we had plenty of deer meat. Soon after I came there the sugar was all gone so we didn’t have any sweetening the rest of the winter. As soon as the weather broke so I could get out I quit Fred and left that part of the country.

Some time afterwards I was back in that locality and went to his camp. There was nobody home. It looked like nobody had been there for some time. I looked around and found some grub. It was a very warm day in the summer so I picketed my horse and laid down on Fred’s bed in the dugout to take a rest before getting something to eat. While I was lying there I saw a snake’s head appear out of a hole in the dugout. It looked as big as my hand and when he got his whole body out he was a monster. He was about four feet from me and saw me. He stuck his tongue out at me a few times and crawled across the dugout to where there was a grub box and got about half of his body in it and stopped. I raised up on my elbow to see what he was doing. He had his head in the sugar sack. I was twenty-five miles from where I could get anything to eat. I saddled up and beat it out of there. That was a bull snake (Gopher Snake) but he sure didn’t look good to me and he took all of my appetite, eating out of the grub box. I saw Fred some time afterwards and told him of my visit and of my leaving without eating. He seemed very much surprised that that should bother me any. He said the big fellow had been with him a long time and that they were great friends. He also said the big fellow didn’t allow no rats or mice to come near the camp.

I had quite an experience with another couple of old timers—two brothers that had a ranch and quite a large bunch of cattle. They had this ranch for some forty years, did their own cooking and washed their clothes, in fact, lived in real pioneer style. Their names were Frank and George. I was working for an outfit several miles from where those old timers lived. They sent my boss word that we had some cattle strayed on to their range and he sent me over there to help them gather the cattle and bring them home, and while working with them I took a very bad cold. One night when we got home I was quite sick and went into the room where they slept and laid down on one of the bunks. Later George and Frank came in and started getting supper. Now, they had a kind of an old box fastened on the wall of the cabin. They called it their medicine chest and in there was every kind of a bottle and little pill boxes imaginable and they were so old and dusty that the description and contents of each bottle was unreadable. While I was lying down I heard George say to Frank, “Con is pretty sick,” Frank said, “Why don’t you give him some bromo quinine?” George said, “Where is it?” “Why, it’s in that thar medicine box.” So George went looking for it. Pretty soon I heard him say, “I think this is it.” Frank said, “Yes, I think it is.” George started in where I was, but Frank stopped him and said, “Wait a minute, let me look at that again.” There was a little pause and I heard Frank say, “Hell no, this is coyote poison, don’t give him that.” “All right,” George said, “I’ll go back to the medicine box and look again.” Soon he came into the room with several different kinds of packages but I told him I didn’t think I needed anything now. In fact, I felt much better.

He was very much disappointed that I wouldn’t try some of the medicine. But, oh boy, he couldn’t have gotten any of that stuff down me with a ten foot pole.