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Title: Memories of Old Montana Author: Con Price Release Date: November 20, 2017 [EBook #56016] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES OF OLD MONTANA *** Produced by Roger Frank MEMORIES OF OLD MONTANA By Con Price (Masachele Opa Barusha) THE HIGHLAND PRESS Highland at Hawthorne HOLLYWOOD 28, CALIFORNIA Copyright, 1945 By Con Price All Rights Reserved FIRST EDITION After Deluxe edition of 125 copies, numbered and signed by the author. DEDICATION To all the old-time cowboys and cowmen whose hearts were as big as the range they rode. CONTENTS I. Earliest Memories (1869 to 1878) II. Black Hills of South Dakota (1878 to 1885) III. I Start to Punch Cows IV. With the RL Outfit V. With the TL Outfit in the Bear Paws VI. Line Riding With the Mounted Police VII. In the Judith Basin Country of Montana VIII. With the DHS Outfit IX. Jim Spurgeon X. Tom Daly XI. Kid Curry XII. Fred Reid XIII. Indians XIV. Open Range Days XV. The Johnson County War XVI. Broncos XVII. My Marriage XVIII. The Lazy KY XIX. Memories of Charlie Russell XX. Cowboy Philosophy PREFACE Some years ago, through my interest in the life and work of Charles M. Russell, I met Con Price. No one could go far into the subject of Montana’s Cowboy Artist without cutting Con Price’s trail. These two men were more than cowpuncher friends and associates in a ranch partnership. Charlie regarded Con as one of the greatest bronco riders of his time, and Con considers Charlie the finest kind of friend a man could have had. It was a long time before Con would talk much about his close friendship with Charlie Russell—a friendship that started on the range before either was married, and lasted until Charlie crossed the Big Divide in 1926. After some urging Con has, over a period of years, written something of his early days in Old Montana, with a few, too few, references to his friend Russell. My own knowledge of Russell has been immeasurably enriched through knowing Con Price, but more important is our own friendship, which I treasure even more. H. E. BRITZMAN July 23, 1945 Trail’s End, Michillinda, Pasadena, California. The Lazy KY The Lazy KY CHAPTER I EARLIEST MEMORIES (1869 to 1878) I was born in the year 1869 in Manchester, Iowa. My father served in the Civil War and during that service contracted consumption and was discharged from the army and came home a very sick man, without any provisions being made to take care of him—only through the efforts of my mother, who didn’t have a dollar, only what she made working for wages which was very small at that time. There was four children—the oldest eight, the youngest two. So with my father’s sickness and us hungry kids to feed, she must have had hard going. I think my father was home about a year when he died. How she provided for the burial, I do not know, as there was no charitable organizations or county help those days. I remember after the funeral my mother called in a Catholic priest to consult him about what to do with us kids. They finally decided that the priest would find homes for us by having some wealthy families adopt us, which he did. I was placed with a family by name of Calligan, near a town named Manson, Iowa. As I remember the contract, those people were to give me an education and when I was twenty-one years old, they were to give me a horse and saddle and $500.00. But after a few years my mother married again and she and her husband decided they wanted us children back. All the parties that had the other children gave them up, but the people I was with contested my mother’s rights, and they had a law suit about who would have possession of me. My mother won out, which broke my heart, as I was very much attached to my adopted parents. And another thing, as I see the picture now, my stepfather didn’t have intelligence enough to raise a pig, let alone a child, and I didn’t like him. So there was a mutual dislike between him and me right from the time they got me home. The first thing he put me doing was herding cattle out on the prairie. And almost every night I got a whipping or a scolding and I was always thinking about my adopted home. I think I was about nine years old at that time and he gave me a pretty good horse to ride to herd those cattle. So one day I conceived the idea of stealing this horse and run away and go back to my other home, which was about 100 miles. Of course, when I came up missing they didn’t know what happened and they went to all the neighbors looking for me before they got the idea that I had run away, which gave me quite a start. It took me about three days to make the trip. I stayed over night with ranchers and I remember they asked me, what I thought at that time, some queer questions—where I came from and where I was going, and so forth. But I mixed up a story that I was going on a visit, which I guess seemed strange to them—a boy about nine years old going that far with a good horse but no saddle. I was riding bareback. Anyway I made the trip. But about three miles from my adopted home, I turned the horse loose and walked—and as there was no fences to stop him, in the course of a few days he drifted back home. My adopted father and mother were tickled to death to see me. They were an old couple and had become very fond of me. So they cached me around in different places for several days until they decided my stepfather was not going to bother about me—and I thought I was settled down in my old home again. And they used to send me after the milk cows in the evening when I came home from school. They gave me a little mare to ride. She must have been a race horse, for she could sure run. I rode her without a saddle and I was still on the look-out for someone to come after me. Now my stepfather had a mare that was very fast, but he sometimes worked her in harness. Well, one evening I went after the cows—I think about two miles—and had just started towards home, when I saw a team and wagon coming pretty fast towards me right across the country and not on a road. I soon recognized my stepfather and my mother in the wagon. They were between me and my home, and I had a rather narrow place to go by them—(a fence on one side and a creek on the other ... I think about fifty yards space) and it looked like I was in a tough spot, as I had to go right past them. I had to go about a quarter of a mile to be opposite them. When I started towards them, my stepfather sensed what I was going to do. He jumped out of the wagon and started to unharness his fast horse. He was pretty quick and about the time I got to where he was, he had mounted and hollered at me to stop—but I was in high and I fairly flew past him. I looked back at him once and he was whipping that old horse and getting all the speed he could. But he might as well be standing still as far as his chances were of catching me. I had to go through some timber before I got to the house, so he couldn’t see which way I went. I give the alarm and the old lady told me to run into the corn field and hide. My stepfather came to the house and made all kinds of threats but he didn’t find me. My folks went back home and everything seemed all right again for about two weeks. I thought they were going to let me stay where I was. But one morning I was taking the cattle out to graze and had got off of my horse and was trying to drive a cow out of the brush. When I looked around there were two men close to me in a buggy. I didn’t wait a second but started to run. One of them jumped out of the buggy. I thought he was the largest man I ever saw—must have weighed 250 pounds. He hollered at me to stop, which only scared me worse and away I went and that big fellow after me. The country around there was very brushy and rough. I tore into that brush like a rabbit and run until I fell down and I just laid still, hoping he wouldn’t find me. I heard him go by me. I think he missed me about three feet and went on by. He must have been gone about an hour—I heard him coming back and he walked right up to where I was lying. He said, “I am the sheriff. Get up. I want you.” Boy, was I scared! He put one handcuff on my wrist and led me back to the buggy. My stepfather had sent him after me. I have never had any handcuffs on since but I sure suffered agony that day. They had to drive about 15 miles to the railroad to get a train to take me back home and I begged the sheriff to take the handcuffs off, as the thoughts of them scared me to death. The sheriff was a kindly man and I know he felt sorry for me and was going to take them off—but I heard the driver tell him, “That kid is going to give you the slip if you turn him loose and we never will catch him again, and he sure can run like hell.” It was a livery stable team and driver that the sheriff had hired to go after me, and I guess they didn’t want to waste anymore time chasing me. But the sheriff did take the cuffs off when we got to town and took me to dinner and treated me fine, but told me if I tried to run away he would put me in jail. That cooked me ... I stayed close to him all day so he wouldn’t think I was trying to get away. When I landed back home I had quite a score to settle with my folks for running away. They kept me under pretty close guard for awhile but finally put me back to herding cattle—but they did not give me a horse to ride anymore. I had to walk, as my stepfather knew there was less chance of me running away if I had to walk. My mother tried to make peace between the old man and myself but never made much headway, as we both hated each other. He was a comical-looking little Irishman—I was quite a mimic and was always making fun of him behind his back to the other kids. One day he caught me at it and it sure made him mad and he gave me a good beating, which didn’t help my feelings towards him. So I used to job him every chance I got and I guess I made life about as miserable for him as he did for me. CHAPTER II BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA (1878 to 1885) In 1879 my folks came across the plains from Fort Pierre to the Black Hills and the first town we came to, of any size, was Scooptown and from there to Deadwood was mostly mountains and several toll gates. It cost a dollar to go through those places—that meant the people that kept those gates kept the road repaired so it would be passable—but those roads were sure tough. I remember when we drove our team up the street of Deadwood the mud was about two feet deep and we could hardly get through, as Deadwood was one street about a mile long in a deep canyon. It was laid out in three sections: first Elizabeth Town, Chinatown and then Deadwood proper. We camped in Elizabeth Town for several weeks—lived in a tent. It was a great sight at that time around the old Gem Theatre, which was a big dance hall and gambling house. There was no law prohibiting minors from going into those places and I sure got an eyeful! The first unusual sight I remember was seeing a woman with a black and swollen eye. And in most of those dives there were women dealing faro bank and poker—and I was fascinated with the names they went by. There was Big Gussie, who was Bed Rock Tom’s common-law wife. She was considered a very capable gambler and would take and pay all bets as cool and calm as a bank teller—and just as accurate. I used to admire those old characters. There was Colorado Johnny, Tom Allen, Deaf Jimmie and several others ... I have forgotten their names. Those men were all faro dealers—and wore long whiskers ... and the barbers sure got well paid to keep those whiskers in perfect style—and the fine clothes and jewelry they wore must have cost a small fortune. As I remember there was 28 legitimate faro banks in town about that time, besides several questionable ones. Those games had a limit in the amount you could bet on the turn of a card, which was usually $12.50 and $25.00, but one or two houses had $125.00 and $250.00 limit—that means you can only bet the low limit where there is only one card left in the deck to act. You can bet it to win or lose. Most everybody played faro them days—but I believe the Chinaman was the greatest gambler of them all. About 11 o’clock at night was their favorite time to start out to gamble. They would put on their best clothes—which was the very finest of goods them days—white socks, silk top shoes, and they would leave Chinatown for the white man’s game. I have seen 25 of them, dressed this way, one behind the other heading for the faro game—and they sounded like a bunch of geese honking to each other in their talk. They liked to all get around one gambling table and if one of them seemed to be lucky, the rest of them would follow him with their bets. In fact, it seemed to be a kind of a system they had—and often they would win several thousand dollars in a night. While we were living in Deadwood, there was an old man kept a little grocery store close to where we were camped, and an old Irish woman kept a boarding house nearby. It was hard to get white sugar most of the time, and the people had to use brown sugar, which came in barrels, and when the weather was damp and rainy that sugar seemed to draw moisture and got quite heavy. And each time the old lady got sugar she accused the old man of putting water in it to make it weigh more. One morning he saw her coming. He got a bucket of water and was standing by the barrel when she walked in. She ran up to him and stuck her first in his face and said, “I caught you at last—I always knew you were watering that sugar!” She didn’t make much fuss about it afterwards. She seemed pleased to know she had caught him and that her suspicions had proved to be right. After a few months in Deadwood my folks moved to the little town of Galena, where Colonel Davey owned the Sitting Bull mine, and my folks started a store and boarding house and I went to school for a short time. There was two Irishmen run a store there by the name of McQuillian and Finnegan. They also had a cow ranch about 75 miles east of Galena. Finnegan run the ranch, McQuillian run the store. Finnegan used to come to Galena sometimes on horseback. His saddle, chaps and outfit was something wonderful to me—and his stories of the range made me feel I wanted to be a cowboy. I asked him for a job and he laughed at me, told me I was too young. Also my folks wanted me to go to school. But the spirit of the wild country had got in my blood and one day I run away from school and started for the Finnegan Ranch, caught a ride when I could and walked part of the way, but finally got there, and told Finnegan I was going to stay. So he gave me a job close herding some cows for breeding purposes. The first thing he learned me was to read his brand which was “F M.” There was thousands of brands on the range those days, and I was supposed to keep all other brands of cattle out of his bunch. The old man had several cowboys working for him, but he was chief cook, bottle washer and boss. He used to tell me he was the best cowboy of them all. But the fact of the matter was he couldn’t do much of anything in the way of a cowboy, and the men used to make fun of him behind his back. But I learned pretty quick that he liked to be swelled about what he could do and I sure poured it to him, and he liked me fine. He used to tell me what a fine cook he was— his cooking was rotten and consisted of bacon and beans and sourdough bread. I remember he had an old knotty pine log in front of the cabin, and I don’t think he ever started to cook a meal that he didn’t grab the axe and hit that old knotty pine log a few licks. He never got any wood off of it, but would try it every time, then throw the axe away, and hunt up some chips, or anything else he could find to start a fire. When he made bread, he had flour from his eyebrows to his toes. In 1879 the country was sure wild. Deer, antelope, buffalo and bear were very plentiful; very few white people, but lots of Indians and some of them were still on the warpath in them days; also quite a sprinkling of road agents. I remember one old road agent named Laughing Sam. He was very polite in his holdups. He held up a freighter one time and all he had that Sam wanted was chewing tobacco. The freighter begged Sam to not take all his tobacco, as he could not get any more until he got to Sidney, Nebraska, which was about 200 miles, but Sam said he was sorry on account of the law he could not go to Sidney, so took all of the tobacco. In those days everything was freighted from Fort Pierre, South Dakota, and Sidney, Nebraska, to the Black Hills by ox teams and mule teams. I have seen 27 ten-yoke teams of oxen all in one outfit. At the head of this caravan rode the wagon boss. He was quite a dandy in those days—fancy saddle, boots and pearl handle six-shooter. It was a great sight to see an outfit like that moving across the country; with those men shouting at their teams, whips popping and wagons rattling. It sounded like a young army in action. The town of Deadwood was the terminal of all freight and stage outfits, and as there was very little law and order those days, it was sure a wild town. There was another town about 20 miles before you got to Deadwood. It was called Scooptown those days, but afterwards was changed to the more dignified name of Sturgis, which it still has today. I have seen that town at night full of bull whackers, mule skinners, cowboys and soldiers, and the dance halls going full blast—when I think back at it today, it seems like a dream. I knew an old-time bull whacker. He went by the name of Baltimore Bill. He got into a gun fight one night in one of those dance halls. He got three fingers shot off, but killed the other fellow. He was arrested for murder and laid in jail for about a year pending his trial. He was finally acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. I worked with Bill afterwards and was well acquainted with him. He said he had a very narrow escape from hanging. He said when the “prosecutin’” attorney got through making his plea to the jury, he felt he (Bill) was the lowest human alive and deserved hanging, “but, oh boy, when my attorney got through with my defense, I was a damn good man!” Fort Meade was located three miles from Scooptown and was occupied by colored soldiers, and a very noted nigger ran a dance hall and gambling house in Scooptown. One night some of those negro soldiers were drinking in this house and got into a row with the proprietor, whose name was Abe Hill, and he hit one of them on the head with a bottle. A few nights after this, these soldiers stole some guns and ammunition out of the Fort and came in to shoot Abe Hill’s place up. There were about twenty of them, and they raided that old dance hall and in fact nearly all the town. There was a cowboy in Abe’s place that night. His name was Bob Bell and he didn’t know what all the noise was about. He stepped from the gambling part into the dance hall, thinking it was a little celebration and was shot four or five times. Poor Bob never knew what hit him. I was in town that night, and when the shooting began I ran back off the main street, but bullets seemed to be hitting all around me. The first thing I came to that looked like protection was a wagon with a mule tied to it. I ducked under the wagon—but between the bullets hitting the wagon and that old mule bucking on the end of the halter, I put in a quarter of an hour very uncomfortable. But the mule and myself escaped unhurt. Part of that regiment of negro soldiers were afterwards transferred to Wyoming to stop a war that broke out between the stock men and cattle rustlers, and they pulled off another job about like they did in Scooptown. There was a little town established at the end of the Burlington Railroad on Powder River. It was named Sugs. The town consisted mostly of saloons and the sporting element. Those negro soldiers got into some difficulty with some of the citizens of the town and decided to have revenge. They were camped a little ways outside of Sugs in tents. So one night they stole some ammunition and guns like they had done before at Scooptown, and started in to town to shoot it up. It was quite a dark night and the only lights the town had was coal oil lamps. The town had about 500 population and one street. Those soldiers lined up at the end of the street and started shooting at every building, tent, or any form they saw, and everybody that could run for cover—in half finished cellars, out houses or any hole they could get into. There was an old man there—(he was a Jew)—who had started a little hardware store, and had a few dish pans hung on the wall of his tent store, and about the first bullet that hit anything of consequence was those dish pans. They were hung one on top of another, and the bullet went through all of them. And while everyone was running for cover the Jew saw his pans wrecked. He stopped right there and said, “Oh my God, look at what they have done to my hardware.” Now there was two cattle rustlers came to town that night, making their get-away, headed north, and had put their horses away, and got a room in the only hotel in town, which was at the opposite end from where the soldiers entered. Those men had gone to bed and when they heard the shooting they thought it was a posse after them, and as they didn’t have time to get to their horses, they decided to put up a fight. They both had Winchesters. They put all their bullets in their hats, came out of the hotel, and laid down in the middle of the street, and when they saw this body of soldiers moving their way shooting everywhere, they opened fire on them. I believe they killed three of those negro soldiers and wounded several more. It became so hot for the soldiers they broke and run. Meantime the officer at the Post had heard of the trouble, ordered out his whole force, and came riding into town and demanded law and order. It was quite a while before the officer could be made to understand his own men had caused all the excitement, as he did not know they had stolen away. CHAPTER III I START TO PUNCH COWS In the year of 1885 I got my first job as a real cowboy. I went to work for the “7D” outfit on the Belle Fouche River in the Black Hills night herding horses on the roundup. There was twenty outfits working together and there was about 300 riders—that was more cowboys than I ever saw hi one bunch before, or since. Also there was more grass and water that spring than I ever saw since that time and the range was open for a thousand miles in every direction and the country was just alive with cattle and it was not unusual to work and handle 5,000 cattle in one day. Each outfit had from 150 to 200 saddle horses and from 15 to 30 cowboys. Each outfit had a grub-wagon and a bedwagon, four horses to each wagon. Each outfit had a day horse wrangler and a night wrangler and a cook. When we moved camp, the night wrangler drove the bedwagon to haul the cowboys’ beds. We didn’t have any stoves or tents those days. The cook’s outfit consisted of Dutch ovens, iron pots and coffee pot and boy, what a meal them old cooks could set up! In the spring of 1886 I helped to gather and take a herd of cattle from the Black Hills to Miles City, Montana. The cattle belonged to a Jew by the name of Strauss and he owned the “54” Ranch on a creek named Mizpah—I don’t know where that creek got its name, but it must mean alkali, for the water there would take the skin off your lips and was equal to any dose of Epsom salts that anyone ever took. Mr. Strauss lived in Milwaukee and had been on the ranch about a week when we arrived, and the weather was very warm and he drank plenty of that water. So one day about noon he told his foreman there was something seriously wrong with him and he had to go to Milwaukee at once. He had black whiskers and I think that water was so bad it even had an effect on his whiskers. He looked so bad he scared me. So I told the boss I would quit and went with them to the railroad—they had to go to Miles City for the Jew to get a train to Milwaukee. So I went with them, which was about 50 miles. We made a night drive in a buckboard. There was a road ranch about half way and the old man kept telling the foreman when we got there he would be O.K. as the lady who owned the place served nice cold milk and that was what his stomach was craving. We got there about midnight and woke the people up to get some milk for the old man. The lady sent her boy down cellar for the milk. There was a skunk in the cellar. He killed the skunk and brought the milk up to the dining room. When that old man took one swallow of that milk he stopped and his eyes set in his head. I thought he had a stroke. He said, “Lady, I believe the animal has been in the milk.” We got to Miles City the next day and I never saw the old man again but hope he found some milk that was not tainted with the perfume of the skunk. I remember my first experience as a bullwhacker—that was what they named a driver the days when they hauled freight with cattle and mule teams. When I quit the “54” outfit and went to Miles City, I proceeded to counteract that bad water on Mizpah Creek with Miles City whiskey and the results were so pleasant I stayed until I was broke and sold my saddle, and when I could not get anymore of Miles City joy juice I got in a box car one night on a train going West and landed at Ouster Junction on the Yellowstone River in Montana—that was where freight was unloaded and hauled to Fort Custer and some parts in Wyoming. The first outfit I found was loading for Wyoming and was owned by a man by the name of Bill Marsh. He had two teams (10-yoke of Texas steers to the team) and was loaded with whiskey—I have forgotten how many barrels but they usually hauled 9,000 pounds to the team. I asked Marsh if he wanted a man. He asked me if I was a bullwhacker. I told him yes, and he hired me. Now I never had put a yoke on a steer in my life, or drove one, but I wanted a job, so he showed me the right- hand leader, which is the first steer to be yoked. Now the way to yoke a steer is to put the yoke on your shoulder and walk up to him. The cattle were used to that way, but I took the yoke in my arms, and walked up to the steer. He took one look at me, jumped up in the air, kicked me in the stomach, knocked me down with the yoke on top of me and run off. The boss was looking at the performance and said he better help me hitch up. We rolled about 10 miles that day and my team just simply followed the boss’ team and done about as they pleased. They certainly knew I was a tenderfoot as a bullwhacker. That night I was pretty badly discouraged when we camped and I told the boss the truth that I had never drove oxen before but I was broke and had to have work. He said I need not tell him anything as he knew when I tried to yoke that first steer that I was not a bullwhacker. It has always been a mystery to me about those steers—how well they knew me—after about a week on the trail they wouldn’t pull your hat off for me. I know the boss would have fired me but we were crossing the Crow Indian Reservation and we didn’t see a white man for a hundred and fifty miles, so he had to put up with me. At that I don’t think he suffered anymore than I did, because my team done just about as they pleased most of the time. I recall one day we were pulling what they called the Lodge Grass Hill on the Little Horn River and it was very steep and scarcely any road at all. The boss and his team had pulled the hill and got over the top out of sight of me. My team stopped on the hill and refused to start. I will never forget my near wheeler—I was whipping and hollering at the rest of the cattle trying to start the load—I happened to look at him. He had the yoke up on his horns and his eyes bulged out like he was pulling his best, but the fact of the matter was he was holding back. It looked like he was just fooling me. Finally the boss came back to see what was the matter. I told him I was stuck and the cattle couldn’t pull the load. Now Bill was a real bullwhacker and those steers knew it. He give one yell at those cattle and the three wagons began to move; in fact they went so fast I could hardly keep up with them and it looked like that old steer that had been fooling me pulled half the load himself. We used whips, with the lash about 20 feet long and the handle about 5 feet. Those old bullwhackers could pick a fly off any steer anywhere in the team, and when they hit a steer it sounded like a six-shooter had went off—that was something I never learned. They could hit a steer with their whips and make a loud noise and not cut him. Every time I hit one I cut his hide. The boss used to give me hell about that but I would have used an axe if I had one when I got stuck. When we had been on the road several days we lost a work steer and it broke up my team. While the boss was out on the range looking for the steer, a young buck Indian came into camp, riding a pretty good-looking horse. He could talk a little English and I could talk some Indian. I made him understand we had lost a steer and asked him if he would go and look for it. But he wanted money and I didn’t have any ... but we had six wagon loads of whiskey and I knew Indians liked whiskey. They called it fire water—Minnie Kavea. The people we were hauling it for allowed us to drink what we wanted, the only proviso was not to put any water in the barrel after we drew the whiskey out, so I asked the Indian if he would hunt for the steer if I gave him a drink. His face immediately became all smiles and he made signs if I would give him a big drink that it would be a bargain. I went to the grub box, got a pint tin cup and filled it for him. He drank it like water. He made signs that I was his brother and he loved me and he would find the steer right away. I think he was gone about half an hour when he came back. His eyes were glassy and he was slobbering at the mouth but very happy. He said. “Me no see cow.” He made me understand the fire water was very fine and wanted some more. I gave him another cupful. He started away singing, to hunt the steer again. He was riding bareback and was leaning pretty much to one side. He went about 50 yards and fell off. When he hit the ground, he completely passed out. About that time the boss got into camp with the lost steer. When he found out what I had done he said, “My God, kid, you will have us both in the pen for giving whiskey to Indians. Yoke up your cattle quick and we will get out of here.” We left him lay where he was. I’ll bet he was a sick Indian when he woke up. The boss sure was mad about it at the time, but had a big laugh over it afterwards. We were six weeks making that trip, and I was a fairly good freighter by that time, but it wasn’t a very good job for a cowboy, as I had to walk too much. CHAPTER IV WITH THE RL OUTFIT In the spring of 1887 I went to work for the “RL” outfit located on the Musselshell River in Montana. The outfit belonged to the Ryan Brothers of Kansas City. They run about 25,000 head of cattle, and run three wagons and worked about 20 men to each wagon, and had about 500 head of saddle horses. That year they had a contract with the government to supply the Sioux Indians with 5,000 beef cattle. We gathered the first herd of 2,500 and trailed them to landing Rock Agency on the Missouri River in North Dakota. We were about four months on the trail and I don’t remember of seeing one wire fence or farming ranch on the trip. We swam those cattle across the Yellowstone River east of Miles City. We were four days trying to get those cattle across. It was in the month of June and at the time of high water—the river was bank full and at least a quarter of a mile wide. We tried every way anybody had ever heard of to get those cattle to take that water. We would bring them to the river every day and fight them all day, but it was no go. We would then drive them back from the river and night herd them and try again the next day. Finally we decided to hold them off water for twenty-four hours, and then drove them all into the river at once. It worked. It was sure some sight, the 2,500 head all swimming at once. We had a wonderful trip after that. We only moved them about eight or ten miles a day and with plenty grass and water they got very fat. It was the custom them days to butcher a calf on anybody’s range, so we had plenty good meat. When we arrived at the end of our journey, we had to herd those cattle for about three months, as we only delivered 250 head a week. We held them about twenty miles from the Agency, and each week we cut out the fattest ones and took them to the Agency. After we had been there about a week all the cowboys quit and went back to Montana, which only left the boss, the cook and myself with 2,500 cattle to hold, and as there was no white men in that part of the country, the boss had to hire some Indians to help hold the cattle. Those Indians could not understand one word of English and we couldn’t talk much Indian, so we were in a pretty bad fix. Our horses didn’t like the smell of the Indian, and they persisted in getting on on the right-hand side, and, of course, our horses objected to that. They all wore moccasins and they would put their foot so far through the stirrup when a horse got scared when they were getting on and they would fall down and their foot would hang in the stirrup, so the boss and myself put in most of our time catching loose horses. One day a steamboat came up the Missouri River and it blowed the whistle. Now those cattle had never heard a steamboat whistle before. They were scattered over an area of about four miles feeding. It sure scared them. They first run together all in one bunch, and we might have checked them but those Indians got excited and scared them worse than ever. One Indian was running his horse pretty close to the lead of the cattle and giving war whoops, and his horse fell down and throwed him right in among the cattle. I sure thought he was killed and hoped he was, but he never got a scratch. After we got the cattle stopped, he made signs that he enjoyed it very much, as it reminded him of hunting buffalo. All cattlemen know that cattle do not get over a scare like that very soon, and those were all longhorned Texas steers and would scare of their own shadow, and when one jumped they all went. So that night when we put them on the bed-ground, the boss wouldn’t put the Indians on night guard as he knew they would scare them for sure. So he put me on first guard, and he brought his bed and night horse out to the herd so he would be close if anything happened. He staked his horse and went to bed. I was riding around the herd and they all seemed to be settled down fine, when all at once, quick as you could snap your finger, they were all running. It was very dark and it sounded like thunder when that herd stampeded. I was badly scared and I tried to stay in the lead of them as much as I could, but they would swing first one way and then another. I think they run about three miles, when something came out of the herd right longside of me. I knew it wasn’t a steer. It made a different noise from anything else that I had heard. I thought it was a ghost, and I pretty near fainted. It was the boss’ horse dragging the stake rope and the stirrups and saddle a-popping that scared the cattle and me, too. The horse had pulled his stake pin and stampeded the herd. After this ghost had disappeared, I got the cattle stopped but I still didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know where I was or where camp was, so I tried to sing and talk to the cattle and wait for help. Some of them began to bawl and I knew that was a good sign, as cattle will not scare so bad when some of them are bawling. In about an hour I heard the boss whistling and coming my way. He had walked to camp and got another horse, and come hunting me. He stayed the rest of the night with me. Luckily we had not lost any of them, as they all stayed together, but there was a lot of broken horns and lame cattle, as they had piled up several times in the run. For several days those cattle were very nervous and we had considerable trouble watering them. A steer would see a little rock or a piece of grass that didn’t look just right—he would jump and away they would all go. After about a month the other herd came and we had more cowboys. We were all right then as we had plenty of help, and began delivering beef to the Indians. I remember one delivery we made, the boss sent me with a pack outfit and my orders were to camp about halfway of the twenty miles we had to go and make coffee for the cowboys that were bringing the cattle. It was raining that day, and as we were on the Indian reservation there was very little wood to build a fire with, so when I got to the place I was to camp everything was wet and nothing to make a fire with. I saw a pine box about two feet long in a cottonwood tree. I got it down and broke it up and inside of it were a few dried bones and a few pieces of red flannel. It was an Indian papoose grave—that was the way they buried their dead. I dumped the bones out and made a fire out of the box. Old man Ryan, one of the owners of the cattle, was with us that day, and came ahead of the cattle to get some coffee. When he seen I had coffee made, he was very pleased, and told me I was a great boy. But when he went to pour out his coffee, he spied those bones. He asked me what they were, and when I told him he nearly fainted, and would not touch the coffee. But it didn’t affect those hungry cowboys when they got there; they told me I was wonderful, but the old gentleman said I was simply terrible. The old man was a very devout Catholic and said I would surely go to Hell when I died. We would put those cattle in the government corral and an army officer would just look them over and accept them. They didn’t weigh them, but bought them so much a head. After the inspector passed on them, they would call five or six Indians with their rifles. They would get up on the corral fence and shoot every one of them before they touched one. Then the army officer would take so many Indian families to each steer and let them divide it up. There was three tribes there, with a chief at the head of each tribe. I don’t know how many Indians was in each tribe but it looked like about 3,000 Indians—all Siouxs. In about two hours there wouldn’t even be a tail of a steer left. Each family took their portion and went to their different camp grounds. Those three chiefs’ names were Sitting Bull, Rain in the Face, and Gall—the latter two looked like old seasoned warriors, both had been wounded in battle several times. Sitting Bull was a younger man and looked like he had some white blood in his veins. The old time Indians claimed Sitting Bull was not the great warrior that he got credit for and that he did not plan the massacre of General Custer and that Rain in the Face was the great man in that battle. Every time those steers were shot down in the corral, before any beef was divided, Rain in the Face made a speech —I don’t know what it was about, but the roar of applause was terrific. That fall when we got the beef all delivered, we took the saddle horses to Mandan, North Dakota, on the Northern Pacific Railroad and shipped them back to Montana. The cowboys went by passenger train. Those cowboys had been on the Indian reservation all summer and could not get any refreshments, and as they had all their wages they made Mandan a lively town for a Hay and a night. There was about twenty of them, and it was some job getting them cowboys loaded on that train, and after we got started it took the train crew all their time to keep them straight. Them days they heated the chair cars with a coal heating stove. One old cowboy got a raw steak out of the diner, and before the conductor knew it he was cooking it on top of the stove and the car was full of smoke. The conductor took it away from him and throwed it out of the car and gave the old man hell. The old man was very mad and told the conductor he didn’t know nothing, as that was the proper way to cook a steak. Another fellow bought a suit of clothes in Mandan and decided to change clothes in the parlor car. He got into quite a dispute with the train crew, but finally got his new suit on. He said they were too damn particular about riding on trains. We were all at the RL ranch one afternoon ready to start on the spring roundup next morning. We saw a rider coming very fast. When he rode in we all knew him. His name was George Shepord. His horse was all sweat and about winded. Someone said, “Hello, George. What is the matter?” He set on his horse and didn’t say anything for about a minute —then he said, “I killed John Matt about two hours ago.” John run a saloon at what was known at that time as Musselshell Crossing, a stage station. George’s story was that him and Matt were playing poker single-handed that day and got into a dispute over a pot. George said Matt tried to steal a twenty dollar gold piece out of the pot. They got in an argument over it. They both had guns (all cowboys wore guns those days)—Matt reached for his gun but George beat him to it and killed him right there at the poker table. George got on his horse and came to where we were and the boss notified the Sheriff. The boss knew George very well and liked him very much, so he took George to a big patch of brush down the river and hid him out until things got cleared up and the boss detailed one of the cowboys to carry food to him. George was very desperate at first and would not agree to give himself up—so the sign agreed on between George and the other boy was that the cowboy was to whistle When he came near the brush patch. This boy told me afterwards he would begin whistling a mile before he got to the brush patch, and when he got there he would be so damn nervous he couldn’t whistle at all. Finally the boss got George to give himself up and the fact that no one saw the shooting and George’s testimony was all there was, he got clear on the grounds of self-defense. It’s a strange coincidence, but I worked with another fellow that killed a man the year before in Gold Butte, Montana, and he and George worked together for the RL outfit. His name was Frank McPartland—and they were both the quietest and mild-mannered men in the outfit. So as the old saying goes: “You can’t tell how far the frog can jump by looking at him.” Frank and his partner were wintering in a cabin in Gold Butte and got into a fight over a gallon of whiskey they had —anyway that was what started the fight. Gold Butte was about two days’ ride to Fort Benton, which was the county seat and the nearest place to get in touch with an officer. Frank stayed with the corpse and sent a neighbor after the sheriff and coroner. When they arrived they had to stay all night in the cabin and when it came time to go to bed there were only two bunks. Frank gave one to the sheriff and coroner. They asked him where he was going to sleep. He said with his partner. He said, “I slept with him when he was alive—I don’t see why I shouldn’t now.” Frank was in jail for about a year and as Gold Butte was at that time an Indian reservation, he had to be tried in the Federal Court which was at Fort Keogh near Miles City. He got free, too, from the fact nobody saw the killing but him. When I worked for the RL outfit, we used to work along the Yellowstone River. There was one place where there was quite a little settlement of farmers. The place was known as Pease Bottom. We always camped a couple of days right on the edge of the Bottom. My memory of it is the whole female population of the Bottom was two girls, a widow and a married lady. Always the day before we made this camp the cowboys shined their spurs and bridles and put on clean shirts (if they had one) as they knew all the lady folks would be at the roundup and boy, what a show those forty or fifty cowboys would put on for those four or five ladies. If a cowboy’s horse didn’t buck, he would make him buck. If no cattle broke out of the roundup, some fellow would cut one out and take it around and around in front of the ladies. Of course, the ladies applauded us all—and we didn’t know who was the favorite but, of course, each one thought in his own mind he was the best. Every year when we camped and worked the country close to Pease Bottom it was understood by everybody that we would have a dance at night in some one of the farmers’ houses, as the people in this little valley really enjoyed those events just as much as we did. Our cook played the banjo and a mouth harp, both of which he always carried with him. He had a kind of a frame fixed around his head so he could play them both at once. He only played two or three tunes, such as “Turkey-in-the- Straw,” “Hell Among the Yearlings” (which was a cowboy title) and maybe a waltz or two, but those pieces answered the purpose for all dances. We danced mostly quadrilles, I remember, and one time some stranger happened to be at one of those dances and he asked the cook to play some dance tune that he never heard of and it came near to causing a riot, as that was one thing the cook prided himself on—that he knew and could play any tune that anyone asked for, regardless of how difficult. So he played “Buffalo Girls,” or some other old-timer. The fellow said that it was not the tune he asked for and it started a hot argument right now. We all said the cook was right and the stranger didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course, we didn’t know anything about music, but we did know we had to stand by the cook, as he was the only musician we had. He wouldn’t stand for any criticism of his music and would quit playing and break up the dance. In those days the foreman of an outfit wore better clothes and rode a better rig than the average cowboy and really was in a class by himself, so when we went to those dances he was usually more popular than the regular cowboy, and was often shown favors among the girls. In fact, we would have to take another fellow for a partner instead of a girl sometimes—the ladies was so scarce. I recall what seems to me to be very amusing now. There was a school teacher at one of those Pease Bottom dances and she was a great favorite with everybody and every cowboy tried to pick her for a partner, if possible. The floor manager had called a dance with “Ladies’ Choice.” I heard that call and figured I was out for that dance—and took a big chew of tobacco—when to my surprise this little lady stepped up to me and asked me for that dance. Now I had no chance to get rid of that chew and rather than let this little queen know I chewed tobacco or lose that dance, I swallowed the whole works, tobacco juice and all. It is hard to imagine the high regard and respect we had for those good women of that day, as we saw so few of them—and as I know good women appreciate those things, I believe they liked us and valued our friendship. Why I have known some old hard-faced cowpuncher that had a grouch about something and when one of those women would give him some little attention his face would soften up until you couldn’t tell it from the face of the Virgin Mary. CHAPTER V WITH THE TL OUTFIT IN THE BEAR PAWS For a good many years there was a section of the country along the Canadian border and the Milk River that the cattlemen thought was no good for cattle—but in the late eighties and early nineties they discovered that it was a much better cattle country than the Missouri and Yellowstone country as it produced a buffalo-grass that I think had no equal for fattening cattle. It was a short grass, but had plenty of fattening qualities, especially in the Sweet Grass Hills area. I have seen steers so fat we could hardly drive them into the roundups. So nearly all the Judith Basin and Moccasin outfits moved into that country. They had to swim all their herds across the Missouri River and it was between a quarter and a half mile wide and swimming water from bank to bank. Most of the herds were crossed at a place called Judith Landing, an old steamboat landing in the early days. It was afterwards named Claggot. There was a man by the name of Bill Norris who had a store and saloon there, and for a few years, while these herds were crossing, he reaped a rich harvest off the cowboys. Charlie Russell helped swim some of those herds and he told me he believed Bill made his own whiskey and must have made it especially for swimming cattle, as when a cowboy got about three drinks of that whiskey the Missouri River looked like a very small creek. It made him plenty brave. There must have been some truth in what Charlie said, as I cannot recall where one cowboy was drowned. I went over to that country about the spring of 1890 and went to work for the TL outfit, which belonged to McNamar and Broadwater. They had a ranch in the Bear Paw Mountains. When I went to the ranch and asked for work, the boss said it was too early in the spring to hire any men as the...