In the year of 1886 Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux tribe got permission from the agent at Standing Rock Agency in North Dakota to make a visit to the Crow Agency in Montana to visit the Crow Indians.
So he collected about fifty Sioux warriors and made the trip, and went to the battle ground where General Custer and his army was massacred in the year 1876, which was a short distance from the Crow Agency. He asked the Crow agent for permission to have a war dance on the battle ground. He said he wanted to recall old times. The agent refused.
So sitting Bull collected a bunch of Crow warriors and had a party on the Little Horn River adjoining the battle ground. The party progressed very nicely until Sitting Bull got on his feet and declared he was the greatest warrior that ever lived, stating the fact that he had killed more white men and stolen more horses than any other chief living. That statement insulted the Crow chief and the party turned into a fight. Crazy Head, the Crow chief, pulled his knife, grabbed Sitting Bull by his long hair and throwed him down and made him smell his feet, which was the greatest insult one chief could offer another, as in the language of the Indian it made Sitting Bull a dog, which is the worst name an Indian can call anyone.
The party broke up, and the next night Sitting Bull, to get even, stole a bunch of Crow horses, and with his fifty warriors started back for the Sioux reservation.
But there was an old squaw man living with the Crows that was plenty smart in the line of stealing horses and he collected a bunch of Crows and followed Sitting Bull and overtook his party on the Little Horn River, and took the horses away from them and killed two Sioux bucks and scalped them. Sitting Bull and the rest of his party got away and beat it back to their reservation.
Now the Crows got very uneasy over this affair and were afraid the Sioux would go on the warpath and steal away from their reservation and come back and clean up on them. So the Crow chief, Crazy Head, called all the Crows together, which at that time was about 2,800, and made a blockade by putting all their lodges and tepees on a big fiat on the Little Horn River covering about 20 acres, and at night they put all their horses inside this enclosure, and put guards all around it at night. Also inside this enclosure about two hundred of these warriors had tom-toms and they beat them all night and sang war songs. I want to say here that all the noise they made was to keep their spirits up, as they were deathly afraid of the Siouxs.
The old squaw man was in this big gathering, all dressed up like the Indians with britch cloth and head-dress with all kinds of feathers in his bonnet. I recall a rather amusing incident about him. A few years prior to the time I am writing of, the railroad ended at Miles City, and the administration at Washington, D.C., had notified the Crow Indian agent to send several chiefs to Washington to try to make a peace treaty and give them certain portions of land if they would become civilized. The agent called this squaw man to the Agency to send him with the chiefs as an interpreter. Now the old man had never seen a train or railroad and thought he had to ride horseback all the way to Washington. He told the agent he thought he could make the trip all right, but would have to have a new saddle. When he returned from Washington, the Indians were very anxious to know what he had seen and some of them still thought they could beat the white men at war. So they asked the old man how many whites he saw. He picked up both hands full of sand and throwed it in the air. Said he, “The whites are just like that wherever I went.” It was said that this demonstration by the old man made it seem useless to most of the braves to carry the fight any farther.
They also had the scalps of those two Indians they had killed hung on a tripod and some of the young braves sure put on a real war dance around the scalps.
Another man and myself went there one night. It sure was some sight. We put blankets around us like the Indians wore. This man I was with could talk Indian and they told him they knew we were white men even in the dark from the way we walked. This man’s name was Herb Dana, and he lived on Tongue River in Wyoming. If he is alive yet he can verify what I have told about this incident.
That winter a man by the name of Ed Town and myself started across the reservation with a freighting outfit, which he owned. He lived at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. We had forty head of work cattle (which was Texas steers) and six wagons (which was two teams, three wagons hooked together—ten yoke of cattle made a team). It was in the month of January and the weather turned bitter cold.
We were near froze to death one night. We made camp and unyoked the steers, turned them loose without any feed except a few willows that grew on the creek. We finally got the tent up and I was kicking around in snow up to my knees, trying to find wood enough to build a fire, but there wasn’t any to be found. About the time I had given up, an old Indian came up to me and made signs he had a good lodge and no grub and that we had plenty food and no fire, and invited us to bring our food to his tepee. We were sure glad to make the trade.
His lodge was about 200 yards from our camp. We took all the bacon and flour the three of us could carry and went with the Indian. That was as cold a night as I ever saw and am sure we would both lost our lives if it wasn’t for that Indian.
I don’t think they had ate for a long time, as the squaws made bread and fried bacon all night. There was ten Indians in the camp and did they eat!
The lodge was round with a hole at the top. The fire was in the middle of the lodge. They cooked the bread in a frying pan.
We stayed there three days during the blizzard and outside of a little smoke we were fairly comfortable, but I think when we left there we were two of the lousiest men ever walked. I traded an Indian a $12.00 Stetson for a muskrat cap—I could brush lice and nits off it in swarms.
When the storm broke we found enough steers to pull one wagon to the ranch. As far as I know the rest of them died.
The winter of 1886 and 1887 was the toughest winter of my life and I believe it will be verified by all cattle men of that period. There was men in Montana and Wyoming that had 5,000 cattle that didn’t roundup 100 head the next spring.
My boss paid me off when we got to the ranch. I met up with another kid about my age. We had about $20.00 between us and no place to go. So we made a dugout out of cottonwood poles and dirt. We had no stove, so built a fireplace to cook on—and on the coldest days it always smoked the worst. In the spring we smelled and looked like Indians. We rustled a quarter of beef, a few beans, a little sugar and coffee and lived on that until spring. We got a little tapioca somewhere for dessert. We cooked that with water but we couldn’t spare much sugar—there was no place to get any more (that was on the line of Montana and Wyoming and was 100 miles from the railroad).
That winter the Indians suffered terrible from hunger and after we set up housekeeping squaws and papooses would come to stay until we cooked our meal with the hopes of getting something to eat. We fed them for awhile but we were getting low on food and had to quit, but they would come every day and stay all day and we wouldn’t eat while they were there.
One day my partner said he wanted to eat, but didn’t know what to do with those damn Indians. They were all huddled around the fireplace. I told him to make a lane through them as if he wanted to put some wood on the fire. I had a 45 six-shooter under my head on our bunk. When he made the opening I opened fire on the fireplace and took a fit. I hollered and bucked like a bronc. I throwed ashes all over the Indians and they nearly tore the door down getting out. Then we cooked and eat, and wasn’t bothered with Indians for a long time.
About a week after a buck Indian came by there looking for horses. It was very cold and my partner asked him in to get warm. He looked at me for a while and shook his head and made signs I was crazy. I guess the squaws had told him about me. We had put out some poisoned meat for coyotes and the Indians found it and was going to eat it but was suspicious and tried it on a dog and it killed him, which didn’t raise us much in their estimation.
I will always think those Indians got even with me. That following spring I wanted to leave that part of the country, and I didn’t have a horse. So I got to talking to some Indians. They said they had a fine horse running in their bunch. It was a stray—nobody claimed it and I could have him. I made a date with them when they would corral their horses. I was there with my saddle. They showed me a beautiful big sorrel and told me to catch him, which I did. He trotted right up to me when I roped him and seemed very nice to saddle. I was wondering all the time why those Indians were so kind to me, but oh boy, when I mounted him I found out. After the first jump I never saw anything but a little piece of sorrel mane in front of the saddle. I have been bucked off a good many times and often thought I could have rode most of the horses if I had got a break, but there never was any doubt about that Indian gift horse—I never had a Chinaman’s chance.
I saw several of those Indians in years afterwards. They would think awhile before they would remember me—they would laugh and make signs with their hands how the horse bucked me off.
The Crow Indians’ name for me was the White Man Chews Tobacco—Masachele Opa Barusha.
One time an old Crow Indian told me quite a story about the Tribe that I don’t believe many people know (and I have seen some evidence of the truth of his story).
I was riding line for a cow outfit on the Crow Reservation and an old Crow Chief came riding into my camp one morning about daylight, and asked me for something to eat, as he said he was making a long ride on some important business. I knew him—he was the same Chief that pulled a knife on Chief Sitting Bull, grabbed him by the hair and made him smell of his feet. This old Chief’s white-man’s name was Crazy Head—his Indian name was Ah Shumoch Noch, which means “Curly Head.” His hair was curly (which is unusual for an Indian) and he had very thick lips, which made me think of the story the old Indian had told me. He said a great many snows ago, a Negro showed up among the Crows. Nobody knew where he came from or how he got there, but he lived with them for many years. The Crow name for a Negro is Masachele Sha Pit Cot (which means White Black Man). While this old Chief was enjoying his breakfast (and he was plenty hungry) I asked him in Indian if he didn’t have some Nigger blood in him, and it sure made him mad. I believe if he hadn’t been eating in my camp he would have done something to me, but he said “Barrett” in a very loud voice, which means NO, but I insisted that he must have a little Negro blood. Still his answer was NO, with an oath, but I kept on teasing him about his curly hair and thick lips. He finally stuck out the end of his little finger with his thumb on the other hand to measure with—ecosh cota, which meant about the size of a pin head. He sure hated a nigger.
There was another old Indian visited our camp sometimes, that was quite a character. But he could peddle the bull as good as any white man I ever knew. Sometimes when he came to our camp—we wouldn’t have much food cooked and wouldn’t give him anything to eat, and he would silently sit on the ground watching us until we got through eating. When we put our cooking outfit away, he would get up on his feet, hitch his blanket over his shoulders and go out of the tent and call us all the mean dirty names he could think of, such as dogs, skunks and snakes. Well, maybe the next time he came we would feed him and it was sure wonderful to see the change in him. He loved bacon and coffee. Sometimes we would give him a big plate of bacon and sour dough bread. He would sit on the ground, cross his legs and boy, how he would eat! He would get his hands all bacon grease and rub them through his hair, and get a few shots of that strong coffee into him—it seemed to stimulate him like a shot of hop. Then he would open up with his “bull.” He would talk part Indian and part English. His favorite line was how much he loved the white man, such as, “Me no steal em White Man horse—White Man he my brother—My heart very good for him” (and I know he would steal the coppers off of a dead white man’s eyes). He said the Piegan Indian and the Sioux was very bad and all the time steal white man’s horse, but he was always watching out for the white man and wouldn’t let other Indians steal white man horse.
I recall another Indian I knew several years later, his name was Christmas. I always thought that he had stolen my saddle. One time at Big Sandy, Montana, we had shipped a train load of cattle out of Malta, and as usual after the cattle were all loaded out, we proceeded to celebrate before we went back on the range to gather some more. I think there were about twenty of us when we started the night celebration, but sometime in the night I must have took a nap, anyway I came to about two o’clock in the morning and as it was late in the month of October it was quite cold, in fact I thought I would freeze to death, everybody was gone to camp, my horse was tied to the hitch rack, the saloons were all closed, and not a light anywhere. I was working my way around trying to find my horse. When this Indian showed up where my horse was tied, he evidently had been drunk too and seemed very glad to find someone to talk to or steal something. He came up to where I was and said, “By golly Con Price I sure glad to see you, you my brother.” I guess I must have got some bad whiskey and felt pretty mean for while Christmas was talking to me I thought it would be a good joke to swing on him. His hands were both hanging down by his sides, so I was not taking any chances. I braced myself and gave him all I had, right on the point of the chin. It turned him half way around and he fell on his stomach. He weighed about two hundred and twenty-five, he had on a pair of heavy cowhide boots, that must have weighed five pounds each. He had no sooner fell down than he was up again and running like hell, he didn’t look back or say a word, but with those big boots and his weight, it sounded like a bunch of horses running away. I saw him about a month afterward, he didn’t say anything, but smiled. I guess he thought it was a good joke too.
After Christmas left I got on my horse, and started for camp, of course there were no roads so I started out across the prairie, and it was very dark and I got lost. I finally landed in some heavy sage brush, I got off my horse and tied him to some brush, by that time I had got awful thirsty and couldn’t find any water. I felt something in my chaps pocket, and found it was a bottle of tomato catsup (where or how I got it I never knew). I couldn’t get the cork out so I broke the head off of it with a rock, and drank nearly all of it. I layed down and went to sleep but woke up in a short time with a terrible pain in my stomach, the first thing I thought was that I had swallowed some of the glass from that ketchup bottle and I was sure scared. It was getting daylight about that time and I knew where I was, and I got on my horse and started for the old DHS horse ranch. There was no one home as the boys were all on the roundup. I heated a tub of water and got into it and had a big sweat, after that I felt much better, I cooked something to eat and went to bed and stayed there until the next morning. As I knew about where the roundup would be, I found camp that day, nobody said much to me about my absence, as it was a legitimate excuse those days for a cowboy getting drunk to be late on the job.
In the days of open range, everybody had great freedom. A cowboy could change countries every spring if he wanted to and they were always drifting from one range to another—not only to different ranges but to different states. For instance, maybe he would be in New Mexico one year and on the Canadian border the next.
Every cowboy had a private horse of his own, pack horse and his own bed, which consisted of a tarpaulin and some blankets. And according to the custom of them days he could stop at any cow camp or ranch and was not under obligations to anyone, and if he wanted to stay a week and rest his horses that was O.K. too. If there was no one home, he always found grub and helped himself, so he was quite independent—and it did not take much money to travel. Nature provided him with new scenery every day, such as unclaimed land, rivers and creeks, and in my day plenty of wild game of all kinds. I don’t believe the tourist of today with his automobile has anything compared to what we had.
I am going to make a statement here that almost sounds fishy, but I can prove it. I worked for a cow outfit that run twenty-five thousand cattle and three or four hundred saddle horses to handle the cattle with, and they didn’t own one foot of deeded land. The land was unsurveyed and belonged to the government. They usually built a big log house, some corrals and a kind of stable, and called it their ranch, and no one disputed their title—even a sheepman must not get too close with his woolies. They paid no taxes on this land and as it would be impossible for the assessor to count the cattle in an area of two or three hundred miles, I would say a good honest cattle man might give in one-third of his number. An outfit the size I speak of, would hire about twenty-five cowboys during the summer months and keep four or five during the winter. That was the only expense they had, outside of buying saddle horses to mount their cowboys—which was ten or twelve to the man.
I have been asked quite often what a “Rep” was by people that was hatched at a later day. Well, for illustration, Tom Jones has a ranch at San Francisco—Bill Smith has a ranch at Los Angeles. Both run several thousand cattle. There are no fences between those two places, so, naturally, in the course of a year quite a number of both men’s cattle would drift out of their range where they worked their main range and it wouldn’t pay to send a whole outfit so far for what cattle had drifted—so they picked out a very reliable cowboy that knew their brands. He cut out his string of horses, packed his bed and started for one of those ranges to represent the outfit he was working for. There might be six or seven reps with each different outfit.
Now, when one of those outfits started to work their range, they started what they called a “Day Herd”—that was for the purpose of holding all cattle that the reps, or the home outfit wanted to hold—sometimes beef cattle, sometimes some outfit changing hands—those cattle were held by home range men and driven from one roundup to another and each day, and each roundup; anybody that found any cattle they wanted to hold or take home, they were cut out and put in that day herd.
This herd sometimes got pretty big before the roundup was over and was bunched up at night and held on what they called the bed-ground. Those cattle were night herded by all cowboys that worked during the day, by shifts of two or three hours each, the hours depending on the length of the nights—spring or fall—sometimes two men on shift, or more, depending on the size of the herd or how hard they were to hold.
The rep never done any day-herding as he was supposed to see all cattle rounded up so as to pick out the cattle he represented, as other cowboys didn’t know his irons as well as he did. There was also a little cowboy etiquette extended to the rep—he didn’t have to stand night guard unless it was absolutely necessary.
When this roundup was over and the range all worked, lasting from a month to six weeks, the big herd was worked and every cowboy that had any cattle in the herd cut them out in a bunch by themselves, or some other fellow that had cattle going home the same direction as he was, then they throwed in together. If a cowboy didn’t have help enough to move his cattle to their home range, the outfit he gathered them with sent some men to help him. This custom was practiced in all the outfits. Another fine practice in the early days by honest cowmen was if a cow was found in a roundup with a calf belonging to her and nobody claimed her, the captain of that roundup branded the calf with the same iron that was on the mother and turned her loose where she was. This was done with what was known as a running iron, which was a small bar and a small half circle—one can make any brand on an animal with those two irons. Now if that was a steer calf and nobody claimed him until it was grown and fit for beef, that same captain or any captain of any roundup had a right to load and ship that steer to any market with his cattle, say Chicago, Omaha or Kansas City, which were the principal shipping points in those days. There the stock inspector got a record of what state the steer came from and when he was sold. It was his duty to see that the money was sent to the stock association of that state, they having a record of the brand and the address of the owner. A check was immediately forwarded to the party.
For instance, Charlie Russell and myself got a check for a steer I had not seen for six years and had been loaded on the train four hundred miles from where I turned him loose. He was shipped to Chicago, sold and the money sent to Helena, Montana, where we had our brand recorded.
This incident I write about was known as the Johnson County War in Wyoming in the years of 1893 and 1894, and I presume some of the old-timers of today remember those days when those things happened.
The way it first started, some of the cowboys working for the big outfits bought a few cattle of their own and branded them and turned them loose on the range. The cattle barons objected to this, and passed a resolution that any cowboy owning a branding iron could not work for them—for the reason, them days there were a great many mavericks on the range and the cattlemen divided them up among themselves. This caused considerable bitterness, as the cowboy claimed any animal without a brand belonged to the first one that found it. There may have been some justification on both sides; at any rate it developed into quite a feud. I heard one old cattleman remark that he knew cowboys that even their grandfathers never owned a cow, had more cattle than he did.
This feeling between stockmen and cowboys got to be very serious, as each side took the law in their own hands to a great extent, and there was quite a few people killed. The rustlers got so bold they took a contract with one of the construction contractors to supply them with beef. They would go out on the range, and butcher any animal they found, regardless of what brand was on the animal.
The stockmen appointed a stock detective. His name was Chris Groce, who was very capable and absolutely fearless, and for a while held the rustlers somewhat in check, but as time went on the sympathy of all the little ranchers and cowboys were with the cattle rustlers.
I remember two boys that the cattlemen wanted put out of the way but could not catch up with them, so they formed a posse and went out after them. They finally run those boys into an old cabin out on the range and tried to get them to surrender without any success. They finally backed a wagonload of hay up against the cabin and set it on fire. When the cabin caught fire, the rustlers made a break to get away, and the posse killed both of them.
There was another ex-cowboy I knew that decided to go into business for himself. He would go out on the range, shoot a steer, butcher it, bring it to town and sell it. He went by the name of Spokane. He got along pretty well for a while, but one day the Sheriff was trailing some horse thieves across the country and run on to Spokane with a steer shot down and was butchering it. The Sheriff told him to throw up his hands, but instead Spokane crouched down behind his steer and opened fire on the Sheriff with his six-shooter and made it hard for the Sheriff to get him, but the Sheriff had a Winchester and could reach him at long range. He finally shot him in the arm and Spokane came up and surrendered. The Sheriff told me afterwards he sure hated to shoot him, as he was plenty game. I was in the hotel the night they brought Spokane in and the doctor dressed his arm without any anesthetic. He lay on the couch and smoked cigarettes just as unconcerned as if everything was all right and in no pain. They sent Spokane to the Pen for three years and when he got out he straightened up and made a very good citizen.
These conditions seemed to go from bad to worse until things got so bad the cattlemen took it on themselves to hire a bunch of Texas Rangers to come to Wyoming to protect their interests. That fact created more bitter feeling and anybody taking sides with either group was sure in danger of their lives at all times. I remember a bunch of rustlers and cowboys, went to an old deserted ranch and built a kind of temporary stockade. The Rangers followed them there and tried to arrest them on their own authority. One of the boys in the stockade told me afterwards that siege lasted several days, and they had to go to a spring for water, and every time they did so there would be considerable shooting from both sides.
Finally conditions got so bad that it got out of control of the local authorities and the militia was called out to settle the trouble. They arrested everybody—cattlemen, cowboys, rustlers and Rangers, and took them all to Cheyenne. That broke up the feud and nobody gained anything. Most of the cowmen lived in the East and they were sick of the whole affair. Some of them sold out and never did come back to Wyoming. The cowboys and rustlers drifted to parts unknown, and things in Johnson County got on a more legitimate basis. I met several of those cowboys afterwards in Montana. Most of them were under assumed names, and some of them had very good jobs, such as stock inspectors and foremen of big outfits. They generally made pretty good men, as they had had plenty of experience.
At the time those conditions existed, I was breaking colts for the PK Cow outfit on Soldier Creek, close to Sheridan, Wyoming, and Buffalo Bill Cody sent notice to Sheridan that he would be there on a certain day and wanted to buy a carload of wild horses to ship to Boston for his show, also he wanted to hire some Wild West riders to take back to Boston. That is a long time ago and there wasn’t the bronc riders there is today. Some rode with tied stirrups, some with buck straps. There was a quite a number of riders but only one boy qualified—his name was Scotty. I tried for that job, but Bill hurt my pride very much, as he told me I might make a rider but wouldn’t do at that time. The only consolation I had was to say to myself that Bill didn’t know a good rider when he saw one.
Several people not familiar with horses have asked me what a bronco-buster means, and they seem to think all cowboys are bronco riders, which is not so. I sometimes talk to an old-timer that once rode broncs and broke horses, and like most all old-timers in every line of work they claim the younger generation cannot compete with them the way they did it in their day. But the old boys are only kidding themselves when they think those young fellows can’t ride a bucking horse. They have made a profession of it and keep in practice. Another thing, the old-tuners never flanked a horse like they do in contest today—that’s putting a strap around his kidneys and cinching it up to make him buck—and it does make him buck harder than without it. He gets in a twist when he is up off the ground. That the horses of the old days never did. I have been judge at several bucking contests and shows and I would venture to say that no old-timer could ever have rode those horses with that rigging on him without first getting used to it.
Another thing, in the old days of the range the good riders tried to keep their horse from bucking, whereas today they train and teach them to buck for the shows. So naturally the horse and rider have more practice.
There is a great difference between a bronc-rider and a horse-breaker, or a regular cowboy—and still they are classed as the same by a great many people. Not saying anything against the modern bronc-rider, but all he knows about a horse is to ride him while he bucks. I have seen some the best riders that didn’t have any idea what a horse should do after he quit bucking, from the fact he saddles him in a chute and gets on him in there—then he is let out and the skill he uses is to stay on that horse a few seconds until the whistle is blown by the time-keeper and the horse is caught by the pick-up man—and many a time that whistle has saved many a boy when he was all in. But the poor bronc-fighter has a hard time at best. He has plenty of competition and they can’t all win and most of them, if they follow it long enough, wind up broken physically and financially. So the old saying still goes ... “all it takes to make a good bronc-buster is a strong back and a weak mind” ... as all it requires is plenty courage and practice.
But a good horse-breaker really does something. He uses intelligence and studies the disposition of his horse, as every one is different and requires different methods—and I wouldn’t attempt to say which is the best. Some cowboys are natural horsemen and seemingly without taking very much pains get wonderful results, while the other fellow will try ever so hard and never get nowhere.
Nearly every state has a different way of starting a young horse. In Montana the first thing we did with a wild horse was to catch him by the front feet and throw him down, and take one hind leg away from him by tying it up so he can’t touch the ground with it (that way he can’t hurt you or himself). He stands on three legs and if he tries to kick or fight he usually falls down. After a few falls he will stand and let you rub him all over his body and legs, and you can saddle and unsaddle him until he finds he can’t get away from you and that you aren’t going to hurt him. That was the system I used and I thought I got very good results.
However, I have seen cowboys use a blindfold on a horse that worked very well, too—using a soft piece of leather or a piece of cloth to put over the horse’s eyes and in that way learned him to stand while they saddled him and got on and off until he gets used to it. But I always preferred the way of letting the horse see what was going on from the first lesson.
But that is just a small part of breaking a horse. In the first place he may have a notion of bucking no matter how careful you have been in handling him, as there is no doubt some horses inherit those different bad habits from their ancestors just like humans do, and if bucking happens to be the favorite way of your horse’s showing his meanness, the cowboy must be able to ride him, as every time a horse bucks his man off he is getting that much nearer to being an outlaw. Then another thing—seldom ever any two horses buck the same. One will have some different twist from the other one. I have seen good riders get on a horse that didn’t seem to buck so hard and would get throwed off. When I used to ride, the hardest for me was one that bucked and whirled around and around.
But the bucking is usually the small part of breaking a horse or at least to make him valuable as a cow horse. Most horse-breakers first start the horse with a hackamore and sometimes never put a bridle on him for a couple of years and then sometimes he is not finished, depending both on what kind of a horse and man they are.
I think in the early days in Wyoming and Montana they got much quicker results with a horse, as they started working cattle with a young horse as soon as a man could pull him around at all, and there is no doubt but that is what makes a good horse. They are like people. One can read forever about learning to do something and will never learn much until they actually do the work themselves.
There is no doubt California turns out some of the best broke horses in the world, but the breaking sometimes costs the owner as much as two hundred dollars. So it can be readily seen that a big cow outfit like they had a few years back, that had a couple of hundred saddle horses and worked 25 or 30 men, couldn’t put in two years breaking a horse or pay two hundred dollars to break him. Even at that I have seen just as good, if not better, practical cow horses that never had that much time or money spent on them—but they worked cattle every day during the six months of the season—and I contend that’s what makes cow horses and cowboys.
Another difference in the professional bronc-rider is he has his horse in a chute to handle and saddle him, with plenty of help. The old-timer had to rope his horse out of a bunch of horses and saddle him alone and get on him without any help. Then maybe he would stampede, run over a cut bank or fall down—and he had to be able to take care of himself.
In the days that I write of there were very few women folks in the country and a less number of girls, but there was one family who had one girl of about seventeen years and I thought she was very attractive. I worked about twenty miles from where she lived and used to go to see her quite often, but she had two brothers about eight and ten years old and they were wild as Indians and their main sport and pastime was riding wild calves and yearlings. The girl was about as wild as them and usually joined in those bucking contests, so when I went courting her she wanted me to join in on the fun. As my every-day work was riding and handling cattle, this kind of sport didn’t interest me. I was serious and wanted to make love, so those boys were a great worry to me, as when I wanted to court the girl the boys wanted to ride calves. One time when I was particularly interested in talking to the girl they wanted me to go out to the corral and ride calves, and of course I wouldn’t go, so one of them suggested I act as a horse and he would ride me. To get rid of him I consented. He was to get up on my shoulders, put his legs around my neck and hold on to my shirt collar with his hands. Then I was to start bucking, which I did. When I got to bucking my best I bent over forward and threw him off pretty hard and hurt him some. He got up crying and the girl was laughing at him for being bucked off. He said, “Well, I would have rode the S.B. if he hadn’t throwed his head down.” Anyway, I got rid of him for that day and had a chance to court the girl.
As most any story is not complete without some love and courtship in it, I am going to write my experience in that matter.
I was married to Claudia Toole in the year 1899. She was a daughter of Bruce Toole, who was a brother to Joseph K. Toole, Governor of Montana at that time. Now Bruce Toole was a very fine aristocratic Southern gentleman and knowing that a cowboy didn’t usually climb very high on the ladder of culture he didn’t think I was desirable company for his daughter. So, we had to carry on our courtship secretly from the old gent, and as about the only amusement of those days was country dancing and as we all went to them on horseback (which usually was 15 or 20 miles) we would ride to a dance. As I could not go to my girl’s home to get her, we would designate a certain rock or creek out on the range to meet at and would go from there to the dance. That is where I would leave her the next morning after the dance. Her father thought she went to those parties with her brother, who was in on our secret, so in all our courtship it was unknown to him and it was the shock of his life when we slipped away and got married.
My wife had a pinto horse of her own that her father had got from the Indians and given to her and he must have had some fine breeding back in his ancestry somewhere as he could run like a blue streak. I usually rode the same horse every time we went out together and the two horses became very attached to each other. One time I had taken my wife to a dance and ventured a little closer to her home than usual. I unsaddled her horse and turned him loose in the pasture and rode away. Her horse ran along the fence and put up a terrible fuss about being separated from my horse. My wife’s father saw him acting up and wondered what in the world was the matter with him, but he hadn’t seen me. That was one time we nearly got caught in our secret courtship.
I was working for a large cattle company and we had a great many saddle horses. They used to stray away from the ranch quite often and I used to ride the range hunting them. There was an old German who had quite a large ranch about ten miles from us, and a good many cattle and horses. He used to try to keep in contact with me as much as possible to find out if I had seen any of his stock and to tell him where they were. So, he used to tell me whenever I was anywhere near his ranch to come there and eat and feed my horse.
About three miles from this old man’s ranch was an enormous big rock that one could hide a couple of horses behind very easily and my wife could get up on the top of the rock and see the whole surrounding country. That was one of our meeting places and we had a date one day to meet at this rock at a certain hour. I could always see her and her pinto horse coming for several miles, so I was at the rock this day waiting for my girl and the old German was out riding this day looking after his stock and saw me quite a distance away and came to where I was. He spoke very broken English and of course was glad to see me and inquire about his stock. He said, “Veil, Con—vot you look for?” I told him I had lost a horse and was hunting for him. He wanted a description of the horse, so if he found him he could hold him for me. Of course I had to give him an imaginary description and I wanted to get rid of him as I expected my girl along at any minute, but he insisted that I should go to his ranch with him and have dinner and feed my horse. I used every excuse I could think of—told him I was in a hurry to find the horse—thought he might be sick and would die if I didn’t find him right away—but he said, “Come on with me and have dinner and I vill go mit you and hunt the horse.” Of course, that was just what I didn’t want. I had a hard time, but finally got rid of him and went and found my girl.
Some months afterwards, my girl and I were at another rancher’s place and quite a crowd of people had gathered there that day. The old German came and in the general conversation he said, “Con, didth you findth that hos you vos looking fo’ and vos he sick?” I told him I had found the horse and he was fine. My girl was listening to the conversation and her face turned as red as a firecracker—of course I had told her about the meeting with the old man at the rock.
I think everybody has more or less trouble in their courting days, but it seemed to my wife and I that we had more than our share. As I said before, my wife’s parents didn’t know we were keeping company at all—in fact, didn’t hardly know me. There was a very noted dance coming off about 20 miles from her home that we had planned to attend, when, lo and behold, a few days before the dance a very wealthy and refined gentleman (and an old friend of her father’s) with a fine team and top buggy (which was very rare in those days) came to her father’s ranch to ask her parents to take her to the dance. They at once gladly said yes and she in order not to tip her hand had to consent, and mind you, we were engaged to be married at this time. Of course, with me not knowing anything about this transaction it placed her in a very precarious position, and she had a terrible time getting in touch with me to explain to me what had happened. It didn’t set too well with me, but in order to keep everything under control we agreed that she would go to the dance with this man and I would go alone. I guess the fellow must have had some suspicion of the way things stood, as he told her the next day when he was taking her home that he noticed she and I seemed to feel very much better when we had our first dance together. He tried to question her about me and told her I didn’t even own a cabin. She acted very innocent and unconcerned about the matter, but he must have figured he was out of the race, because he never came to call on her again.
When we got married we had to steal away like we did when we were courting. I borrowed a team and spring wagon and we had to drive forty miles and the snow was about belly deep on the horses. Then we had to wait over in Shelby until the next day to go to Great Falls. The job of getting her away from the ranch was the hard part of it. My wife’s room was upstairs in her home and we agreed that she would throw her stuff out the window about eight o’clock at night and I would pick it up and carry it to the wagon I had parked about 100 yards from the house. I didn’t have any idea how much stuff she had until she began throwing it out—clothes, suitcases, shoes and everything else that a woman ever wore, and besides, she used to play the piano and she had great bales of sheet music and every time one of those bales of music hit that frozen ground it sounded like someone had shot a high powered rifle and the stuff fell right in front of a window down stairs and the window curtains were up. Her father sat reading about ten feet from where I was picking it up. I would take all I could carry on my back to the wagon and came back for another load, and as she was still throwing stuff out while I was gone there would be a bigger pile than ever when I got back. I believe she would have thrown the piano out too if the window had been big enough, and the worst part of it was her father had two bloodhounds and they bellowed and howled every time she threw out a fresh cargo. It was a very cold night and I wore a big fur overcoat and every time I bent over to pick up a package they would howl louder than ever. They thought I was some kind of animal. I tried whispering to them to get out and keep still and that would bring a bigger howl than ever. I was watching her father pretty close through the window and every once in a while he would cock his head sideways to listen and acted like he was going to get up and come out, then would settle down and go to reading again. During those intervals, my heart was sure pounding and I was all sweaty with fear. I have often heard of people being very nervous when they placed the bride’s ring on her finger, but I know that is nothing compared to the ordeal I went through. I forgot, and left a lot of things around where I loaded the wagon and it snowed a lot after that. Every time my wife missed something of hers, we would go to that spot and shovel snow. Neither one of us had any idea of what it took to set up housekeeping and it is amazing what we bought. One thing we both agreed on was a carpet, as we intended to move into an old cabin that had big cracks in the floor. When we got home and checked our Outfit, it seemed to be mostly carpet. Then I think every friend we ever had gave us a lamp for a wedding present, so we had a whole wagonload of carpets and lamps. We had hanging lamps, floor lamps and lamps to throw away, but hardly anything else in the way of housekeeping. When we arrived back in Shelby there were about 25 cowboys in town that had come to celebrate Christmas (it being Christmas week we were married) and they were all at the train to meet us. Most of them had a good sized Xmas jag on and the different congratulations I got from that bunch would sure sound funny today if I could remember them all. They were all old time cowboys that I had worked with for years. We all went to a saloon to celebrate the event. Each one would take me aside to pour out his feelings and congratulations, and give me hell for stealing away to get married without telling them. Some of the names they called me wouldn’t look good in print but that was their way of showing their true friendship. One old bowlegged fellow that I had known from the time I was a kid had a little more joy juice aboard than the others. He didn’t have much to say, but stood at the end of the bar and drank regularly while the celebration was going on. He had one cock eye and kept watching me all the time until he got an opportunity to attract my attention. He nodded to me to come over to where he was. I went over to him and he looked at me silently for a moment and said, “Well, you’re married, are you?” I said yes, and he asked, “Did you marry a white woman?” I answered yes, and he said “You done damn well, but I feel sorry for the girl.” In the meantime, while we were away getting married, my wife’s father wrote her a letter to Shelby where we had our team and wagon and told her all was forgiven and to come home, which we did.
I went to work for him and as he owned plenty of cattle and horses I seemed to be just the kind of a son-in-law he needed, but we sure had a supply of carpet and lamps that we didn’t know what to do with.
Con Price and Charlie Russell At Great Falls, Montana (1903)Con Price and Charlie Russell At Great Falls, Montana (1903)
Con Price and Charlie Russell At Great Falls, Montana (1903)
Con Price and Charlie Russell At Great Falls, Montana (1903)
Charlie Russell with Sandy and Dave At the Lazy KY (1907)Charlie Russell with Sandy and Dave At the Lazy KY (1907)
Charlie Russell with Sandy and Dave At the Lazy KY (1907)
Charlie Russell with Sandy and Dave At the Lazy KY (1907)
A few years after my marriage we settled on a squatter’s right on the head of Kicking Horse Creek in the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana. The land was unsurveyed at that time and one did not know where his boundary lines were. So one staked off what one thought was about right and it was respected by most stockmen.
I lived seven years on that squatter’s right and when it was surveyed I proved up on it at once. The government allowed me from the time I established my residence. I also had fenced in about three thousand acres of government land, which I had the use of for ten years without any cost.
It was quite easy to borrow money those days. So I soon was in the cattle business for myself.
After some years Charlie Russell came to see me and in our conversation he asked me if I would like a partner. That suited me fine, as that would give me some money to work on. So I told Charlie I would gather the cattle and horses, and he would come to the ranch and we would count the stock and appraise the outfit.
He said, “You know what there is. You count the stock and appraise what other stuff you got, and send me a bill, and I will send you a check.” And when we dissolved partnership and sold out, we settled the same way. He had great faith in mankind.
Charlie and I built up a very nice little ranch. He and Nancy both filed on some land adjoining my old place and we run about three hundred cattle and about sixty head of horses.
Our cattle brand was known as the Lazy KY. Our horse brand was the letter “T.” It was very hard to get a desirable brand at that time, as the recorder of brands would not give you a brand you asked for, but would pick out a brand for you, and if what he sent you didn’t suit, you sent two dollars more until you got the kind of iron you wanted.
We had a great deal of trouble getting a horse brand until we got the letter “T.” Governor Joseph Toole owned this brand in the days when Montana was a territory, and he had not used it for many years. A great many people tried to buy it from him, but he would not sell it, but through his brother, Bruce Toole, who was a cattleman, he agreed to let us have the iron, and as he admired Charlie’s work would not accept any pay for it. Also the recorder of brands, in courtesy to the governor, transferred the brand without cost. So we owned one of the oldest brands in the state, and as we never transferred the iron to anyone I believe it still stands on record in our names.
But Charlie and I started in the cattle business too late to get the full benefit of the open range. The cattlemen were like the Indians. At one time they had everything they wanted—free range and free water—but the sheepmen soon began to squat on the watering places and it wasn’t many years until they had outnumbered the cattlemen.
There was a general hatred between them, as the cattle wouldn’t graze or water where there were sheep and the sheep would go everywhere. That was bad—but was nothing compared to when the farmers came from the East and homesteaded the land. I seen that country change in two years from where there was open range everywhere to where there wasn’t a foot of government land left, either in Montana or across the Canadian line, and in 1910 we had a very dry year and had to gather our cattle and bring them home. So decided to sell out. The farmers filed on every water hole in the country and they all had dogs, so the cattle didn’t have a chance. Some of the old-timers hung on for awhile and reminded me again of the Indians, as they said the farmer couldn’t last and would starve out and the country would all go back to open range. But when I seen those farmers raise fifty bushels of wheat to the acre on that virgin soil I could see the handwriting on the wall.
Course that land soon wore out for raising grain and most of those settlers sure had a hard time to get by but they are still there. It never will be a good farming country, but they have ruined it for the cattleman. They have even drove the sheep out.
One time when the sheep and cattlemen were at war, I knew two cattlemen that was very hard put by the sheep. They had monopolized all the free range and water, and as it has always been commonly understood that saltpeter would kill sheep, they decided to work on the sheepmen. So they sent away and got one hundred pounds of saltpeter and as it was a very serious crime to poison the range, they were very careful. They took the saltpeter in front of a band of sheep that was grazing on their range. One of them rode next to the sheepherder so he couldn’t see the sack the other one had on his horse. Then they cut a hole in the sack and rode slowly in front of the sheep and distributed the one hundred pounds. One of those fellows was quite a large cattleman and after the job was completed he got scared and left that part of the country for about a week so that in case of an investigation he would have an alibi that he was not at home at the time of the poisoning.
When he came back he hunted up his partner in crime to know what luck they had had. He told him the sheep had eat all the saltpeter and hadn’t killed one of them. He said, “I’ll be damned! I give up. Those sheep are too much for me.”
The range war got to be very bitter in that locality and I was very glad to get out. Whenever anyone lost a cow or horse, he blamed someone for killing it and the feeling got so bitter that it looked like it was leading up to where someone would get killed, and they did.
Charlie and I sold out to a man by name of Peter Wagner, and we had a neighbor by name of Al Pratt. He was very quarrelsome with everybody. Wagner was quite an old man. Pratt was a young man. He had chased the old man on horseback several times and once had beat him over the head with a wet frozen rope, another time had knocked him off his horse and run over him.
The surveyed road to town went between our house and barn, and in wintertime the snow drifted so deep it was impassable, and I had left about an acre of ground open where people went around the snowdrift.
About six months after Charlie and I had sold out to Wagner, one morning Pratt started to town on this road with a team and buckboard. When he came to this spot, the old man was there on horseback, standing on the detour. Pratt started to drive on Wagner’s land and he told him to follow the county road. Pratt said the road was impassable and tried to force his team past the old man, but he grabbed one of the bridles of the team. Pratt struck Wagner in the face with his buggy whip. Wagner jerked out his gun and shot Pratt once in the neck, once in the back and three shots hit the buckboard. Pratt fell out dead.
At the trial I was called as a character witness. The prosecuting attorney asked Wagner how many shots he fired. Wagner said, “One, to save my own life.” When he asked him to account for the other four shots, he said he was riding a hardmouth horse and he tried to run away at the first shot, and in pulling on his bridle reins with his left hand he forgot what his right hand was doing, and thought he must have kept pulling the trigger on his gun. It was an automatic and, of course, as long as he kept pulling the trigger it kept shooting, but he couldn’t explain how the gun kept pointing towards Pratt’s body.
The corpse laid there in the snow for twenty-four hours before the sheriff and coroner arrived and there was a gun found by the body. Wagner claimed self-defense. I testified that Pratt had pulled a Winchester on me once and threatened to kill me—which I think helped some.
Wagner was quite wealthy when this happened. He got free but he was flat broke when he got out.
He had told me several times prior to this incident that he was deathly afraid of Pratt, which I believe makes a very dangerous man when he is afraid of another man.
One thing about our neighborhood I never could understand was as long as the people were very poor they were peaceable and neighborly but when they got a little prosperous some of them were in court the year around.
We had a justice of the peace nearby and he sure had plenty business. I listened to one case that seems very amusing to me now. The judge liked to play poker and when he wasn’t busy with court duties he was usually in a poker game. This case was between two ranchers over the cutting of a wire fence. The trial was held in a little store. Each one acted as his own attorney, also testified in his own behalf. While one of them was testifying, the other one was sitting on the store counter, swinging his legs and listening, and when the other fellow made a statement he didn’t approve of he said, “That’s a damn lie.” The judge jumped to his feet and said, “Damn you, you can’t talk that way in this court.”
After the trial the judge took the case under advisement for a few hours.
Late that night I met the judge and asked him how the trial came out and when he told me I expressed some surprise. He said, “Hell, that other fellow couldn’t win in this court with four aces!”
Charlie used to come to the ranch quite often and enjoyed riding horseback, but I always had a hard time to convince him the horses were gentle. We kept about ten head and as I was the only one who rode them, they were always fat and rarin’ to go, and as when he and I worked together in the past, I was nearly always riding colts. He said he didn’t believe I ever owned a gentle horse.
So one time he came to the ranch to file on some land and we had to ride about fifteen miles. He told me to be sure to give him a gentle horse and I thought I did. I saddled his horse next morning and gave him the bridle reins and turned around to get on my horse, when I heard a terrible noise. I looked around and Charlie was down on his back with his foot fast in the stirrup, and the horse jumping and striking at him. I ran and caught his horse and got him loose. He had lost his hat and his clothes were dirty. He said, “This is another one of them damn gentle horses you have been telling me about. Now I have got to ride him fifteen miles with a hump in his back. I will feel good all day.” I don’t think I tried to get him to gallop but he said every time he tried to hurry that horse he would hump up like he was going to buck until he would pull him down to a walk.
He wrote me a letter when he went home and painted a picture of himself down on his back with his foot fast in the stirrup. He said it reminded him of a friend of his in Great Falls that sold a man a horse and told the fellow it was a regular lady’s horse, but had killed two men in Butte afterwards.
For thirty years, Charlie Russell owned a pinto named Monte that could almost talk. I don’t believe Monte was ever in a stable until he was twenty years old. When Charlie quit riding the range and went to living in town, he built Monte a stable but Monte didn’t like civilization and would not stay in the stable unless he was tied up, then he would be very nervous and would never lay down. But after some time Charlie found out there was only one way Monte would compromise and that was to leave the stable door open and Monte would lay down with his head out the door—he took no chances on being shut in.
Charlie and I had about fifty head of mares at the ranch. That was of the Mustang Stock. We raised some good tough saddle horses but in general they weren’t much to look at—pintos, buckskins, all kinds and colors.
So I began looking for a better grade of a stallion to improve our herd. I finally contacted a fellow by the name of Jake Dehart and he told me he had a fine stallion to sell, so I went to look at the horse. He was a terrible looking sight. He had been neglected, was sick and badly run down. His legs were swelled up almost as big as his body. He hadn’t shed his winter coat of hair and looked like anything but a horse. Dehart showed me the registered papers of the horse and they were O.K., in fact, he was an imported horse and of fine breeding. I didn’t know whether I could save the horse or not. Looked like he might die any time, so I told Dehart I would trade him a bunch of horses for the stud. We set a date when he would come to the ranch to look at the horses that I was to trade him. I told Dehart I thought I could give him about 20 head of horses for his stallion. Our horses run on the open range and it took several days to gather them.
When I got them all gathered and in the corral, they were sure a tough-looking bunch but when I would think about Dehart’s stud the Mustangs looked the best of the two so I began culling out the worst ones for Dehart, but he didn’t come on the day agreed on and looking the culls over I figured there was some too good to give him. Dehart didn’t come for several days and when he did arrive they were sure a sorry looking bunch of horses. Some of them crippled, some of them had been cut in barbed wire, some blind in one eye, some with their hips knocked down and some locoed. When Dehart did come he walked up to the corral and looked over the fence at the horses. He said, “My God, I thought you had better horses than those things. Where are the rest of your horses?” I told him that was all I had. Of course, I had got the rest of them out of sight.
Poor Dehart was in a bad spot. He had a lot of money in the stud and he was afraid he was going to die and it was either take this bunch of junk or nothing, so we traded. Shortly after I had made the trade Charlie came up from Great Falls to the ranch to see how things were getting along and didn’t know I had made the trade. There was nobody home the day he came. I was out on the range riding after cattle. This big terrible looking animal was standing in the corral. When I got home Charlie asked me where I got that mountain of “beauty.” I told him about the trade. “Well,” said Charlie, “he is sure a good sleeper. I watched him for an hour in the corral; he never moved an ear.” Charlie said Dehart must have got me drunk when I made that trade. I told him if he saw what I had traded for him he would think Dehart was the one that was drunk.
I doctored that horse and brought him out of his sickness and he produced the best colts in that country at that time and I later sold him for $500.00. In another way the trade proved to be very profitable. I wanted to vent the brand on the horses when Dehart took them but Dehart said no, he was going to ship those horses out of the country and didn’t want any more brands on them as it would hurt the sale of the horses. Instead of doing that, he sold them all at the railroad station where he had intended to ship them from. It was about 20 miles from our ranch and in about the middle of our range where our horses run and where I turned loose the rest of our horses, after the trade was made and the people that bought the horses from Dehart turned them loose on the range without either branding them or venting them. Consequently those horses in a few days were back on their range mixed up with our bunch without any way to identify them and all branded with our iron. I told those people about the matter and tried to get them to get their horses but they didn’t give it any attention so in a few months I sold all our horses on the range with the iron. When I sold the horses with the brand they sure put up a howl. They threatened me with court action, said they would have me arrested, but they couldn’t do anything about it as it was their own fault so I figured I got the stallion for nothing.
One time when Charlie Russell and I were in partnership in the cow business, I lost some yearling colts and as the country was all open in those days and no fences, our stock would sometimes stray two or three hundred miles away from home. So, after about three years after I had lost those colts I heard of some horses up in Canada which had my brand on them. I had a neighbor who had lost some colts about the same time as I had, so we decided to go up in that country and try to find them. We each took a couple of good saddle horses and started out. That country was very thinly settled those days, just a little stock ranch here and there, sometimes twenty-five or thirty miles apart. As it was late in the fall and the weather was getting quite cold, we had to make some of those ranches to camp overnight, on account of horse feed and a place to sleep.
One evening we rode into a ranch that a couple of Irish brothers owned and asked them to stay overnight. They said, “Sure, you’re welcome as the flowers in May.” Neither of them had ever been married and did their own housekeeping and cooking. The evening we got there they had just butchered a beef. We helped them hang it up in the barn and went to the house to cook supper. It was sure a dirty looking joint and the brother that cooked supper had his hands all stained with blood and dirt from butchering the beef. He had to make bread for supper and didn’t wash his hands, but mixed up the bread with his hands—blood, dirt and all. But we hadn’t had anything to eat all day and were plenty hungry, so we ate it and thought it was fine. We hunted horses all next day and along in the evening came to what looked like an old deserted ranch where nobody was home. After making a lot of noise and shouting, a man came out of the cabin. He was a Mormon and was living alone on this old ranch. Said he was sick and had been in bed three days and that there was no food on the place and that he couldn’t keep us overnight.
It looked like a bad storm coming up and we didn’t know any place to go. We told the man we were going to stay anyway, and as we both had six-shooters he didn’t argue too much with us. We put our horses in the old barn and went to the house. The Mormon went back to bed. We went to the kitchen to see if we could find anything to eat. It was the dirtiest looking outfit I ever saw in my life. The frying pans and kettles didn’t look like they had been washed for six months. We got a fire started and cleaned up things a little and looked through all the old boxes and found some beans, dried apples and flour. By ten o’clock that night we had what we thought was a pretty good meal. I went to the Mormon’s bedroom and asked him if he wanted anything to eat. He didn’t answer me, but began getting out of his dirty blankets. He hadn’t even taken his clothes off. We got him to sit down at the table and he ate more than both of us. After we got him filled up on food he got to talking quite friendly. He said he had been a Mormon missionary in some jungle country and had spent several years converting natives into the Mormon religion. In listening to his experience as a missionary I couldn’t help wondering what kind of a job he did, because if there is anything in the old saying that cleanliness is next to holiness he was sure a flop.
The next morning was very cold and stormy, but we were anxious to find our horses and our quarters were none too comfortable, so we bade our Mormon friend goodbye and rode away. He was about 40 miles from any town and we didn’t see any means of transportation around there, so we often wondered what ever became of him.
Well, we headed for a big lake about twenty miles from this Mormon’s place. We heard there was a lot of horses ranging in that part of the country and there found our horses, so we drove the whole bunch to an old roundup corral that we had located that day. I had three horses in the bunch and my partner had one. Those horses were three years old and were not halter broke. In fact, they had not had a rope on them since they were yearlings and then were only caught by the front feet and thrown down to brand them. So, we had to catch them that way now. We necked them to the extra saddle horses we had with us and turned them out of the corral and headed them towards Montana. Just before dark we spotted a ranch and some corrals so we headed for there. We found a man there who had come from Michigan and taken up a homestead out on the Canadian Prairie. He evidently was a man of some wealth as he had spent considerable money fixing the place up. He wasn’t very keen about letting us stay overnight. He kept sizing us up and I guess he had heard a good deal about cowboys and rustlers and thought we were a couple of horse thieves. We explained our condition to him and told him the circumstances and that we were a long way from home, so he finally decided to let us stay.
While this fellow looked like he had considerable wealth, he didn’t have very much to eat. As he didn’t make any excuses about it, I think we had his regular bill of fare. He didn’t have any meat, no butter or sugar or coffee. My partner was a coffee fiend, and this fellow gave us cold milk for breakfast. My partner was very blue all that day and said he felt very queer, like the world was coming to an end or something terrible was going to happen. But that was because he missed his coffee.
This man charged us ten dollars for very little to eat and a very poor bed, and as it was not the custom to charge anyone those days for food it made my partner very mad. When we got our horses saddled and ready to go next morning, my partner went to the barn and as he was gone quite a while I asked him what he was looking for. He said he was looking for something he could steal, to get even with that old guy, but he said this fellow was so stingy he didn’t have anything worth taking.
Well, we finally got going back towards home. If the weather had been good it would have been about two day’s ride, but about ten o’clock a bad storm came up and by noon it was a real blizzard and out there on the plains you couldn’t see a thing or know what direction you were going in, but after wandering around for some time we came to a coulee that we recognized (Verta Grease Coulee). It was about 25 miles long and we knew it put into Milk River which was the direction we wanted to go, also we knew there was a ranch on Milk River at the mouth of this coulee. We followed this ravine all day and about night came to the ranch. They welcomed us in and gave us a good supper and a feather bed to sleep in. It was a terrible blizzard and I think we would have lost our lives if we hadn’t found this ranch.
My partner was rather a spooky fellow and had some kind of a phobia. He was always worrying about a cancer or some other dreaded disease, so while we were lying in that good warm bed and talking how lucky we were to find this ranch a funny thought came to me to give my partner a scare. He had his head covered up and was about to go to sleep. I nudged him and said, “Bill, I forgot to tell you that this place was quarantined for Smallpox a short time ago,” and he made one jump and landed out in the middle of the room and said, “My God, I would rather go right out into the blizzard than stay here!” Then I had a hard time to convince him I was joking and I don’t think he rested very well the rest of the night. He told me afterwards I gave him the worst scare he had ever had in his life.
We got home the next night and it was a very profitable trip, as I had found three head of horses I didn’t know I owned.
Somewhere on the trip I had got lousy and I believe I had more lice on me than any man that ever walked in public, and big ones too. My wife threatened to make me sleep with the dog, but finally took pity on me and let me sleep in the house, providing I would sleep in a room by myself. I don’t know if all Canadian Greybacks are as big as those were, but I had to boil all my clothes about three times to get rid of those big tough babies.