 Chapter 1 of Memories of Old Montana This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gary Clayton. Memories of Old Montana by Con Price. Chapter 1, earliest memories, 1869 through 1878. 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 cow-puncher friends and associates in a ranch partnership. Charlie regarded Con as one of the greatest Bronco writers 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 Great 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. Britsman, July 23, 1945. Trails End. Mitchellinda, Pasadena, California. Chapter 1, earliest memories, 1869-1878. 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 if 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 the name of Caligan, near a town named Manson, Iowa. As I remember the contract, those people were to give me an education and when I was 21 years old, they were to give me a horse and saddle and $500. 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 lawsuit 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 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 overnight 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 racehorse, for she could sure run. I rode her without a saddle and I was still on the lookout 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 50 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 cornfield 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 the grays 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 in a way I went in 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'm 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 liberally stable team and driver that the sheriff had hired to go after me and I guess they didn't want to waste any more time chasing me. But the sheriff did take the handcuffs 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 a while but finally put me back to herd and 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. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Memories of Old Montana by Kahn Price This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gary Clayton Black Hills of South Dakota 1878-1885 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 Scoop Town 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 thick 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, China Town 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 theater which was a big dance hall and gambling house. There was no law prohibiting miners 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 ferro bank and poker and I was fascinated with the names they went by. There was Big Gussie who was Bedrock 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, Def Jimmy and several others. I had forgotten their names. Those men were all ferro dealers and were long whiskers and the barber 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 were 28 legitimate ferro 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. But one or two houses had $125 and $250 limit. That means you can only bet the low limit when there is only one card left in the deck to act. You can bet it to win or lose. Most everybody played ferro them days but I believe the China man 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 ferro 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 camp 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 way 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 fist in his face and said I caught you at it. I always knew you were water in 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 Davy owned a sit-in bull mine and my folks started a store and boarding house and I went to school for a short time. There was two Irish men run a store there by the name of McQuillion and Finnegan. They also had a cow ranch about 75 miles east of Galena. Finnegan run the ranch, McQuillion 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 ranch 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 FM. 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 and 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 cookie was. His cooking was rotten and consisted of bacon and beans and sourdough bread. I remember he had an old naughty 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 naughty 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 hone 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 Laughin 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 not to take all his tobacco as he could not get any more until he got to Sydney, Nebraska which was about 200 miles but Sam said he was sorry on account of the law he could not go to Sydney so it took all of the tobacco. In those days everything was freighted from Fort Pierre, South Dakota and Sydney, Nebraska to the Black Hills by ox teams and mule teams. I have seen 27 10-yoke teams of ox and 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 in those days it was sure a wild town. There was another town about 20 miles before you got to Deadwood. It was called Scoop Town 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 bullwhackers, 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 bullwhacker. He went by the name of Baltimore Bill. He got into a gunfight one night in one of those dance halls. He got three fingers shot off but killed the other fella. 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 Hangen. He said when the prosecuting attorney got through making his plea to the jury he felt he, Bill, was the lowest human alive and deserved Hangen. But, oh boy, when my attorney got through with my defense I was a damn good man. Fort Mead 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 hidden in 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 unheard. 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 wrestlers and they pulled off another job about like they did in Scoop Town. There was a little town at the end of the Burlington Railroad on Powder River. It was named Suggs. 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 Suggs and tents. So one night they stole some ammunition and guns like they had done before at Scoop Town 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, outhouses, or any hole they could get into. There was an old man there, he was a Jew, who had started out a little hardware store and had a few dishpans hung on the wall of his tent store and about the first bullet that hit anything of consequence was those dishpans. They were hung one on top of another and the bullet went through all of them. And while everybody was running for cover, the Jew saw his pans wrecked. He stopped right there and said, oh my God, look what they have done to my hardware. Now there was two cattle wrestlers came to town that night making their getaway 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 Winchester. 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. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Memories of Old Montana by Conn Price This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gary B. Clayton 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 Belfouche River in the Black Hills night herding horses on the roundup. There was twenty outfits working together and there was about three hundred riders. That was more cowboys than I ever saw in 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 five hundred cattle in one day. Each outfit had from one hundred fifty to two hundred saddle horses and from fifteen to thirty cowboys. Each outfit had a grub wagon and a bed wagon 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 bed wagon 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 fifty-four ranch on a creek named Mitzvah. 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 any one 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 Mile City for the Jew to get a train to Milwaukee. So I went with them which was about fifty miles. We made a night drive in a buckboard. There was a road ranch about halfway and the old man kept telling the foreman when we got there he would be okay 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 Mile 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 bullwacker. That was what they named a driver the days when they hauled freight with cattle and mule teams. When I quit the fifty-four outfit and went to Mile City I proceeded to counteract that bad water on Mitspaw Creek with Mile City whiskey and the results were so pleasant I stayed until I was broke and sold my saddle and when I could not get any more of Mile City joy juice I got in a box car one night on a train going west and landed at Alster Junction on the Yellowstone River in Montana. That's 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, ten yoke of Texas steers to the team and was loaded with whiskey. I have forgotten how many barrels but usually they hauled nine thousand pounds to the team. I asked Marsh if he wanted a man. He asked me if I was a bullwacker. 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 ten miles that day and my team just simply followed the boss's team and done about as they pleased. They certainly knew I was a tenderfoot as a bullwacker. 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 bullwacker. 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 hauling at the rest of the cattle trying to start the load. I happened to look at him. He had to 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 bullwacker and those steers knew it. He gave 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 bullwackers could pick a fly off any steer anywhere in the team and when they hit a steer it sounded like a sick 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. Many cavea. The people we were hauling it for allowed us to drink what we wanted. The only provision 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, ten 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 a 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 sea cow. He made me understand the fire water was very fine and wanted some more. I gave him another cup full. He started away singing to hunt the steer again. He was riding bareback and was leaning pretty much to one side. He went about fifty yards and fell off. When he hit the ground he completely passed out. About that time the boss got into camp with a 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. End of chapter three. Chapter four of Memories of Old Montana by Kahn Price. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gary Clayton. With the RL outfit. In the spring of 1887 I went to work for the RL outfit located on the Mussels Shell 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 seeing one wire fence or farming ranch on the trip. We swam those cattle across the Yellowstone River east of Mile 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 bankful 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 heard them and try again the next day. Finally, we decided to hold them off water for 24 hours and then drove them all into the river at once. It worked. It was sure some sight, the 2,500 had 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. 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 hoops 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 alongside 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's horse dragging the steak rope and the stirrups and saddle up popping that scared the cattle and me too. The horse had pulled his steak 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 the ball and I knew that was a good sign, as cattle will not scare so bad when some of them are balling. 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 in a way 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 half way of the 20 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. All-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 ahead. 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 deer 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 Sue. 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 campgrounds. Those three chief's 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 20 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 chaircars 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 throw 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 and 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 Shepard. His horse was all sweat and about winded. Somebody said, hello George, what's the matter? He said 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 Muscle Shell 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 $20 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 hit 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. That'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, quote, you can't tell how far the frog can jump by looking at him, end quote. 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 in an Indian reservation, he had to be tried in the federal court, which was at Fort Keough near Miles City. He got free to 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 Peace 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 cowboy 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 40 or 50 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 Peace 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 frame fixed around his head, so he could play them both at once. He only played two or three tunes, such as Turkey and 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 quadrills, 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 had 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 seemed to me to be very amusing now. There was a schoolteacher at one of those peace-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 the dance with ladies choice. I heard that call and figured I was out for that dance and took a big chew of tobacco. Went 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. While I have known some old hard-faced cow-puncher 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. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Memories of Old Montana by Kahn Price. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gary Clayton. 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 80s and early 90s, 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 Claggott. There was a man by the name of Bill Norris who had a store and salooned 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 Mackinac 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 roundup wouldn't start for a long time, but would hire a bronc rider if he could get a good one. Now I had rode broncs and rough strings, which is spoiled horses, for several years and had no fear of any horse and had a good opinion of myself. So I told him I was sure a bronc rider. Now I had wintered pretty hard that winter, as I had lived in town and had sold everything I had in the way of a good rig and looked pretty seedy. They had four or five steady men on the ranch. I didn't know any of them, and as I didn't have any boots, only a cheap pair of shoes, one spur, and an old rattle trap saddle, they didn't think I looked like a bronc fighter. Anyway, the boss took a chance and hired me. The next day he had the men run in the saddle bunch to pick out some horses to ride to gather those cults I was to break that ranged down in the Badlands. He looked a bunch over quite a while, as he said he wanted to find a good strong horse for me. He finally found him. I remember his name yet. It was Humpy, a very pretty horse. He said, this fellow might hump up a little, but that is all. He is a good horse. I told him I didn't mind that. In fact, I was in hopes he would do something as I had an idea they didn't rate me very high. Anyway, I mounted Humpy, and about that time they turned the loose horses out of the corral. Humpy wanted to go with them. I gave him a pull and down went his head. I hid him with my hat and took a rake at him with that one spur. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground about ten feet in front of him, but I held to my hack-a-moor rope. He didn't get away from me. Now when I got up and looked around, everything was as silent as a graveyard. Those men and the boss were sitting on their horses, looking at each other with a grin on their faces, that I couldn't tell whether it was pity or disgust and, of course, I had no alibi. I got back on Humpy and took another rake at him, and he galloped off as nice as you please. We had about two miles to ride to the house. Nobody said anything, only the boss. He said he was afraid some of them cults would buck harder than Humpy did. I didn't answer him. But before we got ready to gather those cults, somebody brought a horse to the ranch that the outfit had sold to a livery stable and big sandy for a buggy horse. I found out afterwards that the reason was nobody could ride him. He had a wide reputation and was known as S.Y. from his brand all over the country. The weather being bad when they sold him on trial to the livery stable, they didn't hitch him up for about a month and had fed him grain all that time. So when they did try him out, he kicked the buggy all the pieces and ran away. So they sent him home as they didn't want him. He was a beautiful horse, weighed about eleven fifty and built like a greyhound and I was itching to tie into S.Y. As I knew my standing was bad and I asked the boss to let me try him out. He told me it would be useless as one of the best riders in the state had given that horse up as a bad job. Then I kidded him and told him I didn't think the horse could buck it all it was just a plow horse. Anyway, I rode S.Y. and as I knew I had to make good, I scratched him everywhere I could reach him and, of course, I was made from then on. I never rode him again and I know I was lucky that day as that horse had throwed better riders than I ever was. I broke about thirty head of cults for the outfit before I quit the job. When I was young I never stayed anywhere very long. If I didn't get fired I would quit and in the winter time I liked to live in town. So when spring came and time to go to work I was always broke. No saddle, no boots, no nothing. If possible I would hunt Charlie Russell up for help. I used to think up a pretty good hard luck tale to tell him. But before I got started he would laugh and say what do you need now? Charlie didn't always have money either, but had good credit and could always get anything he wanted. Indians, cowboys, gamblers, everybody borrowed off Charlie and I don't know if they all paid him back or not. If they didn't Charlie would never tell it to anyone. I have often wondered if horses grow crazy like humans. The reason I say this is that while I was breaking horses for the TL outfit they had a fine imported stallion, paid $3,000 for him. They had an old man taking care of him. His name was Caillous George. He knew stallions thoroughly, had done that kind of work for several years. This horse had always been gentle as a lamb. He had him in a box stall loose. He used to go in there and feed and curry him and lead him to water. One day two men were stacking hay outside the barn when they heard a terrible racket inside. They ran in there and the horse had George by the side with his teeth and was throwing him up and down trying to get him under his feet. One of the boys hit him on the head with a club and they dragged George outside. Meantime that horse roared like a lion. They sent George to town to be doctored. The next morning the boss told me to water the stallion. He said, just take his bridle to the box stall, hold it up. He will take the bit and lead him to water. I did as he told me but I had a 45 cult in my bed. I went and got that first, filled it full of bullets and cocked it. I held the bridle up for the stallion to take with one hand and held the gun with the other and kept that position until he was watered and back in the stall. A few mornings later the boss came out when I was watering him. He looked at me and the stud over and told me I needn't water him anymore which pleased me very much. I believe if he had even winked at me I would have killed him as I was definitely afraid of him. They carried water to him for a while then hitched him in a four-horse team and started to town. He died on the way. Being soft they overworked him. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Memories of Old Montana by Kahn Price This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gary Clayton Line writing with the Mounted Police A few years after the big outfits moved their herds to the Milk River Country. Cattle got very thick along the Canadian line and as there was no fences anywhere the cattle would naturally drift into Canada and they could go hundreds of miles without anything to stop them on the finest kind of grass which was fine for the Montana cattlemen. But there were some Canadian cow ranches started mostly Americans and a contention started about so many American cattle coming into Canada without duty being paid on them. So there was a kind of a gentlemen's agreement made between the Montana cattlemen and the police captain of the Alberta division that the cattlemen would put line writers at all the police camps which was 20 to 40 miles apart and keep all cattle out of Canada which of course was just a joke. As I was one of those line writers for two years my orders were to kill all the good beef the Mounties could eat and have them write a report that read something like the following quote American cowboy road 15 miles in western direction no American cattle seen patrolman Smith road 15 miles in eastern direction no American cattle in sight end quote those reports went to Ottawa Canadian headquarters twice a week I was always under the impression the captain of the Alberta division was getting his right hand greased by the cattlemen I recall an amusing thing that happened a report leaked through to Ottawa that those reports were not all true so the Canadian government sent a special army officer out there to investigate I was at police camp named writing on stone the evening he arrived with an escort on horseback they had rode the trail from the railroad station and it being a cool evening and a cattle out grazing he saw thousands of American cattle on his way the next day the old boy got all his regimental regalia with his escort and a tally man together and started out to make a tally and a report on those cattle now it turned out to be a very hot day and when he got on the ground there wasn't a cow to be seen as the cattle had all drifted back into the big bend of the milk river to water and as the captain would be lost if he got a mile off the trail and those cattle had went about 10 miles he was stuck on his way back to the railroad he met my partner who was staying at another police camp he said, I say cow boy where are all those cattle I saw last evening on this trail? this fellow was a Texan and had quite a sense of humor he said, damn define oh captain I think they saw your whole card and all went back to Montana of course the captain didn't understand that kind of language but we didn't hear any more from him I don't know what report he made but the cattle continued to graze on Canadian soil for several years afterwards it was pretty soft for those cattlemen of those days every year two or three big outfits would pool together and take 30 or 40 men a big band of saddle horses chuck and bed wagons and go to the port of entry on the Canadian line there they would report that they were going into Canada to gather and take all American cattle out of Canada which of course sounded good to the Canadian government now what they would do was go into Canada and work for several weeks and round up all the American cattle they could find and bring them out to Montana and report the same just like they did when they went in they would take them about three or four miles across the line into Montana several thousand head then they would brand the calves cut out the beef cattle that was fit to ship and then turn the main herd loose right there and of course in a couple of days those cattle would all be back in Canada and nothing to bother about for another year of course it didn't do any harm to anyone as the grass was going to waste and somebody should get benefit out of it the amusing part about it was that my job was to keep all American cattle from crossing the line and to have all or as many as possible to drift across but the mounted police and I got along fine I butchered the finest beef I could find and that was all they wanted or cared about and didn't question how many American cattle came into Canada I sure had a lot of fun with those policemen a great many of them came right out of the city of London, England and knew nothing about the west or western ways while I was there the mounted police force bought a bunch of horses from a big horse outfit for the police to ride to patrol the line those horses had been broke by cowboys that rode and handled horses much different from the regimental way and the policemen had a great deal of trouble with some of those horses there was one horse brought to a police station on Milk River that they could not ride and in order to get rid of him there had to be made a very lengthy report I read that report and it covered a whole sheet of paper it went into details as to his disposition how he had bucked off several policemen given the name of each man and pictured the horse as a regular man-eater at any rate it took about a month to get this horse condemned then they detailed an army officer and a policeman to go and bring this horse to army headquarters which was 100 miles they stayed overnight at Riding on Stone where I was at that time I tried to get the officer to give me five dollars to ride the horse he said he could not do that but would like very much to see him rode so I rode him he was a very nice horse and as far as bucking he didn't jump two feet off the ground a lady could have rode him I joked the officer about the horse and he said the main objection was no one could mount him in regimental way my description of the regimental way of getting on would be to fall on instead of getting on and of course the horse didn't savvy that I tried to buy the horse but they couldn't sell him until he had went through the form of being condemned which was surely some red tape Charlie Russell spent one summer in Canada and told me a funny experience he had there was an old retired army captain up in northern Canada who went into the cattle business and had occasion to swim a bunch of cattle across quite a large river he tried for several days and in different ways to make those cattle cross the stream but couldn't make it work so he built some blinds made out of green rawhide stretched on frames and put them on the riverbank where the cattle were to cross and put a man behind each blind so when the cowboys drove the cattle to the edge of the river and the captain got his position he gave the command men behind rawhide charge which they did now one can imagine those wild cattle when a lot of men charged in among them on foot they stampede it and went to the hills and the captain had a hard time gathering them and getting them back to the river and he immediately removed the blinds as the cattle would not work the regimental way that is something I never found out about cattle you may try for days to get cattle to take swim and water and use every means that you can think of and they will not go then some other day they will walk right into the water without any trouble another thing in the old days a cow man weaned his calves the range cow would wean it herself and when I was ranching in a small way I would wean the calves and keep them away from the cows for months and some of them would go back to the mothers and when the cow would have a calf the next year she would leave the young calf and take up with the yearling I have had cows that would nurse a steer sometimes until he was three years old and bigger than she was my guess is that nobody knows these secrets but the cows themselves I believe cows has different ideas just like cowboys have I work for an outfit one time and the boss sent two of us out together to hunt some saddle horses we had lost on the roundup we had a pack horse, bedding, and grub I noticed the first day out this fella was eating some little pills and he wouldn't tell me what they were and thinking of his disposition and the way he acted I know now it was morphine those horses we were hunting were supposed to be ranging on a big flat down on the Missouri River and we had to take one certain ridge to get in there the ridge was about 15 miles long and if at any time we found out we were on the wrong ridge we had to come back and take another one now we were both uncertain about this ridge and I tried every way I knew to get his opinion on which ridge to take as he was in a very bad mood just at that time it was getting late in the evening I was anxious to get to the river and make camp before dark anyway I had to choose the ridge which proved to be the wrong one and we had to make camp in a very disagreeable place no shelter and we were pretty cold before morning while we were making camp I made the remark it was tough luck that we had got on the wrong ridge he said he knew damn well we were taking the wrong ridge but it was none of his business and he wasn't going to say anything about it so one could see that he had a very lovable disposition we didn't hold much conversation while we were getting supper and soon after I saw he was dividing the bedding which was a very small amount so I decided he did not want to sleep with me so I took my cut and went to bed he's set by the fire we had coffee enough to last about a week but he made coffee and drank it all night so when I got up we didn't have any coffee for breakfast I think those little pills gave out on him and he used a coffee as a substitute anyway he must have got kind hearted in the night some time as when I woke up in the morning he had throwed his blankets on me in a few days we found the horses we were looking for and as our horses were tired we decided to catch fresh horses out of the bunch we found to ride we drove them up against a cut bank and roped two of them one was a nice looking little fella the other one was a big sleepy looking guy so I offered him his choice of the two horses he thought the little horse looked kind of wild so took the big fella however when he went to saddle him he found him pretty bravo anyway he got on him and the show started this fellow had the longest nose I ever saw on a man some way in the bucking and mix up the saddle horn hit him on that big nose but he rode him I went to stop our loose horses and waited for him to catch up when he came to where I was the first thing I saw of him was that big nose all blood and swelled up twice as big as it was before I pretended not to see it and looked the other way and asked him how he liked his horse he said how do I like him look at my nose and of course I had to look well I nearly fell off my horse laughing which I was ashamed of but I couldn't help it as he was sure a funny sight and he being such a grouch made it more comical I nicknamed him Curlew which is a bird with a long bill when we got back to the ranch the other boys all took up the name and called him Curlew this lasted about a week and he was getting pretty sore so one day he called us all together and said the next man that calls me Curlew can shed his coat and get ready for battle I am not going to stand for this name any longer now this fellow could sure fight and we all knew it so he got nothing but silence but we still called him Curlew behind his back one day there was a bunch of us riding most of us was behind him I whistled like a Curlew he stopped and turned around and looked us over he didn't know who had whistled but he looked at me pretty vicious so I was careful where I whistled after that when I lived with the northwest mounted police working for the Montana cattleman I kept three horses furnished me by the cow outfits I had very little to do my horses were fed plenty of grain by the police and the sergeant detailed a policeman every two weeks on cook duty most of those boys had been raised in the city some of them were highly educated and were remittance men who had come from very wealthy families in England and were given a small allowance from their families so they knew nothing about the west or camp life the result was we got some very poor cooking but they were perfect gentlemen and had the highest sense of honor I have ever known they had never known mosquitoes before and we had plenty of them on milk river in summertime they called them quote blooming American flies end quote and said they not only bite one through the pores of the skin but would bloody well bite through your trousers in the winter time we were quite isolated as the snow usually got very deep and there wasn't much travel we played with which I believe is an old English game those long winter evenings for twenty five cents a game and would have some hot arguments as to the rules of the game so that we all went to bed mad every night but everybody would be ready for play again the next night if someone from the outside had heard us it would have been like the man shipwrecked on an island who thought he was in a country of nothing but wild animals he finally saw campfire smoke he crawled up close to listen and find out what it was when he heard someone say what the hell did you play that ace for he thought for a moment and said thank god I am in civilization end of chapter six chapter seven of memories of old Montana by Khan Price this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Gary Clayton in the Judith Basin country of Montana when I was a kid an old Indian told me a story about the Badger in Coyote and said they hunted together as partners I had a very good chance to test that story when I was living on Milk River as the Badger in Coyote were very plentiful I have watched them travel together all right but came to the conclusion the Coyote forced his company on the Badger I think the Coyote is the smartest animal that stands on four legs and a natural thief I have watched them travel together for miles the Coyote would be about 50 or 60 yards behind now the Badger is a natural digger and when he comes to a squirrel hole or prairie dog hole he digs them out I have seen a Coyote watching him while he was digging and as the Badger would always bring his game out of the hole to eat it the Coyote would grab it and run and the Badger being slow on foot and the Coyote very fast he would always get away with the spoils I am sure there is no affection between them and the Coyote would kill and eat the Badger if he could I have seen a Coyote watch a band of sheep for hours and shift his position every few minutes always watching behind too so that nothing would slip up on him then when he thought the time was right he would dash through the sheep and pick up a lamb right in sight of the sheepherder and his dogs the wolf is a better killer than the Coyote but not near so smart one morning on a round up we left camp just at daylight and we had gone about four miles and was riding at a gallop when we came over a little hill we rode right into a bunch of wolves they had killed a big fat cow and was eating on her they evidently had been eating for some time as there wasn't much of her left they were so full of meat they couldn't hardly run at all there were about thirty of us and not many had guns that morning but everybody had ropes and we sure went to making loops of course they scattered every direction and every cowboy was trying to catch a wolf as the bounty at that time was five dollars ahead it was sure an exciting morning some of those cowboy's horses wouldn't go near a wolf and when they got a smell of them would snort and run the other way sometimes when a cowboy did catch one and took his wraps on the saddle horn the horse would stampede wolf and all sometimes when they would throw at one he would snap at the loop and if he hit it would cut it in two like a razor would it was a strange thing to me but I was riding a young horse that morning that had not been broke long but he cocked his ears for it and took right after them wolves I believe he thought he was chasing a colt I got two wolves and choked and dragged them until they were dead one had been shot through the shoulder by the boss so he was easy to catch I met the boss coming over a little hill he was sure smoking this one up with his six-shooter and as I had killed mine he hollered, get this one, con I saw a black one back there I want to get him the others were all grey wolves he had lost his hat and he had been chasing those wolves so hard his pant legs was up to his knees and he sure looked wild he didn't get back to camp until night but he didn't get the black wolf we got nine wolves out of the bunch I don't know how many got away but we didn't have any round up or gather any cattle that day as the cowboys kept stringing in all day one and two at a time I have tried several times since that time to rope a wolf but always found them too fast for me when they were empty those wolves were a great menace to the stock men one couldn't poison them as when they got hungry they killed whatever animal they wanted and they were sure plentiful I have seen places on Milk River when it had froze up and fresh snow had fell on the ice it looked like a bunch of schoolboys had been playing where there had been a bunch of wolves they weighed about a hundred pounds and measured almost seven to eight feet long their first move to make a kill was to hamstring the animal by grabbing the animal by the fleshy part of the hind leg that usually brought the animal to the ground and then of course they made short work of the job I broke a bunch of horses one time for a man by the name of Gordon near Ubat in the Judith Basin he told me when I started he would give me sixty dollars for one month's work that was all he would pay out on them he didn't want them roped but must catch them in a chute above anything else he didn't want them to buck and as there was twelve head of them it was impossible to do much of a job on them in that length of time I got along fairly well with them for a while I think I had rode about five head I was out on the range riding one of them one day and saw a big wolf this cult was pretty fast so I thought I would give the wolf a little run when I got close to him I seen he was crippled evidently had been in a fight with another wolf so I roped him now when I started dragging that wolf the horse went plum crazy he whistled, snorted, kicked and bucked and run away but I still had the wolf and dragged him to the ranch of course the wolf was dead when I got there well that horse never got over that scare he jumped in the manger kicked a side out of the barn and whistled and snorted like a lion and got worse from day to day the old man wasn't there the day I brought the wolf in but did come out in a few days to see how I was getting along with the horses when he went in the barn this horse started kicking and snorting bumped his head against the walls and run the old man out of the barn and to make matters worse he was his favorite cult he asked me what was the matter with him I told him I didn't know but I didn't tell him about the wolf then another day he saw one buck with me that did settle it he said I was spoiling his horses instead of breaking them anyway I stayed the month out and I think him and I were both glad when it was over and I was on my way I went from there to the horseshoe bar ranch on Warm Spring Creek into Judith Basin it was owned at that time by T. C. Powers who was a pioneer of the state and quite a politician of his day I remember a rather amusing thing happened to him he was running for senator one year and was having a pretty hard race and it was known he was spending plenty money to get votes there was a precinct about 50 miles from the railroad on the Teton River where there was about 50 votes mostly half-breed Indians there was a half-breed lived there and claimed he had great influence among his people so he looked up T. C. Powers and told him for $100 he could swing every vote in his precinct Powers gave him the hundred when the votes were counted in that precinct Powers had not got one vote some time after he met this big politician Powers said what was the matter in that precinct of yours I didn't get a vote out there the breed said I just couldn't get them to vote for you Mr. Powers he said why and the names he called him wouldn't look good in print you didn't vote for me yourself he said I dassen't Mr. Powers they would have killed me out there if I do evidently Powers wasn't very popular in that precinct when I got to this ranch I found a man there alone in bed and very sick the outfit had left a few days before on the fall roundup and as he was not feeling well at the time he figured to stay at the ranch a few days and when he got better would follow up but he got worse I stayed with him a couple of days and still he got worse at night the only way he could rest was to prop him up in bed then I would put my back against his and my feet against the wall and move to any angle that suited him I would have to change his position every few minutes and his back was becoming hot as he had a high fever and wanted water very often so he finally wore me out and I decided to go for a doctor who was twenty miles away at this time it was about nine o'clock at night there was a good looking horse in the barn so I saddled him and started it was very dark and for the first few miles he bucked several times if anyone reads this that has rode a bucking horse in the dark he will know what the sensation is I didn't know where I was half the time whether I was in the air or in the saddle but after I got him going I didn't give him any time to buck any more until I got to the doctor well when I found the doctor he would not come to the ranch that night as he had been up with a sick woman for a day and a night and was very tired after describing the symptoms of my patient he gave me a bottle of quinine and a bottle of morphine with directions I went back to the ranch this fellow was suffering terrible when I got there I gave him a shot of quinine first which I believe was in powder form and very bitter then shortly after I tried to give him some more quinine but he refused to take it so I gave him some more morphine but didn't seem to relieve him now I was very tired and he was cussing me all the time so when he would get very bad and in pain I would give him some more morphine a long about morning he went to sleep and wouldn't wake up which was all right with me as I was getting some sleep myself about noon the doctor came he tried to wake him up but he couldn't then he took his pulse doing so he picked up the morphine bottle and said to me where is the rest of that morphine I was sure scared then I knew I had given him too much I told the doctor I had spilled some of it he said I guess you did he told me to heat a tub of water at once we put that fellow into it and I don't know what the doctor done but we finally brought him to and was I glad I know now I gave him an overdose but I believe I saved his life at that as he was suffering terrible the doctor said he had a bad case of pneumonia and made arrangements to take him to a hospital and I took his place on the beef round up the boss put two of us night herding the cattle we moved camp every day and they put new cattle into herd every day that they gathered and the nights were long and cold so we sure had a hard job we had a good cook that year but like most good cooks he was sure cranky he couldn't drive four horses so the boss told me to drive the mess wagon from one camp to the other and we didn't get along well at all we called him big nose George and he was so mean I think he hated himself I have seen him drop something out of his hands when he was cooking and would jump on it and stamp it into the ground after we had night herded about a month we had about a thousand head in the bunch and the nights got long we used to get hungry during the night one day I asked George for a lunch to take with us my partner spoke up and said how about a pie George he looked at us like a grizzly bear and said yes I will give you fellas pie that night when we started for the herd he handed us what looked like a nice pie on the way to the herd we talked about it and decided George wasn't such a bad fella after all that was a tough night and the cattle drifted about three miles we couldn't carry the pie very handy so set it down by a cut bank where we thought we could find it if the cattle settled down but we didn't get back there to where we left it which proved to be a good thing for us when the day herders came out at daylight they began kidding us about the pie they thought we had tried to eat it George had told them the joke he had played on us so we went back and hunted up the pie to see what the joke was we found it was made out of potato skins plant, onion peelings and clay and other filth around the camp with a cover on it in a pipe tin and nicely baked so we held a council award to decide what to do about it my partner wanted to take it to camp and hit him on the head with it I suggested we make him eat it he said that was a fine idea nah I told him he is a big guy so we pulled up on him so we planned our attack right there and George not expecting it we had him at a disadvantage we unsaddled and walked into the cook tent he said how do you like your pie boys we said fine but brought part of it to camp so you could enjoy it with us I had the pie in my hand and he knew what was coming he said to hell with you and started for a butcher knife but my partner met him head on and they clinched I nailed him from behind and we brought him to the ground with both of us on top of him I got the pie to his mouth but he wouldn't open so I used a pie tin for an opener not very gently and got his teeth apart I don't think he swallowed any of it but he at least got a good taste of it and any other dirty thing I could reach when the pie eating contest was over and had worked out to the mess wagon tongue and when we let George up the first thing his hand found was the neck yulk which was about four feet long and a bad weapon just at that time and George was sure going to clean up on us but my partner had a 45 colts stuck in his chaps that George didn't see and before he could get the neck yulk into action the gun was right against his stomach full cock he throwed the neck yulk over his head and both hands in the air and said don't kill me then we gave him some not too kind advice what his action should be toward us in the future and I will say George was a pretty good dog from that time on that is the only time I ever double teamed on anyone but felt justified that time under the circumstances when the men came in off that day's ride George took his troubles to the boss told him how we had doubled up on him and abused him all he got was a hearty laugh from the boss he was a Texas man he said did they sure enough really make you eat the pie George when we got to the railroad with that herd there was two other big outfits shipping beef and we had to wait several days to get cars for our cattle big sandy was the shipping point the town had two saloons one hotel, one store stockyards and livery stable and a jail we had plenty of help and we took shifts holding the cattle those that wasn't on shifts spent most of their time in town and it was sure lively during shipping time and looked as good as Chicago to some of them cowboys there was also a lot of half breed Indians gathering buffalo bones and brought them there at a ship most of them drank plenty whiskey and with their families had dances every night the musician would be some half breed with moccasins on he kept time with both feet while he played the town had a constable to keep order and he was quite lame one night he arrested two half breeds and was taken them to jail one got away from him he let the other one loose to catch him and he ran away and he didn't catch the first one so he lost them both them breeds with moccasins on could sure run one night a fist fight started between the cowboys and the breeds there was several fights going on at the same time an old buffalo hunter was in among them with his hands in his pockets looking on it was dark and some cowboy thought he was a breed he took a run at him and hit him on the side of his head with all his strength and he went down about that time he discovered his mistake and went to help him up he said, Fred, I am sure sorry I didn't know that was you Fred said, I guess you are sorry all right but that don't help my ear any there was several commission men in town that night trying to get cattle consigned to their different houses in Chicago one of them had never been west before there were some of them playing a social game of cards in one of the saloons every little while some cowboy would shoot his six shooter off right in the saloon this fellow was very nervous and could not get his attention on the game finally he went to light his cigar about that time somebody shot a gun off and his match went out he jumped up right quick and said quit playing cards this is getting too damn close for me that tickled Charlie Russell and he told the fellow he saw the bullet go right by his nose he said he knew it did someone stole my saddle that night off my horse which was tied to a hitch rack so next morning I was in a pretty bad way we hunted and searched all the breed camps but didn't find the saddle everybody had given up when Charlie Russell came in and had found the saddle and the way he found that saddle shows what a close observer he was he was following a dusty trail looking for tracks when he saw the print of a cinch ring in the dust he said he knew nothing else would make a mark like that he looked around and saw a little box elder tree about a mile away he went to that tree and there was the saddle that cost me a good many drinks but it was sure worth it we joked Charlie and told him it took one Indian to trail another there was a man by the name of Marsh kept the hotel in Big Sandy and was a great friend of the cowboys as when they were broke they could always eat and sleep at his hotel until they got a job I had known Marsh for some years one day we had got through loading cattle and I was in the hotel and he told me he had just bought two fine dogs Canadian stag hounds and he was anxious to try them out and see how fast they were and asked me to borrow one of the cowboys horses for him to ride and we would take a ride with the dogs and maybe jump a coyote out on the range well we got the dogs lined up and started he also had a bulldog and a fox terrier they couldn't run but just trailed along we hadn't went very far until we jumped a jackrabbit and away went the hounds the bulldog and the terrier bringing up the rear all dogs barking Marsh hollering and laughing at the bull and terrier the hounds were making a pretty run and Marsh was trying to keep inside of them and his horse was running his best when he stepped in a badger hole and down they went this was an unusually big saddle horse and Marsh was a very big man and when they piled up it looked like a boxcar had jumped the track Marsh must have fell on his head as he had lost $80 his watch, pocket knife, and everything it was all scattered around the wreck he was not hurt bad any one place but was jarred all over while I was picking up his stuff I was so full of laugh I could hardly hold myself in the meantime the bulldog and the terrier had caught up and was licking his face and he was cussing them then I exploded and laughed till I cried I don't think he ever quite forgive me for that but I couldn't help laughing at the pile up End of Chapter 7