CHAPTER VII IN THE JUDITH BASIN COUNTRY OF MONTANA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We hadn’t went very far until we jumped a jack rabbit and away went the hounds, the bull dog and the terrier bringing up the rear—all dogs barking, Marsh hollering and laughing at the bull and terrier. The hounds were making a pretty run and Marsh was trying to keep in sight of them and his horse was running his best, when he stepped in a badger hole ... and down they went. This was an unusually big saddle horse and Marsh was a very big man, and when they piled up it looked like a box car had jumped the track. Marsh must have fell on his head, as he had lost $80.00, his watch, pocket knife, and everything—it was all scattered around the wreck. He was not hurt bad any one place, but was jarred all over. While I was picking up his stuff I was so full of laugh I could hardly hold myself. In the meantime, the bull dog and the terrier had caught up and was licking his face and he was cussing them. Then I exploded and laughed ’til I cried—I don’t think he ever quite forgive me for that but I couldn’t help laughing at the pile-up.
Con and Claudia Price at the time of their Marriage, December 26, 1899

Con and Claudia Price at the time of their Marriage, December 26, 1899
Roundup Camp—Fall of 1896—DHS and CK Outfits On the Big Dry near Oswego, Montana

Roundup Camp—Fall of 1896—DHS and CK Outfits On the Big Dry near Oswego, Montana