The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-03-12
NOTICE TO RUSTLERS.
An Incident in the Life of a Montana
Miner Who had Set Trap.

NOTICE TO RUSTLERS.
An Incident in the Life of a Montana
Miner Who had Set a Trap.
Down the Big Hole canyon. twenty
miles to the southwest, is Forest 8
ranch. This was famous station on
the old Gilmore & Salisbury stage
route from Salt Lake City to Last
Chance gulch and the town of Helena,
which has since succeeded Virginia
City as the territorial capitol. Big Ike,
the genius of the place. found the big
gest kind of game recently in an old
steel trap set in the angle of the big
stack chimney which warns all that
remains of the ranch. Petty robberies
had increased in Butte until there was
miniature reign of terror. One morn
ing the following notice appeared on
every dead wall, fence, and wooden
sidewalk in the camp:
<...'.... =
3-7-T7 !:
All gamblers thieves, rustlers, and cut !:
throafs now preying on this community :.
are hereby warned to leave camp in twen- :.
ty-four hours. !.
a......-...........c..' Observation-Disclosures.
The white posters glistened in the
sunlight as if the angel of retribution
had paid Butte brief visit and done
his work with the sweep of a hand.
Nobody saw anybody put them up.
Nobody knew whence or how or when
they made their appearance. But there
the gamblers. Times had been un-
usually hard, and scores of gamblers
who had once kept up tlashy establish
ments on Park street, and had after
ward been kept up by them, now knew
not where TO turn for money enough
to pay their fares to Ogden over the
Utah q Northern narrow gauge. They
could not go to Helena, for Helena
had been warned and was on the alert.
The plains TO the south were buried
under foot of snow. The stage routes
to the north and east were impassab'e.
The old Gilmore & Salisbury route
down Silverbow creek, past Forests
ranch, was the only exit available
Big Ike hadn't been to camp for a
week, and, of course, knew nothing of
this latest proclamation of the revived
vigilantes. That afternoon he was
amazed to see long procession of
rustlers footing it along the creek past
the cabin. They seemed to be in a
good deal of hurry. They came by
twos and threes, with a blanket or two,
an old overcoar, a sack of clothing, or
a little parcel of bread slung on stick
over their shoulders. After forty or
more had passed Ike began to get in
terested The short winter evening
closed in over the canyon and the big,
white stars-nowhere else so big, so
white, so sparkling, as here, nearly
5000 feet above the level of the
Pacitic-did not light up the trail close
in under the edge of the mountain on
the other side of the creek.
Night closed in over Butte, with its
5000 inhabitants huddled along three
or four short streets on the mountain
side, and still the exodus continued.
From the crest of the great hill, where
the Alice and the Moulton mills ground
sulphurets with a steady roar, or down
past the Magma Charta, Lexington,
Belle of Butte, Gaenon. SfavenS .,,,d
Morning Star mines, sulky looking
men stole into the shadows and van
ished into the gulches to the north
west The fires in the great smelters
on the plains below Were out-for cop
per was too cheap at % cents pound
to warrant shipping to Omaha or even
to Denver for refining. So there was
no illumination of the vast hollow
along Silver Bow creek, where the
'59ers, the pioneers of Montana, had
piled pick and shovel and washed out
nuggets and heavy yellow sand from
the placer mines.
About ; O clock in the morning Bic
Ike heard Il fearful shrek close by. 1t
seemed almost in the fireplace. He
ran out of doors in time to see several
figures scurrying toward the trail. A
voice from the angle of his chimney
called piteously for help. There was
a stalWart rustler fast in the heavy
steel trap, whose jaws had last been
fastened on a coyote. The man begged
Eumhly for help. He was one of the
pilgrims from Butte, and, worn out
with a days tramp in the snow had
crawled into the warm nook and lain
down on the trap. Ike heard his story
suspiciously, but took him inside,
bound rags about his ankle, fed him,
and learned from him the cause of the
exodus. This is Big Ike's only catch
of big game this winter.
B ok of Ike's cabin, to the north,
are great ranges of mountains, whose
crests are above the timber line and
along whose fianks there are bears and
perhaps an occasional grizzly at long
intervals. Most of the timber is cut
off for mile up their sides, to be
burned in the mills and smelters OF
Butte. The grayling seems to be
about the only fish to be found in the
half-choked streams which run from
these timberless slopes into the Big
Hole river. In summer cattle feed at
will over the ranges at Butte-though
not so many now as a few years ago
and trample into muddy pools which
once must have been good trout brooks.
There is government land everywhere
about here, for ground is comparative
ly worthless except as a building site
or for the minerals under the surface.
But wild land here does not mean
wild game, and nobody seems to know
what has become of the deer, bear,
and prairie chickens. The grayling
are very tame, and with fly in June
or July one may take a dozen ten
inchers out of pool in the Big Hoe
CANYON in an hour.-C0r. n. 7. San.