The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-18
WILD MULES IN MONTANA.
The Origin of Strange Herds in the
 Bitter Root Valley.

AlHDSl any one may OWL d lOISS III Montana. If he has not the five, ten, twenty or fifty dollars necessary to pay for the blood and culture with which any particular animal may be endowed he may, If he has the necessary agility, go out on the range and take one, for there are plenty that don't belong to any one else
 Since the price on horses fell below the paying point many ranchmen have neglected branding their stock or heap- ing any track of it, and, in fact, there have been good many local efforts made by the owners themselves to ex- terminate or drive the horses off the immediate ranges that there might he better grass for cattle and sheep. It is very repulsive business, to western man more especially than any one else, to shoot horse, and man who is ca pablo of it is regarded with rather more circumspection than one who has killed his man.
 So, being protected by spark of sentiment, the herds of wild or mayer- ick horses are really increasing, and a right royal breed of animals they are. When the business was good, a. few years back, the Montana breeders were the most energetic and progressive of any in the west, They bought sires of thoroughbred and trotting blood in Kentucky and turned them loose with their herds.
 Others who desire size rather than endurance went to Illinois and Canada and purchased great Norman and Clydesdale stallons. While the prices ruled high the two classes were bred separately, but of late years they have been allowed to run into one uniform and homogeieous herd. The new breed is of good height and strong boned, with lung power and endurance that are suggestive of greyhound If conditions were to remain the same for, say, a period of thirty years longer, without any new admixture of blood it is reasonable to expect that these herds would gradually assume a uniformity of size, shape and color to as great an extent as is noted in any other wild animals.
 Did you ever hear of the wild mules of the Bitter Root Mountains?" asked prospector the other day.
 I had never heard of them, and the l suggestion seemed a lttel bit woolly and western, as mules, being without | hope of posterity, have a very uncer- | tain tenure of existence as species, and I may have expressed scepticism. But they are there, for Ihave seen 1 them," he continued. T have seen hundreds of them-little, gray fellows often about the color of buffalo grass and they are some wilder than an an telope. They are most too small and vicious to be worth bothering with even if it were easier to catch them | They would like to associate with the horses, but the stallions drive them off and they have to herd by themselves 1 As the stockmen despise them they arc kept pretty well scared back into the mountains"
 Where did they come from and how is the supply kept up?"
 Well, some of their ancestors and progenitors are still with them-Mexs- l can burros, as wild as the little mules 1 themselves. It began in 1879, when i Wilson lost his drove of burros on the 1 St. Mary fork of the Bitter Root.
 He brought pack train of burros all the way from southern Colorado or New Mexico. It was at the time of one 1 of the earliest discoveries of gold in the Occur d'Alene Mountains, and wher Wilson got the reports Of the discovery and the rush he conceived the idea that he could make big money packing fol the miners.
 Wilson had about forty burros ant he hired another man, and well along in the season they started northward They made their way slowly through Colorado and Wyoming into Montana and about December 1, after prett, hard trip, they reached the Missouls river, where they got the first reliabl, news about the mines. They ascer. tained that the real value of the ,:is- coverles had been greatly exaggerated and that there was absolutely no de mand for pack train of any descrip ton.
 "rhen Wilson concluded to return tt Colorado. They started southward ant got as far as the St. Mary's when they were overtaken by blizzard whicl continued several days. After tn, storm was over and they went tt round up their donkeys they were abl;
 to find but three or four in whol, days search.
 Whats the use of trying to ge back to Coorado?" asked Wilson
 These burros can probably pull through the winter here as well as any
 where, and when spring comes the, will be worth something in Montana
 Then Wilson and his man took tn
 few animals they had left and mad
 their way to Helena"
 Did he ever try to round up his bur ros again?"
 ''I don't know about that, but, any
 way, he never got them, and that ac
 counts for the little wild mules o southwestern Montana and Idaho
 They seem to be proverbially protected
 somehow, and the number increase
 every year."-Arlee (Mont.) Correspon
 dence of the Chicago Record.