The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-04-17
LAKE OF MUD AND SLUSH
SOME NARROW ESCAPES
Mrs. Nat Collins Nearly Drowned In
MIX River - r. H. Mccormack
Thrown and Kicked by His
Horse-Other Misadventures.

Great Falls. April 16.-As expected.
and as previously stated in these COL
umns, the rush on to the coded strip of
the Blackfoot reservation did not ma
terialize. About SO boomers lined up,
and when the gun was fired at noon
each calmly walked to the place he had
selected perhaps a year before and pro-
ceeded to drive his stakes through 10
feet of snow M slush There are re-
ports that many are waiting for a more
favorable season to go upon the strip,
but IL there are such persons, they do
not appear very much excited over the
matter. Parties in this city have been
going to that country for several sea-
sons on hunting n fishing trips. and
they are likely to go again this sum-
mer. They may look about them when
they get there in July or August, but
none OF them have sufficient faith in
the reported richness of the tract to
brave inclement weather for the pur-
pose of locating rounu Many of the
streams in hat part of the country have
risen over their banks and made travel
well nigh impossible.
Louis T. Rhule and Joe Sehringer of
Butte came in from the North on the
narrow-gauge train this after
noon. They are two Of those
VIC went up to Blackfeet and
have returned in a Disguised frame of
mind. They say that the whole reser-
walton is a lake of slush and water
about armpit deep on the level and
much worse in places. They got as far
as Milk river, when they found that the
river was SO swollen that an attempt
to cross it meant almost certain death,
and IL one escaped the risk n expo
sure he could not be repaid by a deed
to the best mining claim in the state.
Their horses were waiting for them on
the further side of the Milk river, but
they let them wait and returned to
his city. They will go back when the
weather gets to be something decent.
Now every dry gulch is a river, moth
ing like it has been known for years.
The station at Kipp is under water,
and that is the prevailing condition all
over the reservation.
About go men managed at the risk
of their lives to get on the strip, and
now that they are in they wish they
had not succeeded, for they are stand
ing around in slush up to their necks,
without provisions, and the majority
of them will not be able to locate any
ground for a week or more. Messrs.
Rhule and Sehringer state that the only
locators are those who have been on
the inside from the start and were in
on the deal. Last summer both Of the
gentlemen were on the reservation, and
they saw claims staked out all over the
much talked of Bullhead lead, trees
were blazed, and for a man on the in
side it was easy to go to the claims
at once and post location notices. As
to the valu of the lead, the returned
prospectors say that last summer they
were too closely watched to do much
work and in fact there has been prac-
tically nothing done below the surface
up there. The veins discovered were
mere streaks, which might run to-
gether at a depth, and then again might
not. Still, they believe that the reser-
walton is worth prospecting. and will
return in warm weather to demonstrate
their faith.
Among the misadventures reported
from the Montana Klondike II is said
that Mrs. Nat Collins. the Montana
cattle queen, lost her horses while at
tempting to cross the Milk river, and
herself a a narrow escape from
r. H. Mccormack, who went up
to the reservation ana got as far as
the Milk river, also experimental with
a cayuse with an idea of swimming him
across the river. He was thrown off,
by the animal, and had the at
ter been shod would probably have been
killed. He did not succeed in joining
the rush and returned on the afternoon