The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-18
WORSE THAN ARMY BEEF
Bounty Bill Creates Odor in Mis-
soula's Couro House.
DEAD COYOTE HEADSALIVE
A Halo OF Fragrance Surrounds the
Premises and Property Values
Deprecated Even ths
Trees Wilted.

Missoula, May 1.-THE county clerk
and his associates have been compelled
to abandon their plucky fight against
the odorous county bill. They kept
their collection of coyote heads on ex-
hibition in their office until they found
that they were getting the worst of the
deal and the relics of prowess and of
raids on the county treasurer have
been consigned to the dungeon of the
old adobe Jail, which the commissioners
have set apart as the cold storage plant
for coyote remains. The boys in the
Office made good struggle, but it was
a hopeless fight The heads won out
without any assistance. They did the
work all alone. There was no lobbying
necessary.
The scheme worked all right until
the clerk noticed that people who were
passing the court house crossed to the
opposite side of the street and at once
called upon the health officer to call his
attention to the unsavory condition of
a vault in the vicinity of the court
house. The shrubbery and plants in
the yard of Wolfe & Ryman across
Stevens street began to droop and
wither and the new trees that have
been set out around the court house
began to show signs of premature de-
cay. The county superintendent of
schools decided that it was her time
to take trip into the country and
Assessor Prescott sent his deputies to
the remotest parts of the county to
find out valuations where the odor of
the coyotes had not permeated. There
was such a shrinkage in values in the
vicinity of Missoula that the ciass.fica-
ton of the county threatened TO drop
at least two notches. Tho leaves of the
books in the county treasurers office
got gummy and Dan Eeyfron said that
the atmosphere reminded him of the
camp of Troop F at Chickamauga. He
was the only one of the regular occu-
pants of the court house who was able
to endure the new conditions. Tom
Evans, in the second story of the court
house, began to show siens of prema-
ture old age and Judge Sloane had
about made up his mind that the af-
fairs of the new reduction company in
Bear gulch demanded his attention at
once. In the Jail the prisoners began
to rebel and asserted that they were
not Spaniards or even Filipinos that
they should be treated in that man
ner
Innings went from D2Q TO worse until
Harry Lambert, when he reached the
office one morning, found flourshing
colony of maggots on the floor. where
they had dropped from the coyote
heads. The maggots had nearly eaten
the baled hay wire. on which the heads
We're strung, in two. and it was de-
cided that the matter had gone far
enough. Will Cave wanted to send the
heads and maggots to Secretary Alger
and General Eagan. He said that they
had sent the same stuff to him while
he was in camp at Chickamauga, but
the rest of the office refused to help
him can the heads and the affair was
dropped. The heads went into the
adobe Jail and are still there, if they
have not developed sufficient strength
to break out. They We're in a fair way
to do SO when they were last seen.
But the incident is closed, as they say
in diplomatic circles, and the bounty
bill has been found to be strong enough
to stand any old test. 1t will be long
time before there is any further at
tempt to hold up to ridicule the acts OF
the late lamented legislative assembly
in the office of Missoula's county
clerk,