The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-02-04
SCALP HUNTER ENCOUNTERS
SNAG IN LAW.
TRICKY YELLOWSTONE MEN
~Tenderfoot Has Costly Experience Do
ing Business. With the Old
Timers.

According to the Helene newspapers
c. V. Shelper, lately of Kansas, but
more lately of Billings, Yellowstone
county, Mont, has become familiar
with the bounty laws of the state at a
cost that staggers him and threatens
him and his two partners with bank
luptcy.
The story has Mr.. Shelper stagger
up to the office of the clerk and re-
corder of Lewis and Clark county
weighted down with a bundle of coy
ote and wolf scalps on which he de
manded the bounty which the state
pays for the determination of those
predatory animals. The bundle con
tanned over 800 tangible evidences Of
the death of that many members of
the outlaWed canine tribe and all went
well until the clerk examined the
trophies.
His First Fall Down.
The mighty hunter was asked where
he killed all the animals and informed
the clerk that some of them came
from Yellowstone county and the rest
from Custer; that he had killed some,
while others had been bought by him
from men who wanted the money and
cid not care to wait until they could
receive it in the usual way.
While the clerk was satisfied that
the number of animals were dead that
the scalp hunter averred, he was not
satisfied to issue the necessary certif-
icates, informing the hunter that he
should have taken the skins to the
clerks Of the respective counties in
which they were obtained, This was
a sumner to the young man and the
only reply he could make was to in
form the clerk that the persons from
whom he obtained the scalps had as
sured him that all he had to do was to
turn them in at the state capital and
get his reward, as it was not neces-
sary to go to each separate county
clerk.
Gets Another Jolt.
Although he realized, or began to
realize that he was up against some
thing hard, Mr.. Shelper was hardly
prepared for the next blow the clerk
dealt. When asked if he had really
300 skins in the package, he said he
had not, but did have the scalps, in
Guiding the ears and upper jaws OF
what once had been wolves and coy
ctes to the number claimed.
He almost tainted when the clerk
kindly remarked: well, I don't be-
lieve you "a get a cent on them. l
never p%erforate a pelt unless the en-
tire skin is presented-at least a
strip along the back from head to
tail"
Had to Be Shown.
Years of residence in an adjoining
state had caused him to acquire one
of the characteristics supposedly pc
culiar to the native Missourian and
"show me" was about the first
utterance he was capable of making
when he had recovered sufficiently
from the shock the clerk had caused
him. The law was produced and read
to him and when it's full force and
meaning had penetrated his think
box he could only gasp and give vent
to an exclamation Of surprise and dis
gust, as he gazed at the heap at his
feet and thought of the confidence
game of which he found himself the
victim. But the people down there"
not need to preserve anything but the
head ears and upper jaw"
There Are Others.
Mr.. Shelper then said. that he and
two partners had arrived in Montana
last April, going into Custer county
first, and that they had been engaged
in trapping and hunting wolves and
coyotes and buying their scalps. Judg-
ing from his OWL success his partners.
he thought, must have fully as many
more of the things on which he could
not collect bounty and which seemed
to be worthless to everybody. Besides
themselves they had employed other
mel to help them and bought 1000
traps, and now he saw a whole years
work gone aglimmering and nothing
to show for it.
He said that he and his partners had
engaged in coyote hunting in several
states. and only a few years before
had worked through Colorado and
when they were through had turned
all the skins in at one county. No
objection had been offered there, as
they had the scalps to show that actu-
ally the number of "varmints" claimed