Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-03-10
SHEEP HERDING IN MONTANA
Heavy Losses Sustained By Flock Owners
During Present Winter
WHAT A BLIZZARD MEANS TO SHEEP MEN
Personal Experience with wild storm
on Range and some incidents
of Heroism on Part
of Herders.

NEW YORK, March 9.-Custer county,
Montana, has been hard hit this winter II
Is declared that not since 1855 have the
sses In stock been so severe. For
Weeks the thermometer has stood below
zero. The snow, a foot deep on the level,
has been so thickly crusted over that the
cattle could not break through It, but
starved with their noses only a few inches
from fodder. AS for the sheepmen, they
have been hauling hay for their fiocks
since the middle of December.
you fasteners seem to think IT Is the
ranchmens fault when their stock is
swept away by the thousands said
Custer county sheepman In this city. THE
Montana ranchman, you must remember
Is not dealing With half dozen head of
cattle in ten-acre pasture. He probably
has 200, 800. 1000 head. The big outfits
run UP into the tens and hundreds Of thou
sands.
The ranches are miles IN area-miles
And outside the barbed wire fences you've
got the whole prairie for your stock to
range over-eight miles to the nearest
ranch to the east. maybe twenty miles on
the south ana north and west, nothing but
sky and grass. sky and grass, with here
q butte and there an old buffalo trail and
yonder water hole.
There's not winter that the ranchman
doesn't risk his life to save his stock
not winter that some poor shepherd don't
freeze his feet and lose 'em caring for
his hock in the pursuit OF duty.
II nearly died young myself back In 's2
trying to save my band of sheep. had
1000 sheep out with a shepherd, and was
hoping to harvest my little so per cent on
my money come shearing.
Wed been having fine spell of
weather, when one day, the last Of Feb
ruary a little. soft. moist dab of some
thing fell on my cheek and began to trickle
into my beard. ! didn't wait for second.
1 knew It were a snowflake and that II
meant death to my sheep and my hopes
II 1 couldn't get to Frisco Frank and help
him turn the band into my big pasture
where the Bad Lands be.
Now, IL a blizzard strikes band OF
sheep they drive before it straight to de-
struction Horses viii cut and run for
corner. Cattle will sometimes. But band
of sheep haven't a quart of brains among
'em. They drift before a storm wherever
1t drives EN-.
81 put a flask of whisky and some bread
and cheese In my pocket and was Looping
across the prairie in half an hour. Already
the blizzard was upon me.
1.-THE sky was thick with flakes. The
wind was blowing a baby gale and the mer-
curry was dropping down cellar at fast
clip. II was going to be a hummer.
1T was four. miles to the place where l
thought Frisco Frank was camped out.
He wasn't there. 1 could see where his
tent had been, but the weather being 30
fine he must have decided to throw the
sheep a couple of miles nearer Fallon
creek.
IT rode looking for 'em till the~twilight
began to fall Even when 1t were dark.
end God knows a Montana night can be the
Nbttchiest black thing that ever happened,
I wouldn't give it up.
ct rode shouting into the night, then
listening and holding my breath to hear a
bleat or a voice. And 1 rode and RODE
till 1 was plumb lost.
well, 1 managed to find a shallow cone
half under a pinnacle OF sandstone and
backed the bronze into 1t. A horseless
man in that country is n dead man.
found another under a ledge and crept into
It more dead than alive with anxiety and
exhaustion.
ct Law in the cave all night and all night
the storm ragged and howled. 1 was some
where in my own OOOO-acre pasture, but
couldn't tell where. Nor the next day
either.
80 all that day and the second night ]
lay in the cave. desperate. On the third
day the sun rose clear Saddling the
bronze l houndered to the top OF the tallest
butte and studied the landscape. There,
not two miles away, was my shack and
the stables and the corral.
II had not been at home an hour when