The Washington herald., 1913-06-22

Though I had previously made trip
into the then Territory of Dakota, beyond
the Red River, it was not until 1888 that
I went to the Little Missouri, and there
took hold of two cattle ranches, the
Chimney Butte and the Elkhorn.
It was still the Wild West in those days,
the Far West. the West of Owen Visitors
stories and Frederic Remington's draw
ings, the West of the Indian and the
buffalo hunter. the soldier and the COW
puncher. That land of the West has
gone now, gone, gone with lost Attain
It's" gone to the Isle of ghosts and OF
strange dead memories.
It was a land Of vast silent spaces, OF
lonely rivers, and of plains where the
wild game stared at the passing horse
man. 1t was a land of scattered ranches,
of herds of long-horned cattle, and Of
reckless riders who unmoved looked in
the eyes of life or of death. In that land
we led a free and hardy life, with horse
and with rifle.
We worked under the scorching mid
summer sun, when the wide plains SHIN
mered and wavered in the heat: and we
knew the freezing misery of riding night
guard round the cattle in the late fall
roundup In the soft springtime the
stars were glorious In our eyes each
night before We fell asleep; and In the
winter we rode through binding billiards,
when the driven snow-dust burnt our
faces. There were monotonous days, as
we guided the trail cattle or the beef
herds hour after hour, at the slowest Of
walks: and minutes or hours teeming
with excitement as We stopped stampedes
or swan the herds across rivers treach-
erous with quicksands or brimmed with
running ice
We knew toll and hardship and hunger
and thirst: and we saw men die violent
AZ bad 1Or1c- he HOY CaG
and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with
one another; but We felt the beat of
hardy life in our veins, and ours was the
glory of work and the joy of living
It was right and necessary that this
life should pass, for the safety of our
country lies in its being made the coun-
try of the small home-maker. The great
unfenced ranches. in the days of free
Grass necessarily represented a tenn
.3orary stage in our history. The large
migratory fiocks of sheep. each guarded
by the hired shepherds of absentee own
ers, were the first enemies of the cattle
men: and owing to the way they ate
out the grass and destroyed all other
vegetation. these rowing sheep bands rep
resented little OF permanent good to the
country.
But the homesteaders, the permanent
settlers. the men who took up each his
own on ne llNtQ ana Drought
up his family, these represented from
the national standpoint, the most desir-
able of all possible users of, and dwell
lers on, the soil. Their advent meant
the breaking-up of the big ranches and
the change was a national gain. although
10 some of us an individual loss.
Bobcats and Old sIcdge.
I first reached the Little Missouri on
a Northern Pacific train about 3 in the
morning OF cool September DAY in 1888.
Aside from the station, the only build
ing was a ramshackle structure called
the Pyramid Park Hotel. 1 dragged my
duffie-bag thither. and hammered at the
door until the frowsy proprietor appear
ed, muttering oaths. He ushered me up
stairs. where ] was given one of the
fourteen beds. in the room which by
itself constituted the entire upper floor
Next day l walked over to the aban-
doned army post, and. after some hours
among the gray log shacks, ranchman
VINO had driven into the station, agreed
10 take me out to his ranch, the Chin
ney Butte ranch, where he was living
with his brother and their partner
The ranch was a log structure with a
dirt roof. a corral for the horses near
by, and chicken-house jabbed against
the rear of the ranch house Inside
there was only one room. with a table,
three or four chairs a cooiing-stove, and
three hunks. The owners were Sylyane
and Joe Ferris and William ]. Merri
field.
Later all three of them held my COM