New Britain herald., 1915-01-05
PRIZE TANGO DANCER
 OF MONTANA AT S2
Stage Drivir Of Pioneer Days Knows
 All the Latest Steps.

Helena, Mon, Jan. Silly Rum
 sey is the happiest man in Helena. Successively stage driver, miner and
 a member of the vigilantes commit tee, that famous organization which
 first brought law and order into the mountain state, Billy Run1sey recently
 reached the pinnacle of his ambition
 when he carried away the grand prize as the best tango dancer at the an
 nual charity ball, a masque affair
 which was held at the auditorium.
 Billy Rumsey has passed the eighty second milestone along his eventful
 road of life, but those who pass him along the street take him for man of fifty. His step is springy, his eye clear, and his shoulders straight. He learned to dance when mere youth and he has been literally dancing his way through life for nearly seventy years. His ability as a dancer and his fondness for the exercise are known throughout the state.
 Knows Latest Steps.
 But it was at the charity ball that
 Billy Rumsey came into his own.
 Dressed in the rough garb of the pio-
 neer of two decades ago he presented
 picturesque picture on the ballroom
 floor. And Billy Rumsey can cer-
 tainly dance. All of the atest steps
 he knew far better than the budding
 debutante, and as he stepped to the music of the tango with his youthful partner nearly all the other dancers with one accord stopped to admire the young-old man.
 Of the unusually large list of dances
 Billy Rumsey sat out but two, and as he paused to rest during these two brief intermissions his memory wan dered back to the days that are gone as he related a few incidents of the days of early Montana when he, as l a member of the vigilantes commit tee, helped to mould the destinies of
 the Treasure State.
 Lawlessncss Almost Unknown. In the Montana of today lawlessness is aim ost a thing unknown. No more are heard the shouts and songs of the cowboy jewellers as they shoot up little frontier town in their evenings
 amusement. Silenced are the guns of the bad mem and road agents who so successfully piled their trade in
 those days when Bannack. first known | as "Grasshopper Diggings," was the principal outpost of Montana civiliza- ton.
 Those were the days of fifty years l ago. the days when the ends of jus
 tice were served, not through the wis- dom of jury of twelve, but by the
 unerring and unfailng click of the '15." It was a day when every mans life was in his hands. and those hands served best which had learned to "pull'' first.
 Killings Daily Occurrence. It was in the days of '63 that a de- mand for law and order first began
 to assert itself in Montana. The natur- al lawlcssncss which invariably finds it's way to new mining camp had ap- parently become organized in the ter 1 rtory. Brutal killings were a daily
 occurrence and the sticking" up of the little stage coaches appeared to be
 a daily pastime with George Ives,
 Henry Hummer. Boone Helm and other notorious outlaws of those carly days.
 In common with nearly all of those
 who came to Montana in the early 1 days Billy Rumsey hearkened to the call of the mines. As a young man of tWenty-fOur he was one of the first 1 to Init the trail for the mining grounds of Pike's Peak but when
 fresh stories of still greater mining wealth came from the Montana terri tory he answered the call and located near Virginia City in the summer of '63.
 When the mon who came to Mon tana to rear their homes and live aC- cording to the best dictates of justice first took some active step to bring about law and order they enlisted among their number Billy fumsey. During his earlier life in Colorado Ril- ly had served on a vigilance com-