Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1917-02-09

Senate george VINO udS
served Dawson county in n legis-
lative house or the other for IA
years, is a historical character. He
carried mail to the soldiers at Fort
Keogh, Montana, from Bismarck,
North Dakota, in the period of the
Custer massacre. He travelled with
mail over a route that passed
through 270 miles of wilderness un-
inhabited by white men.
He was chased and shot at by In
dams. He rescued other mail driv-
ers, who had been shot and wounded,
from hiding places they had sought,
and found still other drivers and
station keepers dead on the road at
the hands of the Redskins, and
helped bury them; and he lived
among the hunters and trappers of
those days, and daily saw the count
less herds of buffalo and the almost
equally numerous bands of elk, an
telope, deer and other wild animals
that inhabited those wilds.
Pioneer Cattle Raiser.
He has had a historical part in the
development of the state of Montana,
for it was he who brought into east
ern Montana the first cattle intro
duced into that section and estab-
lished the first stock ranch in the
region of the Yellowstone and Mis-
souri, rivers. He lived in Dawson
county when it a a mere territorial
division, with no county organization
or officers.
Before the railroad era, those were
stirring and adventurous days, ant
it required courage and hardihood tt
convey mail by horseback or buck
board through long stretches of will
derness, destitute of white men, in
tested by prowling Indians, given
over to wild animals, marked only
by faint trails and widely separated
posts, and lacking in DANCE
and difficulties.
: 1t was in Indian Territory in 1877
that Senator McCone took up tn
hardy work of the western mail car
rier. He went to the territory from
: Michigan, and became a pony rider
: between Fort Sill and Fort Reno
j riding rs miles in 10 hours at nigh
four times a week, crossing three riv
8 ers, the North and South Canada
and the Washita, every trip. H
g changed horses five times on eac
trip, and maintained an average pac
of seven miles and a half an hour 70
e the 10 hours, with no allowance fo
n such changes.
a Three Trips a Week.
He was employed by Veile, Mine
e Peck & Company, Star Route ma
contractors, and that concern RI
ceived the mail contract betwee
Bismarck and Fort Keogh in 1877;
Il He was sent by his employers wit
l another man, Alva Ketchum, to ca,
" ry the mail by team and buckboar
g. over this 300-mile route. The ma
carriers of the company made triI
< three times a week. The mail VIZ
y for the soldiers at Fort Keogh an
le their eastern correspondents. Thel
were no other white men in the coul
try.
u General Nelson A. Miles was
L command at Fort Keogh in tho
days. In 1876, two years before thi
- the Inflated General George A. Gu
~ ter was in command at Fort Lincol
!. opposite Bismarck, and in the spriI
&c of that year, Custer, with his cor
- mand, marched to the mouth of Il
!. Tongue river. Two years later Sc
ator McCone, in carrying mail, II
lowed the road Custer made.
No White Man for 27O Miles.
he Between Bismarck and the mou
ry of the Powder river, 270 miles, the
a neither white man not viii
of h~abitation.
hit In 1879 Senator McCone had Sol
experience with Indian troubl,