Belt Valley times. [volume] (Armington, Mont.) 1894-1977, 1923-09-20

Wv YHEN we caught a bad horse
O\A/ thief, we cut off his whole
w thumb. But If he was only
an ordinary, halfway decent horse
thief. we took only the first joint of
his thumb. We branded highway
men by taking off the first finger OF
the right hand-the trigger finger.
Bank robbers were relieved of their
middle finger. The ali-round bad
mad had his next finger taken off.
too"
"Out here in the west we have al
ways branded our cattle so that we
can know them. We branded thieves
and highwaymen and other bad men
so thai everybody could know them,
and know just what their special line
of crime was. BY taking a squirt
at a fellows right hand. you got a
real line on him. Then you knew
what to expect from him and could
be on your guard to see that he
didn't try any OF his little pranks
on you or around your ranch.
How many did / take a hand in
branding? Ask me something else.
/ CUES / did my share as a decent
citizen and didn't shrink from en-
forcing the Law of the land.
did ! have any narrow escapes?
oh, / don't know. I have been shot
at, and have a few buckshots in me
somewhere, but they don't bother
me-"
Thus spoke Charles L. Anceney,
Montana ranchman OF the old school,
when / penetrated that state in
search OF a real ranchman who could
tell of the days when the west was
wild and bloody. and who properly
could be selected as a typical exam
pie Of that important class of men
who are making the west, the ranch
ers. ] could not have found a finer
type had / roamed every square mile
of the west.
Charlie Anceney, born in Denver,
was taken as "a yearling," as he put
1t, in 1854, to Montana, then an in
accessible, unacceptable, untamed re-
gion of lawlessness, of highway rob-
berry, of murder. Alder Gulch, To-
Gated in that wild territory, was the
chief rendezvous of the worst char
acters OF the unsettled west, charac-
tiers whose crimes became SO cruel,
so cold-blooded, so barefaced and so
hi0hatihb " III ia W-AniQAnk uilut1H
and other citizens that, to save their
own lives, the decent pioneers band
ed themselves together into a Vigi-l
lante committee and waged desper-
ate and often dangerous warfare
against the brazen, over-bearing.
bloodthirsty bandits. Charlie An
ceney himself had TO face a few Vigil
lante tasks in his early days, and
his father before him had encoun-
tered even rougher experiences in
that same section of the west before
there was set up any machinery for
the enforcing OF law and order.
/ asked Mr.. Anceney how he got
his cattle to market in pre-railroad
days. His answer forms strange
reading in this age of swift railroad
and motor transportation.
Getting Cattle to Market
I'VE rounded up our cattle in
June, anywhere from 1900 to 2,400
of them, and started out to drive
them to Bismarck, the end of the
Northern Pacific line. To cover this
distance of 500 miles took us from
the middle of June to early in Octo-
Der, between three and foul months.
We had to swim the Missouri river
our way. Once we experimental
with a ferry, but the cattle took
and banged out the side of
the boat. Then there was some ex-
element.
but not half so much e~xcite-I
he added as an afterthought.
'as one night when one of the cow
boys struck a match close to the herd
and started a stampede. Cattle are
like sheep in some ways; they usually
have leaders and they get into the
habit of following these leaders. !
This particular night the sudden
striking of the match. for some rea-
or other, threw two or three OF
nearest cattle into a panic, and