The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1941-05-15

Dill roper sat alone at rear Ia
BILE in the Palace Bar, in Miles City
the young, turbulent center of
vast, raw range, the possibilities of
which were still unknown.
For three months Roper had rid
den through the bitter Montana Win
ter. 1t had been no trouble for him
to sweep together a dozen malcon-
tent cowboys who hated Lasham or
Thorpe, or both. Already they knew
Bill Roper's name.
Against their common enemy
these youngsters could be led, wild,
reckless and crazy for raid; and
Roper had led them as Texas had
taught him.
His new northern wild bunch faced
conditions in many ways bitterly ad-
verse. Here in the north were no
ousted cattlemen, no established
population to which he could look for
help. The Canadian border was far
away, and no market awaited the
hard-pushed herds on the other side.
What Montana had that Texas did
not have was concentration of In
dian tribes, principally Sioux and
Cheyenne, deprived of their hunting
grounds, and dependent for food
upon beef which the government
was pledged to supply. 1t was to
this circumstance that Roper had
turned.
The giant beef contracts which the
government threw upon the market
had inevitably attracted more than
one kind of graft. The result was
famine-pitiful, relentless. Starva-
ton stalked through the lodges of
the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Crow
-and with it, Roper's opportunity.
Securing the country, Roper
turned up four Indian agents who
were already badly scared. They
had overplayed their hands, and
were now faced with loss of life
among their charges about which
they could do nothing without re-
vealing their own corrupt inefficien-
cy. These men had connived with
Lasham in bringing about a condi-
tion of tribal starvation; they were
willing to connive with Bill Roper
to cover up their position in any
way they could.
BY delivering beef to the reserva-
tions under these highly irregular
conditions, Roper's wild bunch could
little more than make expenses. But
the advantage was this-a beef herd
ln1s tn In +~ih
peared over night, leaving little
trace. A thousand hands skinned
out the beef, destroying the portions
of the hides containing the brands.
Constantly changing horses, per-
petually in the saddle, Roper's sad
die hawks swung across Montana.
They first struck at Muddy Bend,
picking up four hundred head of
steers in the breaks of the Yellow
stone Three days hard driving de-
livered these to village of Assini-
boine. Only four days later they
were on the flats of the Little Thun-
der, far away. Here, struggling
through a soft binding snow, they
ran off five hundred head, and few
days later three hundred more. They
Christmased in company with herd
of lifted steers somewhere between
Three Sleep and the Little Powder;
and New Years found them sitting
the pick of Lasham's cattle out of
his Lost Soldier range.
BY the end of January they had
moved three thousand head-the
very cream of the wintering stock.
Repeatedly they had driven cattle
incredible distances in impossible
time.
Yet he knew his work had only
begun. All their hard riding would
fail of effect unless he could strike
such smashing blow as would
cause a split between Lasham and
Ben Thorpe.
And Roper had a plan-rash in
SCOPE and method, but savage in eff
feet if it could be fulfilled. Already
he had enough riders in sight to