MEMORIES OF OLD MONTANA By Con Price (Masachele Opa Barusha) THE HIGHLAND PRESS Highland at Hawthorne HOLLYWOOD 28, CALIFORNIA Copyright, 1945 By Con Price All Rights Reserved FIRST EDITION After Deluxe edition of 125 copies, numbered and signed by the author. DEDICATION To all the old-time cowboys and cowmen whose hearts were as big as the range they rode. CONTENTS I. Earliest Memories (1869 to 1878) II. Black Hills of South Dakota (1878 to 1885) III. I Start to Punch Cows IV. With the RL Outfit V. With the TL Outfit in the Bear Paws VI. Line Riding With the Mounted Police VII. In the Judith Basin Country of Montana VIII. With the DHS Outfit IX. Jim Spurgeon X. Tom Daly XI. Kid Curry XII. Fred Reid XIII. Indians XIV. Open Range Days XV. The Johnson County War XVI. Broncos XVII. My Marriage XVIII. The Lazy KY XIX. Memories of Charlie Russell XX. Cowboy Philosophy PREFACE Some years ago, through my interest in the life and work of Charles M. Russell, I met Con Price. No one could go far into the subject of Montana’s Cowboy Artist without cutting Con Price’s trail. These two men were more than cowpuncher friends and associates in a ranch partnership. Charlie regarded Con as one of the greatest bronco riders of his time, and Con considers Charlie the finest kind of friend a man could have had. It was a long time before Con would talk much about his close friendship with Charlie Russell—a friendship that started on the range before either was married, and lasted until Charlie crossed the Big Divide in 1926. After some urging Con has, over a period of years, written something of his early days in Old Montana, with a few, too few, references to his friend Russell. My own knowledge of Russell has been immeasurably enriched through knowing Con Price, but more important is our own friendship, which I treasure even more. H. E. BRITZMAN July 23, 1945 Trail’s End, Michillinda, Pasadena, California. [Illustration: The Lazy KY] CHAPTER I EARLIEST MEMORIES (1869 to 1878) I was born in the year 1869 in Manchester, Iowa. My father served in the Civil War and during that service contracted consumption and was discharged from the army and came home a very sick man, without any provisions being made to take care of him—only through the efforts of my mother, who didn’t have a dollar, only what she made working for wages which was very small at that time. There was four children—the oldest eight, the youngest two. So with my father’s sickness and us hungry kids to feed, she must have had hard going. I think my father was home about a year when he died. How she provided for the burial, I do not know, as there was no charitable organizations or county help those days.