Charlie enjoyed telling jokes on himself, which very few people do. He told me about one time the Captain of the Judith Basin Roundup sent another cowboy and himself to the Moccasin Roundup to rep (that was to gather any cattle that had drifted from their home range). The other man took a violin which he played a little, and Charlie took some paint and some brushes. The next year the boss of the Basin Range met the boss of the Moccasin Range and said, “What was the matter last year? I had a lot of cattle over on your range. I sent two men over there and didn’t get hardly any cattle.” The other boss said, “What the Hell could you expect? You sent a fiddler and a painter over there to act as cowboys.” All during Charlie Russell’s life as a cowboy he drew pictures for pastime—sometimes with a lead pencil and sometimes with a paint brush and even in his earliest and rough work, one could always recognize the man or horse that he had used for the picture. We used to wonder at those pictures but he (or us) never dreamed that he was the making of the greatest Western artist of his day, which I believe has been conceded by art critics. The last riding for wages that Charlie did was for the Bear Paw Pool at Chinook on Milk River. They were a combination of the Judith Basin Pool that he had worked for several years, but had moved their cattle across the Missouri River into the Bear Paw country. Charlie told me the reason he quit punching cows. The last winter he stayed in Chinook him and some other boys had a cabin that they wintered in and it was so cold they put on German socks and lined mittens to cook and eat breakfast, and nearly froze at that. I think it was in the year 1892 he bid goodbye to the range and saddled and packed his horses and headed for Great Falls to try his luck at painting. He told me he had tough going for quite awhile as he did not know the price to ask for a picture. I have seen some of Charlie’s pictures that he sold for ten dollars at that time, that afterwards he sold one to the Prince of Wales for ten thousand dollars that I couldn’t see a great deal of difference. I think this money difference was due to his business manager—his wife, Nancy C. Russell, who certainly deserves great credit for making Charlie’s name famous. She is in very poor health at this time (1939) and has suffered for a long time but she has a great fighting heart and has never said “Whoa” in a bad place. As a cowboy Charlie Russell was sure strong for cowboy decorations. As I look back on him now, I can see him, seldom with his shirt buttoned in the right button hole, and maybe dirty with part of one sleeve torn off, but his hat, boots, handkerchief and spurs and bridle were the heights of cowboy fashion. Of course those were the days when we didn’t get to town only two or three times a year, but when we did go to town we dressed like millionaires as long as our money lasted.