Somebody stole my saddle that night off my horse which was tied to a hitch rack. So next morning I was in a pretty bad way. We hunted and searched all the breed camps but didn’t find the saddle. Everybody had given up when Charlie Russell came in and had found the saddle and the way he found that saddle shows what a close observer he was. He was following a dusty trail, looking for tracks, when he saw the print of a cinch-ring in the dust. He said he knew nothing else would make a mark like that. He looked around and saw a little box-elder tree about a mile away. He went to that tree and there was the saddle. That cost me a good many drinks but it was sure worth it. We joked Charlie and told him it took one Indian to trail another one.
There was a man by the name of Marsh kept the hotel in Big Sandy and was a great friend of the cowboys, as when they were broke they could always eat and sleep at his hotel until they got a job. I had known Marsh for some years.
One day we had got through loading cattle and I was in the hotel and he told me he had just bought two fine dogs, Canadian stag hounds, and he was anxious to try them out and see how fast they were, and asked me to borrow one of the cowboys’ horses for him to ride and we would take a ride with the dogs and maybe jump a coyote out on the range. Well, we got the dogs lined up and started.
He also had a bull dog and a fox terrier. They couldn’t run but just trailed along.
We hadn’t went very far until we jumped a jack rabbit and away went the hounds, the bull dog and the terrier bringing up the rear—all dogs barking, Marsh hollering and laughing at the bull and terrier. The hounds were making a pretty run and Marsh was trying to keep in sight of them and his horse was running his best, when he stepped in a badger hole ... and down they went. This was an unusually big saddle horse and Marsh was a very big man, and when they piled up it looked like a box car had jumped the track. Marsh must have fell on his head, as he had lost $80.00, his watch, pocket knife, and everything—it was all scattered around the wreck. He was not hurt bad any one place, but was jarred all over. While I was picking up his stuff I was so full of laugh I could hardly hold myself. In the meantime, the bull dog and the terrier had caught up and was licking his face and he was cussing them. Then I exploded and laughed ’til I cried—I don’t think he ever quite forgive me for that but I couldn’t help laughing at the pile-up.
Con and Claudia Price at the time of their Marriage, December 26, 1899
Roundup Camp—Fall of 1896—DHS and CK Outfits On the Big Dry near Oswego, Montana