Another time Tom and I were gathering saddle horses for the spring roundup. When we left our camp in the morning we went different directions and I got back to camp quite a while before Tom did. I had loosened my cinch and tied my horse to a post and went in the cabin to cook dinner. I heard someone holler and looked out and saw Tom coming with a bunch of horses. Those horses were sometimes very hard to corral. So I run out and got on my horse but forgot to tighten my cinch. Those horses came by me pretty fast and I run my horse in ahead of them to try to turn them. They dodged by me and when I turned my horse to head them off my saddle turned and, of course, I hit the ground and my horse got away and went with the wild bunch.

I got Tom’s horse and followed them. After a little distance he quit the bunch and took off across the country by himself. I followed him about ten miles and finally run him into an old roundup corral and caught him. The saddle was under his belly and there wasn’t a thing left of it—only the saddle tree and the cinch—he had kicked it all to pieces.

When I led him back to camp I felt like crying and called Tom out to show it to him. In place of sympathizing with me, he smiled and said he didn’t see any difference in it than it was before.

I had to ride 40 miles to town to order another saddle. I tied a rope on each side of the saddle tree to use for stirrups and rode that distance. Tom went with me—I think he had the time of his life that day laughing at my rig.

We worked together on the roundup that year and slept together. We worked pretty late that fall and the nights got very cold. We were holding quite a bunch of cattle and, of course, that meant we had to guard the cattle at night. Each man guarded three hours and then woke up another cowboy. One night was very cold. When I came off guard my feet felt like chunks of ice and I had noticed Tom’s underwear was wore out where he had been sitting in the saddle. I pulled off my boots and went out in the frost—then slipped into bed with Tom. He was asleep and didn’t hear me. I got into bed easy and found that bare place on his body and planted both feet right on it. He hollered and went clear out of the tent. He said afterwards he thought somebody had burned him with a hot iron. I think I got even with him for making fun of my saddle!

CHAPTER XI
KID CURRY

Most of the big Montana cow outfits moved their herds north of the Missouri River between 1888 and 1894. The point of crossing on the Missouri was an old steamboat landing called Rocky Point where Jim Norris had a saloon.

When I crossed the river there in 1889, there was no one living there but the little old man. He had an old hand ferry boat that he took people across the river with. The night I stayed with him, he told me he had some fine gin and gave me a drink, which I found out was straight alcohol and the one drink nearly strangled me, but old Uncle Jim, as he was called, drank it like water and seemed to do quite well on it. Every little while he would go to the bank of the river and holler at the top of his voice, “Do you want to bring your wagon over?” There would not be anybody in sight, but he seemed to get a great kick out of make-believe.

I worked with Kid Curry that summer on the roundup. He worked for the Diamond outfit and I worked for the DHS. Both outfits worked the range together. Kid was a fine fellow at that time and a good cowboy—that was before he became an outlaw. I have read where some writers told what a cold-blooded killer he was and where he had held up banks and so forth, and I know from some of the dates given that he was blamed for a great many things he did not do.

I am not trying to make a hero out of the Kid or say that I approve of some things he done, but the public at large does not know all the circumstances leading up to where he first got into trouble.