The rattlesnake bites you, the scorpion stings,
The mosquito delights you with buzzing wings;
The sand-burrs prevail, and so do the ants,
And those who sit down need half-soles on their pants.

Cowboy song

The day that Roosevelt started south on his journey to the mountains, Sewall returned north down the river to rejoin his nephew. Will Dow was watching the cattle on the plateau a few miles south of Elkhorn Bottom, near the mouth of the defile which the cowboys called Shipka Pass.

"You never looked so good to me," he said to Sewall that night, "as you did when I saw your head coming up the Shipka Pass."

They worked together among the cattle for another two or three weeks. They were on the best of terms with Captain Robins by this time, for there was much to like and much to respect in the gruff, dark little seafaring man, who had suffered shipwreck in more ways than one, and was out on the plains because of a marriage that had gone on the rocks. He was an excellent man with the horses, and good company about a camp-fire, for somewhere he had picked up an education and was well-informed. He gave the two tenderfeet a good training in the rudiments of "cattle-punching," sending first one and then the other off to distant round-ups to test their abilities among strangers. Sewall proved unadaptable, for he was rather old to learn new tricks so far removed from the activities that were familiar to him; but Dow became a "cowhand" overnight.

Experience was not greatly mollifying Sewall's opinion of the region in which his lot had been cast.

The sun when it shines clear [he wrote his brother Sam after he had been in the Bad Lands six weeks] strikes the bare sides of the Buttes and comes down on the treeless bottoms hot enough to make a Rattlesnake pant. If you can get in the shade there is most always a breeze. The grand trouble is you can't get in the shade. There's no shade to get into and the great sandy Desert is cool compared with some of the gulches, but as you ride it is not quite so bad. The Ponys when they are up to some trick are lively and smart, all other times they are tired, are very tame and look very meek and gentle. But just let one of them get the start of you in any way and you are left. Am glad to say mine has never really got the start yet. We have had a number of differences and controverseys, but my arguments have always prevailed so far.

About the middle of September, the two backwoodsmen moved down to Elkhorn Bottom, leaving Robins in charge of the cattle. Dow went away on a round-up and Sewall undertook to put in livable shape a dugout that stood on the river-bank some thirty or forty yards from the place which Roosevelt had, on a previous visit, selected as the site for the ranch-house which Sewall and Dow were to build. The shack had belonged to a hunter who had left the country, and was not sumptuous in its fittings.

Dow returned from the round-up with interesting news. The Marquis, it seemed, had by no means resigned his claim to the territory on which Roosevelt had established "squatter's rights." Dow overheard one of the Marquis's men confiding to another that "there'd be some dead men round that Elkhorn shack some day."

Sewall received the news with calm satisfaction. "Well," he drawled, "if there's going to be any dead men hereabouts, I cal'late we can fix it so it won't be us."

Sewall and Dow began cutting timber for the house in a thick grove of cottonwoods two or three hundred yards from the river, keeping a weather eye open for trouble. A day or two after Dow's return from the round-up, one of the Marquis's men rode up to them where they were working.

"There's a vigilance committee around, I hear," he remarked casually. "You haven't seen anything of 'em yet hereabouts, have you? I hear they're considerin' makin' a call on you folks."

The men from Maine said to each other that the thing began to look "smoky." They consulted Captain Robins, who agreed that "smoky" was the word, and they carried rifles after that when they went to cut timber.

For they knew very well that the hint which the Marquis's man had lightly thrown out was no idle attempt at intimidation based on nothing but the hope that the Easterners were timid. The activities of Granville Stuart's raiders had stimulated the formation of other vigilance committees, inspired in part by less lofty motives than those which impelled the president of the Montana Stockgrowers' Association and his friends. On the border between Dakota and Montana a company of rough characters who called themselves vigilantes began to make themselves the topic of excited conversation. They were said to be after horse-thieves, but it became noticeable that their activities seemed to be directed mainly against the small ranchers on the edge of the Bad Lands. It was rumored that certain large ranchmen were backing them in the hope of driving the "nesters" out of the country.

The cowmen here are opposed, not only to the Indians, but also to white settlers [wrote the Western correspondent of the New York Sun]. They want the land these white and red settlers are taking up. Vast tracts—uncultivated ranges, not settlements—are what they desire. The small holder—the man with a little bunch of cattle—is not wanted. They freeze him out. Somehow he loses cattle, or they are killed by parties unknown.

Sewall and Dow had a right to keep their guns near them while they were at work in the grove on Elkhorn Bottom.

Meanwhile, the endeavors of Granville Stuart's vigilantes were having their results. The precipitous methods of the "stranglers," as they were grimly called, began to give the most hardened "the creeps." Who the "stranglers" themselves were, nobody seemed to know. It was rumored, on the one hand, that they included the biggest ranch-owners in the Northwest; on the other hand, it was stated that they were bands of lawless Texans driven out of the Panhandle and hired by the ranchmen at thirty dollars a month "to clean up the country." Whoever they were, they moved swiftly and acted without hesitation. The newspapers said little about them, partly because they knew little, partly because there was a general tacit understanding that the whole thing, though necessary, was a disagreeable business, and the less said of it the better.

The truth seems to be that behind the whole movement to rid eastern Montana and western Dakota of the horse-thieves was a loose organization of cattlemen of which Granville Stuart and his friends were the directing heads. What funds were needed they provided. They designated, moreover, certain responsible men in the different round-up districts, to whom subordinate bands of the "stranglers" reported from time to time for orders. Each subordinate band operated independently of the others, and the leader in one district knew nothing as a rule of the operations of the other bands. He told the "stranglers" what men to "get," and that was all; and a day or two later a man here and a man there would be found dangling from a cottonwood.

In certain cases, Packard, who successfully combined the functions of law officer and news-gatherer, knew beforehand what men were to be hanged. On one occasion he was informed that two notorious characters were to be done away with on the following Thursday. The operations of the stranglers were as a rule terrifyingly punctual, and as Thursday was the day on which the Cowboy went to press, he announced in it, with an awful punctuality of his own, the sudden demise of the thieves in question.

He carried the papers to the depot to put them on the afternoon train bound for the west, for the Cowboy was popular with the passengers and he disposed of an edition of seven or eight hundred weekly with them in excess of his regular edition. As he was about to step on the train, two men stepped down. They were the horse-thieves whose death he had too confidently announced.

He stared at them, shocked to the marrow, feeling as though he had seen ghosts. Would they stay in Medora, or would they go on to where frontier justice was awaiting them? Would they see the announcement in the Cowboy? He remembered that they could not read.

Fascinated, he watched them. The train started. The two men jumped aboard.

That night they were hanged.

Exactly what relation the vigilance committee which was seeking to drive the "nesters" out of western Montana bore to Granville Stuart's organization, is difficult to determine. They had probably originally been one of the subordinate bands, who were "feeling their oats," and, under the pretense of "cleaning up the country," were cleaning up personal scores. The captain of the band was a man called "Flopping Bill," a distinctly shady character, and the band itself was made up of irresponsible creatures who welcomed the opportunity to do, in the cause of righteousness, a number of things for which under ordinary circumstances they would have been promptly hanged. Their first act as a body was to engage a French Canadian named Louis La Pache as guide. La Pache was himself awaiting trial at Miles City for horse-stealing, but there is no indication in the records that he was chosen because he was ready to turn State's evidence. He was merely the type that Flopping Bill's guardians of law and order would naturally choose.

The raiders began their activities near the mouth of Beaver Creek, not ten miles from the spot where Sewall and Dow (with their rifles at hand) were hewing timber for the new house. Two cowpunchers had recently started a ranch there. They were generally considered honest, but the vigilantes had marked them for destruction, and descended upon the ranch ready to hang any one in sight. They found only a hired man, an Englishman, for the ranchmen had got wind of the raid and fled; and spent their enthusiasm for order in "allowing the Englishman to feel the sensation of a lariat round his neck," as the record runs, releasing him on his promise to leave the country forever. Thereupon they nailed a paper, signed with skull and cross-bones, on the door of the cabin ordering the ranchmen "to vacate"; and proceeded to other pastures.

They stopped at a half dozen ranches, terrorizing and burning, but catching no horse-thieves. It is impossible through the obscurity that shrouds the grim events of that autumn to determine to what extent they were honestly in pursuit of lawbreakers or were merely endeavoring, at the behest of some of the great cattle-owners, to drive the small stockmen out of the country. Their motives were possibly mixed. The small ranchers were notoriously not always what they seemed. Most of the horse-thieves posed as "nesters," hiding in underground stables by day the horses they stole by night. Each registered his own brand and sometimes more than one; but the brands were carefully contrived. If you intended, for instance, to prey on the great herds of the "Long X outfit," thus X brand, you called your brand "Four Diamonds," marking it thus Diamond brand. A quick fire and a running iron did the trick. It was all very simple and very profitable and if you were caught there was always a Certain Person (to whom you were accustomed to give an accounting), and beyond him a vague but powerful Somebody Else to stand between you and the law. There would be no trial, or, if there were a trial, there would be no witnesses, or, if there were witnesses, there would be a lenient judge and a skeptical jury. The methods of Flopping Bill's party were no doubt reprehensible, but in attacking some of the little "nesters" the raiders came close to the heart of many troubles.

But indiscriminate terrorizing by any one in any cause was not to the taste of the ranchmen up and down the Little Missouri who happened to be law-abiding. The raiders were starting prairie fires, moreover, with the purpose evidently of destroying the pasture of the small stockmen, and were in consequence vitally affecting the interests of every man who owned cattle anywhere in the valley. That these acts of vandalism were the work of a body from another Territory, invading the Bad Lands for purposes of reform, did not add greatly to their popularity. The ranchmen set about to organize a vigilance committee of their own to repel the invaders, if necessary, by force.

Whether the raiders got wind of this purpose is not known, but they evidently decided that they had overplayed their hand, for they suddenly veered in their course and troubled the Bad Lands no more. But before they went they dropped a bomb which did more than many conflagrations to carry out their ostensible mission as discouragers of evil-doing.

It happened that not far from Elkhorn Bottom the vigilantes came upon Pierce Bolan, who, it will be remembered, had some time previous discoursed to Fisher on the merits of the "considerate treatment" in relations with horse-thieves. He was himself as honest as daylight, but, as ill-luck would have it, the raiders found him afoot, and, assuming that he was about to steal a horse, called on him to confess. He declared that he had nothing to confess. The raiders thereupon threw a rope around his neck and drew him up in such a way that his feet just touched the ground. The victim continued to proclaim his innocence and the vigilantes finally released him, but not until he was unconscious. When he came to, the raiders were gone, but nearby he found a paper possibly dropped not altogether inadvertently. It bore the names of fifteen men along the Little Missouri whom Granville Stuart's committee had marked for punishment.

What Bolan did with the list, to whom he showed the list, in what way he reached the men whose names were on the list—all that is lost to history. All that we know is that there was a great scattering during the succeeding days, and certain men who were thought most reputable discovered suddenly that they had pressing business in California or New York.

"I never saw a full list of the names on that paper," said Fisher years afterward, "and knew nothing of what was going on until two of them came to me about the matter. They found that I was really ignorant and then asked what I would do if in their place. I advised hiding out for a while until matters had cooled off, which they did."

Who the men were whose names were on that list is a secret which those who held it never revealed and inquisitive minds along the Little Missouri could never definitely solve. Rumor suggested this man and that whose ways had been devious, but only one name was ever mentioned with certainty. That name was Maunders. No one seemed to question that if any one was going to be hanged, Maunders was the most likely candidate.

That gentleman, meanwhile, was fully aware that he had been marked for slaughter, but he kept his head, and, trusting no doubt to the protection of the Marquis, calmly remained in Medora, refusing by flight to present his enemies with evidence of an uneasy conscience. To his friends he declared that Fisher alone was responsible for having his name placed on the list, and breathed dire threats against the manager of the Marquis's Refrigerator Company.

Fisher was not greatly disturbed by the rumors that reached him of Maunders's determination to kill him at the first opportunity. He even went hunting alone with the outwardly affable "bad man."

Some of the "boys" thought he was taking unnecessary risks, and told him so. "You're taking a big chance in going out alone with Maunders. He's got it in for you."

Fisher smiled. "Perhaps you haven't noticed," he said, "that I always make certain that one or the other of you fellows sees us leave. Maunders would break his neck to see me get back safely."

Unquestionably, Maunders had an almost over-developed bump of caution. He left Fisher unharmed and turned his attention to the two backwoodsmen from Maine who were holding down the most desirable claim north of Medora for an Eastern tenderfoot.

One Sunday morning late in September Sewall was alone in the dugout at the river-bank. Dow was off on a stroll and Sewall was writing his weekly letter home, when he suddenly heard hoof-beats punctuated with shots. He went to the door. Six rough-looking characters on horseback were outside with smoking rifles in their hands. He knew only one of them, but he was evidently the leader. It was Maunders. Sewall took in the situation and invited them all inside.

The men had been drinking, and, suspecting that they would be hungry, Sewall offered them food. Dow was an excellent cook and in the ashes of the hearth was a pot of baked beans, intended for their own midday meal. Sewall, keeping carefully within reach of one or the other of his weapons which hung on the wall, set the pot before the evil-faced gunmen.

Maunders, who was slightly drunk, ate ravenously and directly began to sing the praises of the beans. Sewall filled his plate, and filled it again.

"I thought I would do everything I could to make them comfortable," he remarked, telling about it later, "and then if they cooked up any racket we should have to see what the end would be. I knew that if they were well filled, it would have a tendency to make them good-natured, and besides that it puts a man in rather an awkward position, when he's got well treated, to start a rumpus."

Sewall watched the men unostentatiously, but with an eagle eye. He had made up his mind that if there were to be any dead men thereabouts Maunders was to be the first. "He being the leader I thought I would make sure of him whatever happened to me."

He noted, not without satisfaction, that the men were looking around the cabin, regarding the weapons with attention. He showed Maunders about. The gunman agreed without enthusiasm that they had "got things fixed up in very fine shape," and departed. He treated Sewall most affably thereafter, but the backwoodsmen were made aware in one way and another that the old mischief-maker had not yet given up the idea of driving Theodore Roosevelt and his "outfit" off the claim at Elkhorn Bottom.[Back to Contents]