Reminiscence of the Good Old Days at Sage Creek
Note: In 2007 I gave my first report at the annual meeting in Hyde Park and was honored with the privilege of reading an excerpt from this work. The author is descended from the Canadian line upon which we gave some attention previously. (1,2) This anecdote in part is a taste of things to come.
By John H. Stoutenburg
We, Leslie H. Hamilton, Albert H. Barney, and myself, John H. Stoutenburg, left Flat Creek, Quinn River, Nevada, with 6,000 sheep in two bands, crossed Paradise Valley to the Little Humboldt at Hot Springs where we all took a bath in the fine new bathing tank, (a rather dangerous experiment for sheep herders, but we risked it, and without evil results;) across to the bigger or main Humboldt. The day was hot, 106 in the shade, and my band bunched five miles from the river. I was left with a horse and dog (old Ole) and a canteen of water to guard the sheep. After sitting by a sage brush in the hot sun for a time, I got up to look around. Everything commenced growing dark until everything became black. Gee, I thought, can it be possible that I have lost my eyesight? I surely held tight to my horse’s picket rope. But after a few minutes a glimmer of light began to show, and in a short time my sight was normal again. A stiff breeze was blowing, and it was then and there that I realized that a breeze when above blood heat is worse than no breeze at all. I dug into the cooler earth in lee of a sage brush, partly out of the wind, and by use of a saddle blanket to keep off the sun, got through the day in pretty good shape, though the water was still warm in the canteen. I surely was happy when the herd broke bunch and headed for the river. Six hours under those conditions was plenty.
Nevada is the driest state in the Union and water is essential on the stock drive. So far our route was about due east, but at Humboldt Wells we turned north to the Snake River and crossed at Eagle Rock over the twin bridges paying three cents per head for our sheep. As we lumped off the whole herd at three thousand instead of six, we considered ourselves pretty smart until we compared notes with other sheep men who had crossed their flocks over the same bridge. Then we found that we were mere babies when it came to lying. It was on Camos Prairie at Sand Holes where English George, the cook, gave us a feed of Jack Rabbit cooked or rather smoked on a buffalo chip fire. At any rate, blood ran down both sides of my mouth as I ate. That was fifty three years ago last summer. I haven’t cared for Jack Rabbit since.
The Bitter Root Range forms the border between Montana and Idaho. At the point we crossed is a low pass which we made in a day’s drive. The Montana side from the summit down was the finest grassed country I had ever seen, bunch grass from six inches to a foot high, almost a mat everywhere. The streams were full of trout that seemed to enjoy sheep herder grub, so whenever I could snatch a bacon rind and fifteen minutes time we had a mess of fish. We crossed Beaverhead River at the ranch where the previous summer three men were killed and scalped by followers of Chief Joseph in the Nez Perce raid of that year.
The sheep were sold at Bannock to Bazette, a French Canadian, a mine prospector who had sold a prospect for a large sum giving him money to invest. Bannock is on Grasshopper Creek, a branch of the Beaverhead, and is the place gold was first discovered in Montana and also the place where very little gold was produced. Bazette had just returned from a tour of the Yellowstone National Park and was very enthusiastic over the sights. "Eet ese worth ten years of a man’s life just to see eet!" he said. But life’s future was very bright in Montana in those days, so I said if I had to choose I would take the ten years and take his word for what he had seen at the Park. I since have made a tour of the Park, but still hold to my original decision.
We were three months on the trip from Nevada to Montana without a drop of rain. Barney and I engaged to herd the two bands of sheep during the winter while Hamilton did prospect work on Bazette’s mining claims. Our winter range was in the hills bordering the Beaverhead River with two 10 by 10 log cabins and Half Moon wind breaks to protect the sheep from the northwest wind; two camps about four miles apart, each alone with his dog and sheep except when someone brought supplies about once a week.
One day I sneaked up behind some rocks and fired my 44-40 Winchester into a bunch of antelope about 200 yards distant. One antelope came out of the bunch bucking like a bronco. I made for him on the run firing at about every third jump. Ole, the dog, got there first and got the antelope by a hind leg. My last shot broke that leg about six inches above Ole’s nose, the only shot that touched the antelope except the first one. That night I took a hind quarter of antelope to Barney’s camp, slept with him that night, but was back before the sheep left the bed ground next morning. Barney always claimed that was the best meat he ever ate. No doubt going on a half run all day while in charge of three thousand sheep on a Montana winter range where the sheep have to exert themselves to keep warm may whet up the appetite to a certain extent. Yet anyone who says prime antelope steak isn’t good either never ate any or are a darned poor judge of meat. Anyway Barney returned the compliment within a week. He was always the best show of the lot, but Hamilton and I were better on the sneak, so we came out about even on the hunt.
The range there was subject to snow storms that came from the northwest, some so fierce that, if caught very far east of camp, it was almost impossible to make the sheep face it to the bed ground. Christmas morning was a little blustery so I herded the sheep in the face of it to the west. At about nine o’clock, it let up, the sun shone out, and the weather was fine. I let the flock drift slowly to the east. At about 11 a.m. the blizzard struck us and from then until about 5 p.m., Ole and I had the fight of our lives. Ole was a large, rangy, Spanish shepherd always willing. No weather was ever too hot or too cold for him. He would do the work of a half dozen common dogs and always enjoyed doing it. With my old blue soldier overcoat in my right hand, Ole and I would charge a wing of the flock, head it campwards, then rush again to turn the other wing working on the run about six hours with the sweat dripping from us. Sometimes we gained a rod or two, sometimes we lost about the same, but we stayed on the job. Just as night approached, some of the old leaders began to start for the bed ground. In thirty minutes, Ole and I were at home eating our Christmas pie. I had for the occasion made a pie from dried apples and baked it in a bread pan. Having put baking powder in the pie crust, the pie was at least two inches thick, a regular old cobbler. Now they tell me that pie crust should be made without baking powder. Well it was good anyway. Barney came to my camp that night at about nine o’clock all worn out, the toes of one foot frozen so that they rattled on the floor. He had worked all day to hold his flock, only to have them get away from at last. We soon had the frost from the toes, filled him up with pie, doughnuts, and coffee. After a little cheering up, a good sleep, and a good breakfast, he started out early next morning with renewed courage. He found his sheep bunched behind a clump of willows some two miles east of the place where they had got away from him. But he was a very discouraged man when he came to my cabin that Christmas night.
