THE LAST ROUNDUP
Before Yellowstone could become accessible as a national playground a
certain evolution of security had to take place. Indian tribes and
buffalo herds were hindrances to both colonization and travel. A
double-action roundup was needed to clear the way for an ephemeral
phase, known as cattle days on the open range, and ultimate colonization
within the approaches of the Park.
The early clash of white trappers and Indians has been reviewed. Passing
of time worked no respite. Indeed, occasional friction swelled into
almost constant strife. As settlers multiplied, the accumulation of past
mutual grievances and suspicions rolled in from other scenes of combat
like a moving tide and then broke into smaller waves, backwashing among
the Rockies.[157] What was regarded as the natives' overbearing
superiority was well matched by similar attitudes among the whites, but
more important was the latter's greater strength.
Racial antagonisms and cultural conflicts swept every tribe into the
whirlpool. Each in turn wrecked itself against the might of federal
power. Finally, a crimson trail was stretched toward Yellowstone when
Nez Percé Joseph chose to make it a part of his escape route.[158] The
Park area and its environs was by way of becoming the Indians' last
refuge. Therefore, the destiny of Yellowstone itself was contingent upon
a solution of the Indian problem. Few people have the hardihood to seek
pleasure at their peril, and that was precisely the condition until
1880. Only through complete Indian submission was the security issue
brought to rest. How the events unfolded in this conflict between the
settlers and the natives is a tale worth telling. Perhaps a brief
exploration of the mutual opinions of disrespect will help give one a
more balanced judgment of the factors that marshaled the two races into
almost perpetual strife. It is an appropriate setting for the wind-up
Indian scene, as narrated in the chapter on Chief Joseph's flight and
surrender.
In the outset, English colonial charters granted belts of land to
companies, or proprietors, without reference to Indian occupation.
Still, a native people was found almost everywhere, but these savages
were generally interested only in what might be had for the taking,
whether from nature's bounty or an enemy tribe. Here was a land with
resources for the sustenance of a thousand times their number. White men
were given a generous reception at first. Indians generally displayed an
Arabian type of hospitality and enjoyed showing homage to important
visitors.
However, it became increasingly apparent that white and red men had
little in common. The former were quick to recognize the Indians'
simplicity and to exploit it. If judged by civilized standards, they
were a people living as children, naïve and simple. They roamed about
seeking game and plunder. Something to eat, a shred of clothing, a
partial shelter, and a touch of adornment sufficed. They would exchange
much corn, meat, beaver, and deerskins for a handful of beads, an iron
hatchet, knife, ax, awl, or--best of all--fire water. Articles of real
value were first given cheaply for items of scarcely any value at all.
Mere curiosity led them into many commercial pitfalls. Ross, the trader,
said, "Our people might have loaded a seventy-five-gun ship with
provisions bought with buttons and rings."[159]
In the opinion of the Indians, palefaces were weaklings under torture.
Still, white folks possessed strong medicine capable of moving great
boats upon water without paddles. They also set great store upon
boundaries on land and upon scratches on paper, which they said meant
the same thing yesterday, today, and forever, and when a chief touched
the quill to make his mark at the end of a writing it might bring
trouble for years to come. Of course, the whites then said it was a
treaty of cession by which the tribe had agreed to move the Indian
village away and leave the settlers alone. These strange white people
had a passion for killing trees continually, for making more tobacco
than they could smoke, and for sending most of it away in their ships.
White men were always working, mostly at tasks fit only for squaws, and
they were fond of getting other white men and black men, and even trying
to get red men, to work for them. Palefaces rarely moved their houses or
changed their wives, and they would eat little more in harvest, or after
a kill, than at any other time. Their restraints and their lack of
restraint were equally unaccountable; and their numbers were ever
swelling and their demands ever continuing for more and more land. They
were, in truth, unfriendly neighbors, unwilling to blend the colony with
the tribe; but they were firm, and on occasion impolite, in living their
own lives and crowding the red men out. This brought battle now and then
and a few blond scalps to dangle, but in war, too, the whites were
unreasonable. They would not wait for Indian summer to do battle, and
when once they took the path they were not content with raids, ambushes,
and surprise attacks, but they would persist in a campaign under staunch
command long after sensible, spasmodic Indian folk had grown weary.[160]
Thus, we may fancy, thought the Algonquins, Iroquois, Mohicans,
Tuscaroras, and the Cherokees, the more sedentary eastern tribes early
to experience the white man's aggression. At length they concluded that
their first welcome had been unwise and wrecked themselves in efforts to
drive the invaders out, but even in this purpose the tribes could not
unite. Alliances reluctantly made between them were carelessly broken in
the hour of peril. There is record of few confederations of Indian
tribes that acted with any degree of unity. The ordinary tribal
relationships were hostile. Indeed, every Indian tribe had at least one
implacable enemy. As Chief Little Plume once said, "As long as there
remains a Crow and a Piegan, so long will there be war."[161] Even in
their campaigns with the white men they were inconstant and uncertain
and quite as much the victims of treachery and double dealing as they
were perpetrators of such offenses.
In what light was the Indian held by the white settlers of America? It
has already been noted that Europe's Christian sovereigns and their
governors disregarded the Indians' tribal ownership. They were
primitive, pagan, and of ill repute. Human beings they were, perhaps,
but with a hazy past, precarious present, and reckless future. If they
could be converted to Christianity, well and good. That blessing would
adequately compensate for the loss of their hunting grounds. Salvation
in heaven was far better than savagery on earth.
Hence, we learn that the Pilgrim Fathers first "fell upon their knees
and then upon the aborigines." Roger Williams, William Penn, Zebulon
Pike, John C. Calhoun, and Brigham Young raised dissenting views, but
theirs were as voices crying in the wilderness. Other more self-seeking
councils prevailed. Many were the voices raised in condemnation.
General Phil Sheridan, in his oft-quoted comment, said, "There is no
good Indian but a dead Indian.... If a white man steals, we put him in
prison; if an Indian steals, we give him a blanket. If a white man
kills, we hang him; if an Indian kills, we give him a horse to put the
blanket on."[162]
Another characterization from a Montana frontiersman goes, "An Indian's
heart is never good until he is hungry and cold."
Jim Stuart, than whom no man had more occasion to harshly judge Indians
about Yellowstone, made the following observation:
"Arro-Ka-Kee" or The Big Rogue [eminently appropriate, that name],
stood six and a half feet high in his moccasins and weighed two
hundred and seventy-five pounds. He was accompanied by "Saw-a-bee
Win-an," who was a good Indian, although not dead, which I note as an
exception to the general rule.[163]
The Earl of Dunraven professed to express the Sportsman's viewpoint when
he said that Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack had the same feeling for
Indians that they entertained toward game. That is to say, "They love
them, and they slay them."
To the typical frontiersman, the Indian was a savage, ready to pounce on
careless settlers, scalp them, burn their homes, and carry off their
loved ones--in short, a "varmint." To the romantic writers, the Indians
were children of nature, dwellers in shady forests and peaceful plains,
earth's true nobility! Of course, the romantic writers seldom saw the
natives and never lived with them. These errors, and many others, have
been accepted as first-hand accurate observations. Indeed, the whole
American Indian policy has been called a tragedy of errors, beginning
with the naming of the race "Indian."[164]
Given this background of Indian ways, what might reasonably have been
expected in the way of biracial adjustment? So little was the question
of Indian welfare considered before 1880 that one cannot yet determine
just what course might have solved the problem and brought about
successful assimilation. First the English, and then the Americans, just
muddled along, bribing here, cajoling there, and ultimately forcing
everywhere, until this once proud and militant race was reduced to an
inconsolable remnant, broken, defeated, and forlorn, but not forsaken.
Even when the white man's heart was good toward his red brother there
was conflict in policies. Some thought his only salvation was in the
adoption of agriculture and stock raising, but such a program was
ruinous to the fur traders. The natives were the sinews of that
business. The contrast in economy and culture, rival claims to land, and
mutual feelings of superiority presented a gulf too vast for peaceful
desires to overcome. It was the realization of this fact that impelled
the wise Alexander Ross to say, "Peace in reality was beyond our power;
it was but an empty name."[165] White men's activities and aggressions,
under whatever guise, progressively deranged the Indians' economy. From
every frontier came incessant demands for the reduction of Indian lands.
Memorials to Congress, complaints to Indian commissioners, blistering
editorials in local newspapers, all mark a stage in frontier
development. Settlers were intolerant of checks upon their expansion,
and few, indeed, were the officials who had the temerity to "arrest the
tide of empire in the Territories."
Against this ominous force the Indians could only writhe and twist. The
uneven contest waged for two and a half centuries, extending from
Jamestown to the Pequot War and from Tippecanoe to Custer's defeat in
the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. It is a tale of red fury and
white vengeance such as might properly appertain to an age of barbarism
but which presents an incongruous picture in a Christian land. It is
correct to say that Indian-American relations were never improved but
always embittered until the natives were reduced to the point of
decimation.
Actually, the activities of fur trappers were not bitterly resented by
the natives. Notwithstanding their excessive exploitation of the game
there were compensations. A measure of accommodation resulted, which
does not imply that there was any lack of violence. Theft, rivalry, and
sheer joy of conflict were motives always operating. But there was a
community of interest existing between the trapper and Indian which was
impossible between the settler and Indian. Primitive existence was based
upon tribal land and native game; both of these methods were denied by
white settlers. Two types of economy were in conflict, and the red man's
sun was already beginning to set. The clash is brought into clear relief
in the story of the buffalo.
The bison is America's largest game animal, and for centuries it was
most plentiful. Native to both plains and mountains it was a truly
monarchial beast. A Spanish conquistador, Cabeza de Vaca, left an
account of his observation upon the Texas plains in 1532: "The cows came
from the north, and are found all over the land for over four hundred
leagues."[166]
Several years later Coronado's report stated that they "had seen nothing
but cows and sky." Ample supporting evidence sustains the fact that the
number was legion. In 1832, Captain Bonneville stated, "As far as the
eye could reach the country seemed absolutely blackened by innumerable
herds." No census was ever taken, but competent authority suggests that
sixty million head was a conservative estimate for the American plains
in the early nineteenth century. Dependable calculations place the
number persisting until 1870 at one fourth that number. At the end of
the century the species was on the verge of extinction.
How did this remarkable diminution transpire? Here, indeed, is a roundup
of mammoth proportions and far-reaching consequences. Bison were the
natives' base of life, their tribal grubstake, a divine heritage. Only
by wise conservation of this wild animal wealth were they enabled to
maintain such a free and easy life.
After the Civil War railroads were projected into the buffalo country.
Construction camps employed professional hunters to provide fresh meat.
William F. Cody held a contract for the Union Pacific. It was this
circumstance that gave him the name "Buffalo Bill." Such hunters set
amazing records for a day's slaughter. Wasteful as this practice was,
much greater prodigality emanated from the camps of certain foreign and
American sportsmen and celebrities. Russian grand dukes, English lords,
German counts, and American "no-a-counts" were alike in their insatiable
instinct of destruction.[167] In way of extenuation it is fair to state
that the emotional strain of bison chasing was overpowering.
However, it was the railroad itself that dealt the deadliest blow. Bison
robes were too bulky to be handled by pack train, and only marginal
profits accrued to wagon masters, but the effect of the iron horse was
revolutionary. During the early seventies several lines conducted
hunting excursions at low rates, guaranteeing shots from the windows.
These facilities, supplemented by horse-and-wagon outfits, made the
conquest of buffalo easy, especially when a definite profit was in view.
That condition developed when the tanneries discovered bison hides could
be used in leather wear. Thereafter, hides sold from $1.00 to $4.00
each, and a party of six hunters could kill and skin fifty or more in a
day. In 1873, the Santa Fe alone carried 754,529 hides to eastern
markets.[168] The traffic in buffalo hides grew and prospered and
finally degenerated into debauching butchery.
[Illustration: Courtesy Union Pacific Ry.
_The iron horse in Buffalo country--an early Wyoming scene_]
Thus, for a score of years, hundreds of expert riflemen combed the
plains. They were armed with heavy Sharps and Winchester rifles, which
boomed relentlessly at the ponderous bellowing herds. They took away the
hides, brains, and tongues, leaving the rest to waste. It was wanton
business written in crimson carcasses that dissolved into whitened
bones. The railroad, therefore, destroyed frontier isolation and
quickened the process of transforming a wilderness into a settled
community. This increase in the tempo of frontier life was most apparent
in the solution of the Indian problem.
As the great train, piled high with hides, rumbled away its
reverberations were echoed by a more ominous rumble in the disconsolate
camps of the red men. This was the final aggression, the ultimate
grievance, and it set the people's teeth on edge. This inexorable white
advance broke the natives' hearts. Once again, it was demonstrated that
Indians and white men could not live together. It meant the annihilation
of their way of life--their very existence--and a tragic
fate--starvation.
Why did the government wink at this great imposition? Because after the
railroad came colonization was imminent, but land overrun by wild
Indians and buffalo could not be occupied. The herds had to be greatly
diminished and the Indians, confined. The destruction of the bison was
the most expedient means of bringing a recalcitrant race into
subjection.[169] The nomads cagily rejected federal treaties until the
bison commissary was destroyed. Then it was either fight or surrender.
Several tribes elected to fight, to try to drive the white man back
across the Missouri River. How much chance did they have in this belated
effort? Indians were able warriors. They were slow to project, cautious
to proceed, and firm to execute. Always cunning in strategy and subtle
in ambush, they were certain to surprise.[170] An awareness of their
limited numbers made them expert in decoy tactics and careful of their
lives. Vigilant and watchful, they waited patiently for the advantage in
time. They were quick and precise in estimating the strength of an
enemy. Their code did not require a fight on equal terms. Indians, as a
class, never equaled white men in the use of the rifle; however, they
soon learned to improve the interval between firing and reloading.
Extremely superstitious, they carried certain charms about their
persons, the efficacy of which was never doubted. Thus protected, they
charged fearlessly into an affray. Too, youth was considered the proper
time to die, and young men sometimes sought death, lending an air of
fanaticism to the attacks.
Red men were greatly exhilarated by victory. They would vault and yell
in fiendish glee as they flourished the gory scalps of their victims. By
1850, however, the destiny of Indian folk was established. Thereafter,
their cries seldom bore the shrill staccato notes of victory but rather
the mournful wail of defeat.
The legend of "Big Foot," great chief of the Flathead tribe, had been
fulfilled. In 1804 he is supposed to have assembled his warriors in
council and related this message:
My heart tells me that the Great Spirit has forsaken us; he has
furnished our enemies with his thunder to destroy us, yet something
whispers to me, that we may fly to the mountains and avoid a fate,
which, if we remain here, is inevitable. The lips of our women are
white with dread, there are no smiles on the lips of our children. Our
joyous sports are no more, glad tales are gone from the evening fires
of our lodges. I see no face but is sad, silent, and thoughtful;
nothing meets my ears but wild lamentations for departed heroes.
Arise, let us fly to the mountains, let us seek their deepest recesses
where unknown to our destroyers, we may hunt the deer and bighorn, and
bring gladness back to the hearts of our wives and our children![171]
Flight of the Indians to the mountains delayed, but did not preclude,
the final conquest of their domain. They were only reserved for the last
roundup. Eventually each tribe was brought to its respective day of
reckoning. The government's policy was not always crystal clear. It
fluctuated between the extremes of the "Quaker Peace Policy" and "Fire
and the Sword Practice." However, the goal was the same; "blanket"
Indians were to become "farmers," live in fixed abodes, and "walk the
white man's road."[172]
After the Civil War the execution of this business was taken in hand by
resolute fighting men. Hence, the military spirit was hardened toward
the red men. Inexorably the race was pressed toward the appointed end.
This work was accomplished by a series of military actions during the
sixties and seventies.
In eastern Idaho Colonel Patrick Connor wrought swift vengeance on the
Bannock nation in 1863. More than two hundred Indians were killed, a
loss which forever broke down their force and effectiveness. This tribe
was guilty of many depredations against migrants, miners, and Mormon
settlers. Its forlorn remnants were assigned to the Fort Hall
Reservation.
The plains tribes went on the war path in 1864. Colonel Chivington's
command surprised and almost annihilated a peaceful band of Arapahos and
Cheyennes in the Sand Creek massacre. What Chivington neglected General
Custer completed four years later in the destruction of Black Kettle's
village. In frontier parlance there was always battle when the Indians
were killed and a massacre when the whites were the victims.[173]
In 1871 Generals Sherman and Sheridan projected a plan that eventuated
in the complete conquest of the Kiowa and Comanche nations, but the
Sioux were the most formidable obstacle to the colonization of Wyoming
and Montana. They stood immovable astride the country lying between the
headwaters of the Powder and Yellowstone rivers. This was the heart of
the Sioux country--their last and favorite retreat. There, grass grew
lush, and cool, sweet streams teemed with trout. Wild berries
flourished, and a hunter could take his pick of buffalo, bear, elk,
deer, antelope, and sheep. The great Sioux Chieftains, Red Cloud and
Crazy Horse, together with Sitting Bull, the medicine man, protested
bitterly in 1864 when John Bozeman, John Jacobs, and others began
traveling across these lands.[174]
Federal ultimatums to assemble upon designated reservations were spurned
by the Sioux, and a campaign of coercion was invoked with Brigadier
Generals Alfred H. Terry and George Crook on far-flung phalanx and
Colonel George A. Custer as the spearhead of the advance. Whether
through reckless bravery, error of judgment, or necessity, Custer rushed
into a treacherous situation, and his entire command (265 men) was
annihilated. The day was June 25, 1876; the place, Little Bighorn River.
It was a red letter event in the history of the Sioux, but it was a
fleeting victory because the military, ably led by Colonel Nelson A.
Miles, persisted in the campaign, and within a few months the mighty
Sioux were either upon their appointed reservations or in exile. One of
the last scenes in this solemn drama was enacted in June, 1881, at Miles
City, Montana. Sixteen hundred Sioux, formerly under the leadership of
Chief Rain-in-the-Face, were loaded on government steamboats for the
Standing Rock Reservation in Dakota. Deep mourning issued from their
camp on Tongue River:
For two days and nights the Indians, and more especially the squaws,
kept up their dismal howlings on taking farewell of their beloved
homes and hunting grounds.[175]
[Illustration: Courtesy Union Pacific Ry.
_Strong medicine against the Indians_]
As the buffalo and Indian went out, the Texas longhorn and "long drive"
came in. The long drive lay across the tablelands of western Texas into
Kansas, crossed the Santa Fe Trail at Dodge City, passed over the
headwaters of the Salmon and across the Republican, and reached the
South Platte at Ogallala. From this camp it followed the Oregon Trail to
Fort Laramie, and then veered north over the Bozeman road.[176] The
Texas Longhorn rolled up from the Southwest like a tidal wave once the
way was opened. In fact, wild "speckled cattle" had been sharing part of
the Texas plains for generations. Now, cattle raising became the great
bonanza for a period.
The American cattle industry started back in 1521 when seven calves of
Andalusian breed landed in Mexico. Gregorio was the pioneer ranchman on
the continent. His flocks literally covered "a thousand hills." In spite
of his vaquero's diligence, some of his stock strayed and formed the
nucleus of a mighty herd.[177] From buffalo to range cattle is not a
wide step; it was the capacity of the winter range to carry bison that
suggested the cattle industry.
Conditions for stock raising were ideal in Texas. Millions of acres were
plush carpeted with grama, mesquite, buffalo, and bluestem grasses.
Early settlers gathered this wild stock into princely domains, and a new
industry was born. The greatest problem was getting the cattle to
market. New Orleans, Mobile, and Cuba were reached from Shreveport by
boat. Still, there were the thriving northern cities where prices
doubled those in Texas.
The first authenticated northern drive came in 1846 when Edward Piper
drove one thousand Texas steers to Ohio. By 1865 Texas boasted
one-eighth of all the cattle in America, as against a local population
of less than half a million people. Somehow these cattle had to be
gotten to market.
Returning Confederate veterans, broke but adventurous, saw the challenge
of the open range and seized it. Loose, wild stock and "mavericks" were
soon in the clutches of men and mustangs as wild as they. The first
cowboys to make the long drive had need to be tough. There were many
hazards menacing their way--non-treaty Indians, white thieves, floods,
cyclones, and ever threatening stampedes. Sometimes the distance between
water was more than a day's travel.
Cattle kings were men of great energy and enterprise. They took big
risks, sometimes winning large profits and occasionally losing just as
handsomely. Chisum, Hittson, Kennedy, O'Connor, and King were charmed
names in the cattle fraternity. They nurtured their stock on
hundred-thousand-acre ranches and then sent them forth to forage upon
the public domain. It is estimated that six million head grazed their
way to market over the Chisholm, Great Western, Shawnee, and other
trails.
This wealth of the cloven hoof was entrusted to young athletes equally
adept in forking a hoss, shooting a gun, and hurling a lariat. Cowboys
were capable of both long, patient application to duty and vigorous
relaxation when opportunity afforded. As a class they were steady and
dependable. They delivered their charges in good condition at such
shipping points as Sedalia, Abilene, Wichita, Ogallala, Glendive, and
Miles City. This migration of cowmen and their herds was a strong,
tremendous movement. It came with a rush and a surge, and in ten years
it had subsided.
Even as the iron horse gave birth to the long drive, just so surely did
it eventually destroy the big cattle business itself. Homesteaders came
with the advance in transportation. There was a gradual, but
irresistible, invasion of the open range. The "nesters" enclosed public
domains. Thus, as the Indian gave way before the soldier and the hunter,
so the cowboy yielded to the farmer. Ranches soon absorbed the eight
million acres formerly overrun by bison and cattle.
There were still several regions ideally suited for stock
raising--Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Toward these remote areas men
looking for new, free grassland, timber, and water headed their cattle.
The quest led them into the several great valley approaches to the
Yellowstone Plateau. On both slopes of the great divide plants and grass
grow steadily during summer, and the dry atmosphere cures and ripens
them as they mature. This type of feed is highly nutritious and
conducive to the development or perfection of form and strength of bone
and muscle.
Among the pioneer ranchmen of the Rockies was Nelson Story. He netted
more than ten thousand dollars in the placer mines of Alder Gulch. This
sum he invested in a thousand Texas longhorns in 1866. With twenty-seven
trail-hardened cowboys he brought the cattle to Montana. It was a
tremendous undertaking to get them through a veritable gauntlet of
hostile Indians and desperate white thieves. Three of his men were
killed before they reached the end of Bozeman Trail.[178] Gold dust in
exchange for beef proved more profitable than taking it from the placers
themselves. Even the poorest ox would bring a hundred dollars, and so
the traffic increased.
At this time the able Sioux chief, Red Cloud, served notice upon the
government that he would kill every white man who traveled along that
trail. It was not an idle boast; the record shows nearly two hundred
casualties in the last six months of 1866. In fact, the Bozeman Trail
became one long battleground, scene of such Sioux victories as the
Fetterman and Wagon Box massacres. However, the military persisted, and
with constant operations stemming from Forts Kearney and Smith the trail
was kept open.[179]
In 1870 more than 40,000 Texas cattle reached Wyoming, Montana, and
Idaho. Six years later the mountain Indians were largely liquidated. The
removal of Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull opened the way for
new cattle commonwealths. By 1880 the federal census reported 428,279
head in Montana and 521,213, in Wyoming. Soon the stockmen evolved a
considerable network of mountain trails. The main artery went up the
Yellowstone to Fort Custer and thence into Wyoming via Forts McKinney,
Reno, and Fetterman to Cheyenne for shipping.
New names entered the stage with the growth of the cattle business such
as Granville Stuart, James Fergus, A. J. Davis, John Ming, John Grant,
Conrad Kohrs, R. S. Ford, Ancenny, Poindexter, Iliff, Flowerree, and
George Searight.[180] Then there were the famous companies, The Union
Cattle Company, The Swan Land and Cattle Company, North American, Powder
River, Prairie, and Horseshoe being among the major names. Professor Dan
E. Clark states that twenty Wyoming companies were organized in 1883,
with individual capitalization from ten thousand to three million and a
combined value of twelve million dollars.[181] In Montana, though, the
Stock Growers Association represented an ownership of half a million
head of cattle in 1884. The Eastern Montana Stock Growers Association of
the same state claimed a capital investment of thirty-five million
dollars.[182]
Under the impetus of such flourishing activity, the great river valleys
stemming out of the Yellowstone Plateau were soon dotted by ranches.
Wind, Snake, Madison, Gallatin, and Yellowstone valleys each received
its quota. None of them quite reached the Park land, but Frederick
Bottler's range almost impinged upon the northern border. It is probable
that rancher invasion of the actual Park area was minor, if there was
any. However, there was a rustler element that quite assuredly knew part
of Yellowstone country.
The decade overlapping the sixties and seventies was the twilight period
in frontier history. A transition was progressing from semi-lawlessness
to orderly government. The arrogant Henry Plummer and his wicked gang of
Innocents were liquidated by Montana Vigilantes in 1864, but another
nefarious activity was taking heavy toll from the cattlemen. Horse and
cattle rustlers found a lucrative business in preying upon the large
herds grazing the open range. These cunning men would establish a
rendezvous in some sequestered place like Teton Basin or the upper
Madison Valley. From such a position they would make forays upon the
stock owned by the big interests. The worst offenders, and those most
difficult to apprehend, were men who at some time had been connected
with the cattle business. Sometimes they altered the brands, but often a
crisscross plan of shipment was followed; that is, Wyoming and Montana
stock was whisked down to the Utah market; while Idaho material went
east to Cheyenne. Men such as "Teton" Jackson, Ed Harrington, and Bob
Tarter worked both sides of the Divide. The high meadows in and near
Yellowstone were ideal for their purpose. It is also claimed that the
notorious Butch Cassidy gang, long ensconced upon the Green River, made
occasional forays among stock ranging near the southeastern borders of
the Park.
It is a fact that the Washburn-Langford-Doane party encountered
representatives of the rustler element upon their last day in the Park
area. Mr. Langford left this account:
Mr. Hauser and Mr. Stickney all through the day were a few miles in
advance of the rest of the party, and just below the mouth of the
canyon they met two men who manifested some alarm at the sight of
them. They had a supply of provisions packed on riding saddles and
were walking beside their horses. Mr. Hauser told them that they would
meet a large party up the canyon, but we did not see them, and they
evidently cached themselves as we went by. The Upper Madison in this
vicinity is said to be a rendezvous for horse thieves.[183]
It was actually an area of operation for the Murphy and Edmonson gang of
desperadoes. Langford and Doane came upon three of their horses which
they caught and pressed into service during the rest of the
journey.[184] In 1874 the Earl of Dunraven remarked that the Yellowstone
traveler had to keep a sharper lookout for white horse thieves than for
redskin robbers.
By 1873 stock losses by rustling were so great as to force counter
measures. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association hired a large force of
detectives and inspectors. The movements of every newcomer were watched
with suspicious vigilance; blacklists were circulated. The penalties for
mis-branding and marking were doubled, and prosecution was swift and
vigorous. These hard-hitting policies soon brought the problem under
control.
Thus ended the major evil of another era, and the rustlers were hustled
into that Shangri-la of frontier romance where "happy ghosts," as
Professor Paxson has said, "will endure forever, a happy heritage for
the American mind."[185]
By 1880 the hostile human barriers, red and white, had been removed from
the way. The West's unsettled areas were so broken as to destroy the
frontier line. Yellowstone was still a wilderness, but it was accessible
to man.