The old man that run the DHS that I worked several years for was the finest old-tune cow boss I ever knew. Jim Spurgeon was his name. He always looked tough and hard and was about as good-looking as a bank robber, but he sure had a kind heart and would never let you know he sympathized with you.
I never knew him to fire but one cowboy. That fellow was supposed to stand second guard on night herd, but when the first guard went to call him, he was not in camp—had went to town and had not come back. The boy that came to call him woke Jim up and told him what had happened. Jim got up and stood the guard himself.
About the time Jim came off guard, the boy got back to camp. He had a bottle of whiskey and asked Jim to have a drink. Jim refused, which the boy knew was unusual for Jim. So he was suspicious things wasn’t just right and didn’t want to get fired. So he came into the bed tent about twelve o’clock at night, woke Jim up and said, “I believe I will quit.” Jim said, “Go to bed. You have been fired for three hours.”
Old Jim looked at him very pitifully next morning and I believe if the truth was known it hurt him worse to fire him that it did the cowboy. But he seldom ever talked much and few knew how tenderhearted he was.
One time we had lost about forty head of saddle horses on the roundup and Jim sent a man to look for them. He was gone a few days and came back without any horses.
Now Shelby was the great cowboy town of that time, and whenever a cowboy had any chance he went to Shelby. There was usually a dance or some other doings that a cowboy enjoyed—and maybe he had a sweetheart there.
So the night this boy got back from hunting the horses, we all gathered in the sleeping tent to get the news of Shelby from this boy, and it was quite interesting to the rest of us. I can see old Jim yet, sitting there smoking a big pipe, saying nothing, but listening to everything.
So he sent another man out on the range next day to look for the horses. He was gone a few days and came back without any horses ... but plenty news about Shelby.
The next morning he told me to catch a saddle horse and go and see if I could find those horses. I said, “Where will I go?” He said, “Damned if I know where to tell you to go, only there is one place there is no use going and that is Shelby. I have sent two men to hunt those horses and they both went to town and didn’t find the horses. So I know they are not in Shelby!” You could have heard a pin drop among those boys. They didn’t know the old man had been listening.
I remember one time the old man hired a stranger from Oregon to ride a rough string. Nobody knew the boy but he claimed to be a bronc fighter. The first horse he rode very near throwed him off. When someone caught the horse he was in a bad way, had lost both stirrups and his bridle reins. Someone made the remark he thought that fellow would ride that horse and whip him. The old man said he could if he had another hand, as he had to use the two he had to hang onto the saddle horn.
In those days the way we caught our saddle horses, when we made camp we pulled the bedwagon up behind the chuckwagon and tied a long rope to the front wheel of the chuckwagon and one to the hind wheel of the bedwagon. Then a man held up each end of those ropes and the horse wrangler took care of the gap. In that way we could corral quite a large bunch of saddle horses. But there was always some broncs in the bunch and the boys had to be careful in catching their horses that they didn’t scare them and cause them to break through the ropes.
So the old man gave orders for one man at a time to catch his horse—but Jim had hired a new man that was very fond of roping and he didn’t always obey orders, and he used a loop half as big as the corral. So naturally, when he throwed his big loop in among those horses he caught something. Sometimes two or three head of horses at once. Sometimes he caught one around the body and would cause the horses to stampede. The old man had told him several times in a nice way to be careful of that big loop.
This morning Jim was in the corral trying to catch his horse. It wasn’t quite daylight yet and the fellow didn’t see him. So he throwed that big loop in there and caught two broncs, the brake on the bedwagon and the old man—all in one loop. And believe me there was some commotion—the broncs jumping and the old man a-hollering. Charlie Russell helped Jim get out of the mix-up and he said Jim bucked worse than the broncs. He lost his hat and his big pipe and hurt his foot.
When he got straightened out, he went hunting this fellow. He said, “Where is that big loop S.B.?” and when he found him he told him plenty. He said, “I don’t think you are a cowboy at all. I think you are a damn sailor the way you handle a rope. If I ever see you throw another rope in that corral, I will shoot you. Somebody else will catch your horse from now on.” But he didn’t fire him, and the fellow was pretty tame afterwards.
There was a great friendship existed among those old cowboys of those days. They would quarrel among themselves and sometimes one would think they were bitter enemies, but if one of them got sick or hurt, even with their small wages they would soon raise a few hundred dollars for him, and as there was no compensation law those days it meant a great deal to them.
Old Bill Bullard, the fellow that used to put bacon in everything he cooked to give it tone, had a partner that he thought a great deal of, but when they were together they were always quarreling and when they were separated they would be lonesome. I believe they enjoyed their quarrels.
One time they made a trip together up in Canada. On their way back they had to make a long ride without water, and the weather was very warm. So the morning of their long ride, Bill told his partner to not put much salt in their food, as they wouldn’t get any water that day. But the old boy was out of sorts that morning and said he wanted plenty of salt—water or no water. All their breakfast was in one frying pan. So Bill got a knife and run a line through the breakfast and told his partner to not salt only half the grub. That made the old fellow very mad and he put plenty salt on his side of the frying pan. Bill said his partner nearly choked for water that day and it was dark when they reached Milk River and instead of stooping down to get water he walked right into the river so he could drink standing up.