In the days that I write of there were very few women folks in the country and a less number of girls, but there was one family who had one girl of about seventeen years and I thought she was very attractive. I worked about twenty miles from where she lived and used to go to see her quite often, but she had two brothers about eight and ten years old and they were wild as Indians and their main sport and pastime was riding wild calves and yearlings. The girl was about as wild as them and usually joined in those bucking contests, so when I went courting her she wanted me to join in on the fun. As my every-day work was riding and handling cattle, this kind of sport didn’t interest me. I was serious and wanted to make love, so those boys were a great worry to me, as when I wanted to court the girl the boys wanted to ride calves. One time when I was particularly interested in talking to the girl they wanted me to go out to the corral and ride calves, and of course I wouldn’t go, so one of them suggested I act as a horse and he would ride me. To get rid of him I consented. He was to get up on my shoulders, put his legs around my neck and hold on to my shirt collar with his hands. Then I was to start bucking, which I did. When I got to bucking my best I bent over forward and threw him off pretty hard and hurt him some. He got up crying and the girl was laughing at him for being bucked off. He said, “Well, I would have rode the S.B. if he hadn’t throwed his head down.” Anyway, I got rid of him for that day and had a chance to court the girl.
As most any story is not complete without some love and courtship in it, I am going to write my experience in that matter.
I was married to Claudia Toole in the year 1899. She was a daughter of Bruce Toole, who was a brother to Joseph K. Toole, Governor of Montana at that time. Now Bruce Toole was a very fine aristocratic Southern gentleman and knowing that a cowboy didn’t usually climb very high on the ladder of culture he didn’t think I was desirable company for his daughter. So, we had to carry on our courtship secretly from the old gent, and as about the only amusement of those days was country dancing and as we all went to them on horseback (which usually was 15 or 20 miles) we would ride to a dance. As I could not go to my girl’s home to get her, we would designate a certain rock or creek out on the range to meet at and would go from there to the dance. That is where I would leave her the next morning after the dance. Her father thought she went to those parties with her brother, who was in on our secret, so in all our courtship it was unknown to him and it was the shock of his life when we slipped away and got married.
My wife had a pinto horse of her own that her father had got from the Indians and given to her and he must have had some fine breeding back in his ancestry somewhere as he could run like a blue streak. I usually rode the same horse every time we went out together and the two horses became very attached to each other. One time I had taken my wife to a dance and ventured a little closer to her home than usual. I unsaddled her horse and turned him loose in the pasture and rode away. Her horse ran along the fence and put up a terrible fuss about being separated from my horse. My wife’s father saw him acting up and wondered what in the world was the matter with him, but he hadn’t seen me. That was one time we nearly got caught in our secret courtship.
I was working for a large cattle company and we had a great many saddle horses. They used to stray away from the ranch quite often and I used to ride the range hunting them. There was an old German who had quite a large ranch about ten miles from us, and a good many cattle and horses. He used to try to keep in contact with me as much as possible to find out if I had seen any of his stock and to tell him where they were. So, he used to tell me whenever I was anywhere near his ranch to come there and eat and feed my horse.
About three miles from this old man’s ranch was an enormous big rock that one could hide a couple of horses behind very easily and my wife could get up on the top of the rock and see the whole surrounding country. That was one of our meeting places and we had a date one day to meet at this rock at a certain hour. I could always see her and her pinto horse coming for several miles, so I was at the rock this day waiting for my girl and the old German was out riding this day looking after his stock and saw me quite a distance away and came to where I was. He spoke very broken English and of course was glad to see me and inquire about his stock. He said, “Veil, Con—vot you look for?” I told him I had lost a horse and was hunting for him. He wanted a description of the horse, so if he found him he could hold him for me. Of course I had to give him an imaginary description and I wanted to get rid of him as I expected my girl along at any minute, but he insisted that I should go to his ranch with him and have dinner and feed my horse. I used every excuse I could think of—told him I was in a hurry to find the horse—thought he might be sick and would die if I didn’t find him right away—but he said, “Come on with me and have dinner and I vill go mit you and hunt the horse.” Of course, that was just what I didn’t want. I had a hard time, but finally got rid of him and went and found my girl.
Some months afterwards, my girl and I were at another rancher’s place and quite a crowd of people had gathered there that day. The old German came and in the general conversation he said, “Con, didth you findth that hos you vos looking fo’ and vos he sick?” I told him I had found the horse and he was fine. My girl was listening to the conversation and her face turned as red as a firecracker—of course I had told her about the meeting with the old man at the rock.
I think everybody has more or less trouble in their courting days, but it seemed to my wife and I that we had more than our share. As I said before, my wife&r............