Tom Daly and I worked together for several years and I liked him very much.

One time we went from the DHS ranch at Rocky Ridge close to the main range of the Rocky Mountains to the ranch the outfit owned at Malta, which was in the eastern part of Montana. We had two strings of horses, which was about twenty head. We had our beds packed on two horses on that trip. One day Tom’s pack slipped and got down on the horse’s side. We roped him and fixed the pack, but while we were doing so we turned our saddle horses loose with the bridle reins on the ground (which is the way Montana horses were broke to stand). Mosquitoes were very bad that day and was worrying the horses, and when we turned the horse loose that we had been fixing the pack, we turned around to get on our saddle horses—they both run off and into the loose bunch, which got scared and away they all went, leaving us both afoot and I think it was at least 20 miles to any ranch and the day very hot. I never saw Tom excited before as he was very easy-going, but when I looked at him and asked him, “What are we going to do now?” his lips trembled and he said, “Damned if I know.”

Well, a lucky thing I had my rope that we had caught the pack horse with. So I picked it up and we started after the horses on foot. They run about a mile and stopped and went to feeding—but when we caught up with them, one of our saddle horses would drag his bridle reins around some of the horses’ legs and scare them—and away they would go again. Finally we got the bunch in between us and one of the pack horses had his head down feeding—I made a run at him and when he put his head up to run I throwed my rope and caught him. We unpacked him and I got on him bareback, with a rope around his nose, and rounded up the bunch and brought them back to where Tom was. He had made a loop in the pack rope and caught his saddle horse. And after a good many trials of roping, we caught my horse.

When we got our horse packed again and on our way, we were sure a couple of happy boys. Tom told me I sure made a lucky throw when I caught that pack horse.

In my younger days as a cowboy I had a hobby on saddles. I always wanted a light saddle with as little leather on it as possible. I used to use a Clarence Nelson saddle, made in Visalia, California, which was about the smallest and lightest stock saddle made in those days. Then after I had got it, I would trim and cut off all the leather I possibly could get along without. Tom Daly always rode a double rig saddle and wanted it quite heavy. He was always making fun of my saddle and said I might as well ride bareback.

One time a big prairie fire broke out and the best thing we used to have to fight those fires was a “green” or fresh cowhide. We could tie a couple of ropes to it and with our saddle horses drag it along the fire line. If the blaze wasn’t too big, it would smother the fire out completely. This fire broke out close to our roundup, and we had a big jaw steer in our roundup and he wasn’t any value as a beef steer. So the boss told the boys to catch him and kill and skin him and use his hide for a drag to put the fire out.

Everybody got their ropes down i............