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Not Hitherto Published—1948.

By John T. Bristow

As sequel to the foregoing old-time cattle riding story-experienced in my younger days on the gently undulating plains of Northeast Kansas, I here record a contrasting up-to-date cattle riding experience I recently had on a far away mountain range. But in this last ride I did not race my horse and crack my whip for the sheer fun of it—as of yore.

Until Sunday, April 18, 1948, I had not been on a horse for fifty-five years—not since the opening of the Cherokee Strip, September 16, 1893, at noon, when, with my brother Dave, and Dr. David H. Fitzgerald, and Charley Rice, I rode sixteen miles in fifty-six minutes to locate a claim on Turkey creek, seven miles southwest of the present city of Enid, Oklahoma. In that race we were led—for a price — by “Ranaky Bill,” an Oklahoma outlaw.

While going up the mountain, the name of other notorious outlaws—the Daltons—was mentioned by my nephew, Sam Bristow, with whom I was riding. Sam owns “Dalton Mountain,” some sixty miles east of Fresno, California, where it is said those desperadoes were in hiding a long time ago.

The Dalton gang of bank robbers—following in the wake of the Jesse James gang whose hideout was in Missouri — operated mainly, I believe, in Kansas and the Indian Territory, in the late ‘80’s. At any rate, the Dalton bank robbers came to grief at Coffeyville in southern Kansas, with three of the gang killed by a sharp-shooting local hardware merchant, and law enforcement officers. Grat and Bob Dalton were killed. Emmett Dalton was badly shot up — was captured, convicted, and given a life sentence. President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned him. I have a faint recollection that sometime prior to the Coffeyville raid, the news dispatches stated that the Daltons—under assumed names—had shipped their horses to the Far west. And it is not at all improbable that our old-time Kansas and Indian Territory band of desperadoes rode their horses to the saddle-back near the top of my nephew’s 3500 foot mountain, from which eminence they could have guarded the approach in all directions.

Dalton Mountain is an attraction for patrons of a large Dude Ranch close by, in the Kings river area—something to talk about only. No dude could ride a horse up that mountain—particularly none of the thirty New York “dude” girls who rode the canyon trails thereabout for several weeks, recently.

Also, I recall the time when Jim Dalton, after killing Sheriff Charley Batterson and escaping from the Marysville jail, was captured by a posse led by Constable Charley Andrews, near the Buening school, eight miles southwest of Wetmore—my home town. After serving time, it was said, Jim Dalton went to Los Angeles and made an honorable “killing” in the manufacture of ovens for bakeries. I do not know if he was a member of the old gang. Probably not. But it has often been considered that he was.

But we were not riding via a series of switchbacks to the top of Dalton Mountain especially to view that historic spot. From the saddle-back, looking to the north down a tree-studded canyon, and looking back over the trail we had traveled, we could see at a glance much of Sam’s 1480 acres, of mountain pasture land, trees and rocks. And from this lookout we could locate nearly all of his ninety-eight head of cattle that had wintered there during the worst winter drought that California has had in eighty years, while other valley ranchmen were feeding $40 hay to $100 cattle, or shipping their stock to pastures in other states—some to the wheat fields of Western Kansas. The north slope of Dalton mountain, shielded from the burning sun, is what saved the day for Sam. Campbell mountain, almost in Sam’s dooryard, was picked bare. Sam bought fifteen of the cattle taken off that range. In his pasture, those newly purchased cattle did not graze with the other stock. And this is where the trained McNabb shepherd dog, Spike, comes in. I shall give Spike a line, later.

When Sam was saddling the horses before loading them in the truck for the 35 mile drive up into the mountains, from his 80-acre valley ranch, his wife—Anna—came out to the barnyard, and said to me, “Don’t let Sam talk you into making that hard ride all the way up to the top of the mountain. When you get tired, turn around and come back.” Excellent advice—but that was the one thing I couldn’t do. We were already coming down when I began to tire, and a quick reflection on Anna’s injunction told me that to turn around then would have availed me nothing. And though I had had it done to me many times in my younger days, that hard four hours horseback ride up the mountain and back did not produce the saddle-weary spots my relatives were expecting.

For identification purposes, let’s say Sam’s son Robert, 21-year-old ex-GI, an exemplary young man, and Sam’s daughter Virginia Anne, 13 years old, each own a dog — Spike and Curley. When loading the horses into the truck both dogs were “rearing” to go. Spike, the trained cattle dog, told us by signs and in perfectly understandable dog language that he wanted to ride in the cab. But he was forced in with the horses—and after he had made the rounds of the pasture, he climbed in with the horses without argument for the return trip. In the pasture, the dog would run ahead and spot segregated bunches of cattle, then come back, point out the stock, and stand “at attention’” awaiting orders. Sam said should he tell Spike to “Go get ‘em,” the dog would be off right now. He said it was almost impossible to get the cattle out of the hills without a trained dog. Sam paid $50 for the pup, and trained it himself.

Sam had said he would not take Virginia Anne’s dog along with us, that Curley would likely pick up a deer trail and follow it for hours, which might delay the return trip.

He planned to drive back by the Kings river road through the Dude Ranch to show me the place where the new irrigation ditch now being put through past his valley ranch — to take San Joaquin river water from the lake formed by the recently built Friant dam—goes under the Kings river, ninety feet below, through a 27 foot circular cement tube nearly three-eights of a mile in length. From the 100 foot bridge spanning the irrigation ditch one could look down 90 feet to the bottom of the ditch, and up nearly a 100 feet to the top of the ridge of dirt deposited by the big dragline. We had seen the west approach to this siphon on coming out from Fresno the evening before.

Sam says he frequently sees deer in his pasture—particularly one big buck—always before the hunting season opens, but never when he is permitted to shoot them. With the advancing years, it seems the deer, as well as man, are taking on wisdom. Hunters say that as soon as the season in California opens the deer make a break for the National Parks, where they are protected.

Sam also said that we would call on Mrs. Bert Elwood, who has lived in the canyon adjoining his pasture for a great many years—and get the facts about the Daltons. But she was not at home when we stopped, on our way out. I really wanted to obtain from her a firsthand report on the early-day cattle business, and information about the cougar menace in the low mountains years ago. I have been told that the cougars were alarmingly destructive then.

The cougars are now mostly in the high mountains, though the Fresno Bee reported two killed in the Valley last winter. Professional hunters have kept them down in recent years. It is said a professional cougar hunter named Bruce—his surname—has a pack of dogs that will track them down without fail, if the scent is not more than 72 hours old. A grown cougar will take a toll of 50 deer in one season.

Getting back to the wise deer in the parks. While “doing” the Sequoia National Park five years ago with Major Clement A. Tavares—he was in the service then, and that “Major” handle was pretty firmly fixed, but “Doctor” takes precedent now—who is the husband of my niece, Alice Bristow, I saw a deer browsing about the ranger camp. The Major took a “movie” of it while it was walking in front of a giant Sequoia tree. A Ranger told me it was a “wild” deer that had never been in captivity. And I saw deer at several places by the roadside so close that I could have almost touched them. Also we saw two young bucks “sparring” almost under the General Grant big tree. The Major turned his camera on them.

Again, yesterday, we saw deer in the Yosemite Valley. My brother Theodore shooed one away from a foot-path where it was nonchalantly nibbling a mushroom. Deer are very tame in the valley.

The Yosemite Falls, seen at their best on Sunday, May 23, 1948, with Yosemite creek in flood from melting snow, did not look to be 2425 feet in height; not until we got up close enough to be sprayed — good. Even the foot-path through the grove seemed to grow in length, as we walked toward the Falls.

Many, many years ago, I heard Eugene May lecture on the beauty and immensity of Yosemite Valley at the Methodist Church in Wetmore. When it came to describing the Falls, he got up on his toes, reached for the sky—literally soaring up, up, up, in an unbelievable manner. Now I find the Falls and other notable sights in the valley all that May said they were—and then some. There are six separate falls pouring into the valley.

Nothing looks its size up in the High Country. The far famed tunnel drive through the big Sequoia tree in the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, is deceiving. It looked as if it would be a tight squeeze for the car, but after passing through with room to spare, I could easily believe a cattle truck might pass through it.

While driving in the Grove, with the big trees standing surprisingly close together, the Doctor said he had been pretty much all over the world, and had seen nothing to compare with this wonderful Grove. Just imagine a tree 33 foot through standing 300 feet high.

When I first went up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, years ago—when automobiles were first coming into general use—trees were hitched on behind the cars to hold them back while coming down the mountain. And there was a sizable wood-yard at the foothills—product of those drags.

Five years ago, I came down from the Sequoia National Park with Major Tavares, when he put the machine in low gear and eased it down ever so gently. But now, with everything in California moving along in high gear, the tendency is to open ‘er up, and let ‘er drop down at an alarming rate of speed.

Last Sunday the Doctor—yes, it was the Doctor now — brought me safely down from the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, at a fast clip—a drop of nearly 8,000 feet in 65 miles of winding hairpin curves, done in less than that many minutes, the speedometer showing 65 to 70 miles all the way. And I had been told that his wife Alice was the best driver in the San Joaquin valley.

The Park roads are really wonderful—built at the right pitch for safety, at every turn.

The Doctor, with Alice and their two children, Clemie, eight, and Myrna, three, plan to fly in June to Honolulu—the Doctor’s birthplace. He is not Hawaiian, however. Alice has invited me to accompany them—but as I have always believed air travel unsafe, I declined, with thanks.

But now, after Sunday, I think I would not balk at anything—let come what may.