Charles C. Patton Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

down river all the time. Well, I joined this organizatioq, and
this opened up a whole new vista to me, and, almost ever$ year
since then. I've gone to the annual of the Lewis and Clark Trail
Heritage Foundation, which always meets at some point alodg the
trail, and they have programs, and little side trips pertaining
to various camp-sites that Lewis and Clark had, and various
places where they went along the trail, and it's been most
interesting, and I've gotten to see a lot of the Northwest, not
only North and South Dakota, but Montana and Idaho, and a long
Washington and Oregon, and then on down to Wyoming. Anyhow, in
becoming acquainted with Mr. McGilvra, I, at his recommendation
went to a ranch in South Montana in the Tobacco Roon Mountains,
and 1 spent some time there with a fellow by the name of Fred
Mawwar. He was a rancher who had been a sailor on a torpedo boat
in the Pacific during the war. We got along quite well toqether
and I went several summers to his ranch to help with his cattle
drives. He raised cattle and, in the Spring, he would inseminate
the cows and then turn them loose on the, what they called the
bench which was a flat below the Ruby Mountains, which was west
of the Tobacco Routes, and all spring, the cattle were grazed on
the new grass an this bench, and they would drive the cattle up
into the Ruby Mountains, up eight, ten thousand feet where we
knew there were nice green pastures up there, and they spent all
summer up there, and then they'd bring them down in the fall and
put them in the barns for the winter. Well, the cattle drive was
lots of fun for me.
There were about five different ranchers who got them
together and pooled their cattle together far this drive and they
rented the land up in the mountains from the Government and they
would start the drives in about June, latter part of June, and
then round them all up off of this bench which was ten or fifteen
miles long and twa or three miles wide and gathered them all
together and drive them up through a pass that was very n rrow,
maybe forty or fifty feet wide. It was steep walls on ither
side, and we'd run them up through this pass and up t rough
various trails, up the mountain and distribute them ut in
i
various pastures on the way and after that when we got th cows
all settled, they hired one professional cowboy who would stay
with the cat61e all summer long and he would ride from pasture to
pasture and take care of any injured cattle and animals and he'd
drive off predators and that sort of thing, but he spent the
summer up there, he and his wife, just riding from pasture to
pasture taking care of the cattle, shooting coyotes and that sort
of thing. It was beautiful country. We'd get up there eight to
ten thousand feet and look out over the valleys, see for miles
and miles and there was this old place there where you couJd see
to the West, or the East to Virginia City where there were the
Gold mines in Virginia City in the early days. And there were
the bad guys who would rob the stages carrying the *O1r
Virginia City up the trail to Helena where the gold wasltaken
from there and processed, I guess.
Also to the West was a, you could see a town w hi~ was
t