Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1916 — TAKES ITS NAME FROM WILD HORSE [ARTICLE]

TAKES ITS NAME FROM WILD HORSE

Interesting Story Woven Round Knob of Earth in South - Dakota CALLED WILD HORSE DUTTE Four-Footed Monarch of the Plains Defies Capture—Performs Marvelous Feats of Speed, Cunning and Endurance. Martin, S. D The Pine Ridge and Rosebud agencies are replete with legends ; but within a mile a little to the south of east of the court hoyse In Martin rises a small knob of earth which overlooks the entire county in every direction, and beyond, to where the haze of distance blends with the sky. And the source from which it derived its name is no legend at all. It was named from a gray four-footed monarch of these plains, keen of eye, true of scent, with sinews of steel and lungs of leather, and fleeter than the fleetest of limb, as many a range rider can testify in this land of fastest of fast saddlers —Wild Horse Butte, says the Rennet County, S. D., Booster. And well was it christened, for there from its apex, many a morning as the early streaks of dawn were gilding the billows of rolling prairies in a golden glow, and many an evening when the westering sun sank low upon the farreaching horizon, could be seen the outline of a horse silhouette{l against the sky—Old Outlaw Gray. He was a gelding raised by L. B. Lessert of Merriman, father of Samuel Lessert of Martin. And so many were the marvelous feats of speed, cunning and endurance he performed that in time he came to be looked upon as something more than bone and flesh and his habitat not always on terra firma. Feels Tightening Rope. After the branding period, when herds were being gathered and other colts of his age hung close to mother’s side, little Gray, perhaps remembering the sting of the hot iron on his tender skin, either by design or chance escaped the rope, until with the years it became a pnrt of his nature to avoid capture. Then, when he had attained his full breadth of chest and hardened bone, upon an evil hour,he was driven with a large band of his fellows into a high corral, and for the first time since his colthood felt a rope tighten round his windpipe. But this sort of thing was not to his taste, Nor was it to last. During the process of breaking he bided his time with w r atchful eye until, seeing his chance, like escaping steam the cord which bound him hissed through the gloved hand of a cowboy, and in a swift-rising clowd of dust Gray vanished from the view of a fast riding trio of well mounted pursuers, trailing 60 feet of rope. And for 20 years this master of his own freedom, in daylight and in darkness, in summer when the grass was green, and id winter when grass there was none, defied all efforts to recapture him. In large groups mounted on the best saddlers on the range, the best riders attempted to surround him. It was a game he was delighted to play. From the top of the Butte he watched every move, and just as the enemy was drawing its circle to a close with hopeful expectation, Old Outlaw’s tail ■would disappear down the sky line, to be heard of a few days later on the head of Corn creek 50 miles to the northward. Bought for Twenty Dollars. Then they would “run him down.” Upon one occasion Conquering Bear Brothers “purchased” Gray Outlaw for a twenty-dollar bill. The bill was genuine. The Brother’s possession of Outlaw consisted of a slip of paper in an inside vest pocket. Conquering Bear wmited for the time when Outlaw was “weakened'*’ at the close of a long winter, stuffed a wagonload of oats into a goodly bunch of his best saddle horses In the springtime, and started in to systematically run the renegade to *>arth, using one fresh animal after another In the operation. At the expiration of a week of this, as the last of the grain-fed runners was put upon his

trail, early one fair spring morning Outlaw Gray took a circle of a hundred miles into the western part of the Rosebud, and that same evening as they were unsaddling the trembling horse which had attempted to follow the phantom, Outlaw Gray, on the summit of Wild Horse Butte, 20 miles away, with extended nostril and flaming eye, and head high In air, snorted “next” to a vacant field. Again, a well-directed rifle ball creased Gray’s neck and for a moment he lay stunned. But just as his limbs were About to be bound, he recovered consciousness, with a rush like a whirlwind scattered all in his way, and browsed that evening in the sand hills across the Nebraska line. Early after 1900 Gray became the property of Sheriff Condelario. Later the town of Martin nestled close under the shadow of the Butte. Gray soon learned of the extended range of a thing known as the thirty-thirty and moved to pastures farther to the West. But his great vantage point of lookout had been made useless by the constant nearness of man, and tw T o years ago, creating havoc with a band of horses, he met his death by a rifle in the hands of Conquering Bear.