Describes A Cowboy Funeral

DESCRIBES A COWBOY FUNERAL

Howard R. Daniels a University graduate, principal of the Billings, Montana, high school, spent a recent two weeks vacation on the ranch of a cowboy friend in the wildest part of that wild state. While there he attended a funeral which was conducted along somewhat different lines than Michigan people are accustomed to. Writing about it he says:

"I wish I could properly describe that funeral, Curley (the friend) says it was the first decently conducted funeral out here. There is no minister here and no church. The friends of the deceased came, some from twenty to thirty miles, to pay their respects to one of the old trainers. The barn and yards were full of teams. The women all went into the house while the men-big, rough looking men stood about the yards conversing.

" 'How are things stalking up your way, Bill?' asked one.

" 'Oh, middlin fair. How's you wintering up on Fishel Creek?'

" 'Jus' tolable.'

"You can't imagine how odd their talk sounded to me, and at such a time. The deceased was a well-known man, familiar to everybody present, but not a word of regret at his death did I hear. I met several men whom I had seen before and every one of them remembered me. There was Bill Taylor, whose ranch is up the Coule a short distance, who is an adept at 'noisy' porker; George Thompson, a big six-footer, who herds sheep, punches cattle or does anything handy; 'Scotty' Mason, a small cattleman whose cabin on Hawk Creek I visited last March. I remembered him particularly because there was nothing in his cabin to suggest civilization except papers and magazines, and the very best, too.

"From the pockets of one of these rough ranchers came an Episcopalian prayer book which contained the burial service, and this was read in part in the house. Then the casket, the first one not home-made used hereabouts, was placed in a spring wagon, the six pall bearers mounted their horses and rode as in a cavalry funeral, three on either side, and the procession started. Curley was one of the bearers, so I got in the carriage and drove with one of my school boys, whose home is in that vicinity.

"It was a curious sight. The hearse, so called, ahead with the attendant horsemen; then a long line of carriages, twenty six In number, winding in and out among the hills, and up and down the gulches, and finally another body of fifteen horsemen. Three miles from the ranch was the newly made grave, on ground just set apart for a cemetery.

"Arriving there the services were concluded with singing a verse of 'Nearer, My God, to Thee,' and the grave was covered."