Where the East Pot Hole Creek cuts through the Milk River Ridge, there is a big, wide canyon. On the west bank of this canyon there are several high, steep banks, or cliffs. At the foot of one of these cliffs, and buried under several feet of earth is a big bed of buffalo bones. There is a legend that Indians used to mill herds of buffalo at the edge of this cliff and any that were crowded over the cliff were easy meat for the Indians. Another legend tells how Indians used to stamped herds of buffalo over this cliff and then kill the injured ones for their hides and meat supply. In late years, Indians from the Blood Indian Reservation have dug some of these bones out of the ground and hauled then to nearby towns for sale.
My father disputed these two legends contending, firstly, that you cannot mill buffalo, and secondly, that buffalo run in a straight line and it would only be mere accident that Indians could point a running herd straight to the cliff one hundred yards in width. He believed that buffalo drifted into this place in bad winters for shelter and that poor, thin ones died there. This went on over hundreds or even thousands of years and the bed of bones is the result of this long and continued natural death of buffalo. The earth covering the bones has come from land slides from the cliff.
The Knight Watson Ranching company of Lethbridge, owned by the late Ray Knight and J. D. (Jim) Watson, and who had operated in this country in a big way during the World War I days, had brought a young blonde fellow named Ralph A. Thrall out from Minneapolis to act as Secretary and Office Manager of their Company. He was of likeable personality, clean character, and very intelligent. I liked him from the start and formed an immediate friendship with him. After the Knight-Watson Ranching Company dissolved in the year 1921, Ralph had nothing to do, so he opened an insurance and rental business of his own and also became the American Consular Agent at Lethbridge. I had used him as best man at my wedding in 1920. I gradually found more and still more need for his services, until he gave up his insurance and consular business and took over the management of our office work and became Secretary and Treasurer of the McIntyre Ranching Company Limited.
After the death of my brother in 1918, I greatly felt the need of another one, and so have just about adopted him to fill the empty place. He has give invaluable service in carrying on the Company’s business. Even though he now has business interests of his own, he is still a great, big part of our organization. Coming from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Minnehaha, Minnetonka and so many other names begin with Minnie, he was very partial to any place, person or thing, whose name began with Minnie. In Lethbridge he married Minnie Hazell, and after twenty-odd years he still likes the name Minnie.
