Description of "Waiting for a Chinook" in story form.

WAITING FOR A CHINOOK --OOO0OO- The winter of ’86 all cattlemen will remember! There was a bunch of cowpunchers on the O.H. Ranch in Pigs’ Eye Basin in the Judith Country. It was a long, hard winter. The snow came early and, in places, did not go off until May. Even the stage lines had to place willow twigs along some their roads to show where the road ran. Louie Kauffman,of[sic] the Kauffman & Stadler Outfit, owners of the “Bar R” Brand, living in Helena, Montana, wrote to Jessie Phelps, owner of the “O.H.” ranch, asking how things were going. Jessie said, “I’ve got to write the old man and tell him how bad things are.” He dreaded telling the real condition. Charlie was sitting at the table where jess was writing and, with his watercolors, made a small drawing of a Bar-R steer standing humped in the snow and with the wolves waiting around him. He was nothing but skin and bones and there was no sign of food anywhere and Charlie simply wrote under the picture, “Waiting for a Chinook.” He tossed it off to Phelps and said, “Send that, too.” When Jess Phelps saw the sketch he exclaimed, “Hell! I don’t need to write a letter with that!” He then enclosed it in an envelope to Kauffman. It told the exact stoyy[sic] of the condition of every cattle man that winter. Charlie did not realize what a powerful thing he had really sent out and that sketch made him better known in a few weeks than anything he had ever done and is still thought of as a real inspiration. Kauffman always joshed Charlie, saying, “young fellow, you come near breaking me the winter of ’86!” (The original is owned by Wallace Huidekoper of the American Ranch, Montana. ) ******

[Transcribed by Melynda Seaton, 2011-11-01]