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'''121. Casey Defends Himself'''

Some seven or eight years ago there appeared a little story in the Saturday Evening Post concerning our good friend, Casey Barthelmess-- we wonder how many of you readers remember it. It seems that there was a rumor floating around that at the Miles City Roundup on the 4th of July, 1919, Casey had been thrown from a horse named "Sunshine"--Casey contended that he had a right to defend himself and countered with the statement that he had ridden in many a Miles City Roundup, but was never bucked off. In Casey's own words--"If I seem to take this personal, it's because I got my ridin' education on the range where the old school was rough in its methods. If your horse happened to "blow up" out on the prairie where the cactus is plentiful, or there doesn't happen to be anyone around handy to catch a loose horse, a feller just naturally takes to riding. Besides it's humiliating to walk." Anyway, Casey did ride in the Roundup that year, and drew the feature horse "Skyrocket", a horse for which his few riders had a lot of respect. As Casey describes him, "He was proud and honest--he'd wait while the rider pulled the wrinkles out of his drawers and made other adjustments, and when his ears were turned loose, you realized why he was a horse of reputation. That's why I couldn't go that 'Sunshine' stuff. Besides, there's a lot of Post readers out this way, and it would get under my hide to get bucked off in front of them." There's quite a little more to this story in the Post, but we just want to add that there's a good picture out on the walls of the Range Riders' Museum showing Casey up on old Skyrocket, and further down the wall there's an excellent picture of Skyrocket being held at the halter by Wild Bill Ross. Besides these two pictures out there, there are scores of other interesting pictures for those of you who haven't renewed your acquaintance with the old west lately. So, come Spring when the Museum is open for business again, you had better take a few hours off, and see the relics of the "gone for good" days.