U-bet: A Greenhorn in Old Montana

A voracious reader of dime novels, young John Barrows looked forward to blazing action as an Indian fighter or scout in Montana Territory. But when he arrived with his parents in the Musselshell Valley in 1879 he saw more sheepmen and cattlemen than Indians or Buffalo Bills. He worked in his father's trading post and soon found in the range cowboy his model of manhood. John Barrows recalls his early career as a cowboy for the DHS outfit in the 1880s in U-bet, often overlooked since its…