Pike Landusky - Conclusion

Originally published in the Hysham Echo on May 26, 1927 by Dan R. Conway

Go To Louis Riel for Help

Pike’s condition was serious. He was growing weak from the loss of blood. It was decided that some one must make a break for Fort Maginnis and summon a physician. To Hamilton, he being the most experienced trader, was allotted the task of remaining at the post in readiness to deal with the Indians if such an opportunity presented itself. Healy, who had cared for many a wounded man, assumed the responsibilities of nursing Pike; and to Boucher fell the hazardous task of hunting a horse and making his way through a hostile territory to Fort Maginnis. The Indians had made away with most of the saddle animals and if it developed that Boucher was unable to locate one, he was to make his way as best he could to a half-breed camp then located at the mouth of McDonald creek, about 15 miles below the post.

This half-breed camp was presided over by none other than the famous Louis Riel. Boucher was also to arrange with Riel to send 25 men to relieve the fort and another man to act as his (Boucher’s) companion. The snow was about ten inches deep and the weather was getting very cold. Boucher reached Riel’s camp about noon. Here he found about 100 cabins and in each of these was a family, and in some of them two - quite a settlement.

After much parleying persuasion on the part of both Boucher and Riel, some volunteers were secured, and the trader proceeded with a half-breed companion to Fort Maginnis. Arrived at Fort Maginnis, the post doctor was apprised of the situation and the return trip to Lucky Fort was made in record time on army mounts.

The doctor’s examination showed that Pike had been hit on the jaw just above the point of the chin, and that the jawbone had been broken completely in two. The bullet had been split in two by the bone, one part lodging in the neck below the ear, and the other going clear around and lodging in the back of the neck.

After setting the bone and dressing Pike’s wounds, the army physician returned to Fort Maginnis. For ten days there was no apparent improvement; so Dr. DePalm was summoned from Reed’s Fort (now Lewistown). Dr. DePalm decided that the jaw had been set wrong and that it would be necessary to rebreak it and set it again.
“Go ahead and break it,” said Pike; “if I die, I die.”

The second operation was a success, but Pike, because of his ungovernable temper, was confined to bed at Lucky Fort until the following April; his face was disfigured for life and he was the means of the four traders losing the trade of White Calf’s Piegans, which would have amounted to more than $5,000 in profits.

Opens Saloon in Maiden

Upon his recovery, in the spring of 1881, Landusky and Hamilton went to the new boom camp of Maiden, where they opened a saloon. Maiden, located in the heart of the Judith mountains, as then at the zenith of its prosperity as a promising mining camp. It was here that Pike married Mrs. Descry, a widow. “Pony” McPartlan, a well known character, who was justice of the peace at the camp, married the couple.

Finds Gold in Little Rockie

With “Dutch” Louis and Frank Aldrich, Pike went to the Little Rockies in July of 1884. They prospected for gold and located some placer leads in the bed of a creek that they named Alder. A mining district was organized, and the stampede which followed took more than 2,000 men to the various gulches of the Little Rockies. Eli Shelby, a negro, found the heaviest gold on a high rim, and William Skillen uncovered the biggest nuggets weighing $83. Landusky and Bob Orman are accredited with the first discovery of gold quartz, in Montana gulch, and the lead of the August, which in later years became a noted producer.

Pike at once moved his family to the Little Rockies, and while he was moving his goods and his family to the new location, there happened another of his characteristic adventures. At Rocky Point, a spindle of his wagon broke and he was forced to go up the river by boat to Fort Benton to procure another. Among his other possessions, he had with him at Rocky Point a pig, and he asked permission of the officer in command of a detachment of soldiers guarding government supplies at this isolated spot, to allow him to leave the pig at the soldiers’ camp while he was gone. The permission was granted; but the following day the soldiers at Rocky Point were relived and others took their place. The new officer directed the soldiers to kill the pig. The cook shot the animal in the foot; and when Pike retuned he noticed his porker limping around minus one foot. The enraged man ran down to the solders’ camp and kicked the pots and kettles, stove and everything else lying loose into the river. He followed this outburst by giving the officer a hearty cussing and then resumed his journey.

Works for Granville Stuart

Pike mined until 1886. During the summer of that year, he entered the employ of Granville Stuart, riding the range for the Pioneer Cattle company. During the terrible winter of 1886-87, Pike and “Teddy Blue” Abbott (the latter now of Gilt Edge, Montana, and a son-in-law of the late Granville Stuart), rode the range until April.
In the spring of ‘87 Landusky returned to the Little Rockies. His ranch was located at the mouth of Alder Gulch, and his mining interests there increased after the gold producing district was thrown open by the government, and he became prosperous.

Landusky

The mining camp for Landusky, the center of a wild and lawless border country, perhaps without equal, during its time, at any place on the continent, far removed from the more civilized sections of the territory, was the rendezvous of a number of real “bad men.” Among this questionable population was a man called “Jew Jake” who operated one of the principal saloons and gambling houses in the camp. Some time prior to this, Jew Jake had lost one leg, it having been shot off in a gun fight with George Treat, then marshal of the Great Falls district. And, at Landusky, Jake used a Winchester rifle for a crutch. As already described, it was in this notorious resort that Pike Landusky met his death.

Pike’s Death

Various stories have been told of the killing of Pike by “Kid” Curry, but the facts seem to be that after the Curry brothers and Landusky had had some trouble, the Kid was arrested for some misdemeanor and placed in charge of Pike who had been appointed deputy sheriff. Landusky took the “Kid” to Fort Benton for his trial and it is alleged that on the trip, Pike, in one of his spasms of passions, abused Curry in a shameful manner. Inasmuch as the two were then enemies, it is possible that this may be true. After returning from Fort Benton, Kid Curry and his friend, Jim Thornhill, went into Jew Jake’s place and found Landusky, and the latter was given a severe beating by the “Kid.” Pike, it is said, reached for his handkerchief with which to wipe the blood from his face, whereupon Curry shot him dead. “Kid” Curry said that he thought Pike was reaching for his gun.

Many stories have been told of Pike Landusky, accusing the man of brutality while under the influence of liquor of in one of his spells of temper. Perhaps some of them may be, to a certain extent, true. However, there was an unusually good phase to the man’s character, and this is attested by the scores of honorable men who today refer to him as a man of honor and by no means a character as black as some chroniclers would paint him. In some sense, much similar to Captain Jack Slade of Vigilante fame, he was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the old frontier; and efforts to make him out a “bad man” in most respects are entirely misleading.