The story of Grandpa Peoples and the Wild Night in March.

(Photo is Grandma Peoples and her parents. She is middle of back row. Her name was Mary Barbara Feyhl)

Elisha Walter Peoples (My Great Grandpa)

Grandpa and Grandma Peoples lived in Meeteetse, Wyoming. He was a tough old cowboy and she was a sweet refined lady. He had herded cattle and driven stagecoach. (He had a bridge collapse under him between Red Lodge and Meeteetse, and break his leg.) He was about forty and she about 20 when they married. They opened a bar and restaurant on the dirt road that was the main street in Meeteetse. He ran the saloon and she ran the eatery. He had a crooked finger and once a drunk tried to straighten it by smashing it with a bottle. Grandpa knocked him flat.

Late one wild and windy March evening, Grandpa closed up the Bar and headed for home, about half a mile distant up the hill. He had all the day's receipts in a money belt about his waist, to be deposited at the bank the following morning. It is possible that Grandpa had imbibed in a bit of his own stock to fortify him for the trip home, it was, after all, blustery and cold. Be that as it may, as he passed the school yard, a dark shape loomed in the shadows, beneath the waving branches of the trees.

Grandpa knew a possible ambush when he saw it, so he drew his six-shooter and yelled, "Get yore hands up you blankety-blankin' no good hoss thief!" There was no answer from the ominous shape. "Ya answer me you cussed so-n-so or I'll blast ya ta kingdom come!" Still, there was no answer. Grandpa aimed his gun and blazed away, all six shots! Then turned and ran like a rabbit for home where he arrived safe and out of breath, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

The next morning, when the school janitor went to retrieve the pot belly stove that had been taken outside in the yard for cleaning, he was chagrined to find six bullet holes stitched from top to bottom. Grandpa may have had an overactive imagination, but there was nothing wrong with his shooting.