P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r those days and freighters looked more for a sheltered range for their stock than anything else. Besides the bull-whackers we had 15 or 20 men helping us in the post all winter. Their part of the work was to kill buffalo for wolf bait, poison the meat and keep the dead wolves skinned. In all there were about 30 men in the post all winter. About all the amusement the men had those days was gambling. After supper they would start to playing poker; some would be playing cards on the tables; some on the dirt floor; and some playing in the bunks on the wall. As Christmas drew near father asked all the men to furnish something to help make Christmas a merry one. Long before Christmas the men tried to outdo each other in collecting such good things as the country did afford. We had one large living room in the post, this room as near as I can remember was about 20 feet wide by 30 feet long. It had a large fireplace in one side that would burn cordwood. This made it the attractive gathering place of the post. Christmas eve the good things began to be piled up in the living room. I have not seen such an odd collection before or since. There was canned fruit of all available kinds; nuts and candy that only cost a dollar a pound; smoking and chewing tobacco; choice pieces of prime wild meat; whisky by the gallon; and to top it all off with, W. O. Dexter sent to Helena and had Nick Kessler send us a five-gallon keg of beer. The beer cost about $7.50 and it cost $5.00 to ship it down f.o.b. stage. Several of the Grosventre Indian chiefs had noticed our accumulation coming in and were anxious to get in on it. As they were the principal tribe we traded with, father invited about a dozen of them to have dinner with us Christmas day and they were with us early and late. More Indians came during the day to trade furs for Indian trinkets, blankets and tobacco. In all we had about 30 redskins for dinner. Early Christmas morning preparations were started for a big feed. One-half of a fat yearling buffalo was stretched across the big fireplace and anchored just right about the fire to barbecue. The late W. O. Dexter was detailed as fireman and chief cook; the late Antelope Charley was elected assistant cook and watchman to see that the Indians didn't steal half of our good stuff. All hands had baked a lot of sourdough bread for the great event. Dexter was the pastry cook also. He made three of what he called duffs—I will try and describe the way they were made, in case some readers wish to make one. He first placed a liberal amount of buffalo fat in a large Dutch oven, then a layer of dampened stale bread, then a layer of dried apples, one more layer of bread, several slices of sow-belly, then more courses of apples and bread, and on top more sow-belly, then the cover was put on and the Dutch oven was placed on good hot coals and live coals heaped on the grooved lid; let cook for one hour. When dinner was ready late Christmas day, we hardly knew how to arrange things so the crowd could all eat at once. We finally stretched out two large wagon covers on the living room floor; threw a few sticks of cordwood in the center on which to place the barbecued meat and strung out the other edibles each way on the center of the canvas. When all was ready Dexter stepped to the door, let a war-whoop out of him that would wake the dead and yelled: “Soup is on,
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