Historian Ellen Baumler tells how Western artist Charlie Russell got his beloved horse, Monte, the bay pinto known originally as Paint:
"For five years Paint lived with the Crow, learning the feel of a man on his back. One night as his people slept, Blackfeet stole into the camp. Paint felt a man on his back and began to run. Gunfire shattered the night. He felt the man go slack, and Paint ran on alone. When the horses stopped running, one Blackfeet warrior was missing. Their leader, Bad Wound, looked over the captive horses and saw dried blood on Paint's back. He drew his Henry rifle and fired. Paint fell on his side. Bad Wound wanted to send the dead warrior a good horse to take him on his last journey. Bad Wound later saw Paint among the herd, strong and well. The bullet had gone completely through his neck, and the horse lived. But Paint was the steed of a dead man, and no one would ride a ghost horse. The following spring, cowboys came to the Blackfeet to buy horses. Bad Wound sold Paint to young Charlie Russell. The horse, renamed Monte, carried Charlie over the vast range land. The two were inseparable until Monte died of extreme old age twenty-five years later."
From a review of Russell's book, "Tales Plowed Under," cowboy artist and novelist Will James writes:
"When you see a picture of his, there's a feeling at a glance of it that the horse under the cowboy wears a brand, that the critter at the end of the rope won't stand for no petting, and that the country around is sure enough for men that's men and range stock that rustles."
(Broadcast: "Reflections West," 2/18/15 & 8/26/15. Listen weekly on the radio, Wednesdays at 4:54 p.m.)
