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Lucille Mulhall: Queen of Rough Riders
The Anaconda Standard (Montana), 3 Aug 1900


Little Lucille Mulhall of Oklahoma City won the title of queen of the rough riders at the recent reunion. She weighs only 90 pounds, but can break a broncho, lasso and brand a steer and shoot a coyote at 50 yards. She can also play CHopin, quote Browning, construe "Virgil" and make mayonnaise dressing. She is a little ashamed of these latter accomplishments, which are a concession to the civilized prejudices of her mother.

Lucille, having as great a thirst for knowledge as she had for adventure, applied herself to her studies at a St. Louis convent with great industry and returned home a highly polished young lady. But she was homesick for the plains and glad to mount a fiery cow pony: with a lariet coiled at the pommel. And the cowboys welcomed Miss Lucille as she had been one of themselves.

All the territory was talking about the approaching rough riders' reunion. Delegations came to invite Miss Lucille to give an exhibition of ehr frontier accomplishments and enter the competitions. Mrs. Mulhall was distressed. This was the very sort of thing she was striving to guard against. She shook her head but was finally prevailed upon to give her consent on condition that it should be her last appearance in such a role.

Lucille's father owns a stock ranch on Beaver creek, 50 miles from Oklahoma, and there the girl is in her glory. In earlier years it was her privilege to claim every yearly calf that she had without assistance roped and branded with her initials, "L. M." This sytem worked very well for a time, but Lucille's ambition increased with her skill and her private herd kept pace with both. The climax came when, during a short absence of her father, she roped and branded 20 of the finest and wildest steers on the ranch. Wishing to avoid bankruptcy, Mr. Mulhall made haste to repeal the law.

Her wolf adventure was one of the most exciting in her career. The lobo wolf is the largest known in Oklahoma. Ernest Seton Thompson, the great hunter and author has immortalized its ferocity and wisdom. Miss Lucille's antagonist was an unusually fine speciment of the breed. He probably weighed more than she did.

For weeks he had been devouring her father's young calves and escaping under cover of night. Miss Lucille organized an expedition of one and took her Winchester along. She found the wolf and shot him through the heart before he had time to spring upon her. His pelt is the heartrug in her mamma's drawing-room.






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