One of the Chief Attractions at the Recent Reunion of Rough Riders
Is Married and Has Two Pretty Daughters
(Special Letter.)
Miss Lucille Mulhall is the most remarkable "cowgirl" in the west. Recently she was, next to Teddy Roosevelt, the greatest attraction at the Rough Riders' reunion at Oklahoma City; Okla. There she gave an exhibition of her prowess and received the plaudits of thousands. Although she weighs only 90 pounds she can brak a broncho, lasso and brand a steer and shoot a coyote at 500 yards. She can also play Chopin, quote Browning, construe Virgil, and make mayannaise dressing.

Mrs. Mulhall has two famous daughters, and although she is intensely proud of them she shrinks from the attention they attract. Miss Agnes Mulhall's adventures suggested to Hoyt the plot of "A Texas Steer," and her own figure may be recognized as the heroine of the play. Her little sister won renown by killing a Lobo wolf and last fall took premiums for lassoing wild steers against competitors from every part of the cow country from Canada to Mexico.

At the Rough Riders' reunion Miss Lucille matched her skill and courage against the world of cowpunchers, and because of her mamma's refined views on the up bringing of girls this was probably her last appearnce in public. Let it be said that she covered herself with glory.

She has already spent one term at a convent in St. Louis studying the gentle art with which women are equipped for wielding power in the great world. By this step her mother, while rejoicing in the bodily vigor which Lucille had derived from her open-air life, hoped to wean her from the boisterous pursuits of the ranch.

Lucille, having as great a thirst for knowledge as she had for adventure, applied herself to her studies 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 lariat coiled at her pommel. And the cowboys welcomed Miss Lucille as if she had been one of themselves. Mrs. Mulhall smiled as she sighed.

All the territory was talking about the approaching Rough Riders' reunion. Delegations came to invite Miss Lucille to give an exhibition of her frontier accomplishments and enter the competitions. Mrs. Mulhall was distressed. This was the very sort of thing she was striving to guard against. To decline, pointed out the visitors, would be ungracious not alone to the territory, but to its most distinguished guest. Governor Roosevelt's visit was an event of the highest importance. The festival was a patriotic one. It celebrated the country's victory in war. And without Miss Lucille Mulhall, Oklahoma's peerless cowgirl, it would be inadequate.

This appeal to her patriotism conquered Mrs. Mulhall, and she consented to her daughter's appearance for this occasion only. Lucille, overjoyed, went into training and was delighted to find that her term in the scholarly shades of the convent had not lessened her skill with the lariat and rifle. It was her last chance and she meant to make the most of it. In the fall she will return to the convent in St. Louis and in course of time, she will be too dignified a young lady to engage in any more boisterous diversions than a cotillion.

But she will never forget the proud moment when, flushed with victory, she was presented to Governor Roosevelt, who bowed to her ceremoniously and told her that not a Rough Rider in his famous troop could have done better than she.

The Mulhall ranch is on Beaver creek, fifty miles from Oklahoma City. Its owners are a southern family, and have imported with them into the solitudes most of the refinements of civilization. In the drawing room of the homestead, for example, is a baby grand piano, on which the mother and daughters play classical music. They are environed with books and periodicals, and their conversation shows that exile on the prarie does not prevent them from taking a lively interest in the thought and culture of the day.

Mr. Zack Mulhall, the father of the family, is the general live stock agent of the St. Louis & San Francisco railroad, but the ranch is his own and little Lucille is his mainstay in its management.

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 system 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 twenty of the finest and wildest steers on the ranch. Wishing to avoid bankruptcy, Mr. Mulhall made haste to repeal the law.

Miss Agnes Mulhall, the elder daughter, is as accomplished a ranchwoman as her little sister and is also a fine musician and elocutionist. She is best known for her championship of the Dalton gang of outlaws, whom she believes to have better qualities than they are credited with - the better, she asserts, than some of the officers of the law who hunt them. The Dalton brothers stopped at the Mulhall ranch one night and asked for a night's lodging. It was granted them. Miss Mulhall entertained them as ceremoniously as if they had been bank presidents. She played, sang, recited and conversed on topics far removed from their crime-stained and harassed lives. The outlaws were captivated and softened. They had probably never met a more cultured woman before; they had certainly never been entertained with the same delicacy and consideration.

They treated Miss Mulhall with infinite respect and departed in the morning with many expressions of esteem and gratitude. On her part, the impression from the encounter was such a favorable one that she will not hear a word said against the Daltons.