Ed Lemmon and Scotty Philip were the first South Dakota cowboys inducted into Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy Hall of Fame. That Lemmon was a colorful and industrious figure who personally knew most every famous or infamous figure of the west can be quickly ascertained by reading both his Belle Fourche Bee newspaper columns as compiled in Phyllis Schmidt’s book, The West as I Lived It, or Nellie Snyder Yost’s Boss Cowman. All of Lemmon’s memoirs are entertaining, and some may enter the realm of “tall tales.” His October 27, 1933 account, “Wild Game in 1880 Dakota” bears this out. I’ll quote Lemmon’s wild game account word for word.

”The country was alive with wild game, vis., antelope, deer, bear, elk, mountain sheep, a few buffalo and ibex. I expect this last animal’s existence to be disputed by some, for I never heard of ibex anywhere on the North American continent until I saw these little animals, somewhat similar to antelope, with almost straight flat horns, and I asked if they were a specie of antelope, when an old-timer, by the name of Sprague, said no, they were Ibex. When I said I didn’t believe ibex were North American animals, he emphatically disputed my assertion, so we got a dictionary and found in it an exact picture of the little animal. We never found any evidence of the animal excepting in the bad lands from West Squaw Humper to the Pierre-Black Hills Cheyenne River crossing, or about even with the present town of Scenic.”

“We found them a very easy game to hunt, for by approaching from the windward side one could get within easy six-shooter range, and as I recall they were practically extinct by the time we moved to the Moreau River range in 1888. They were, as before stated, a trifle smaller than antelope, with even shorter growth of coarse hair or bristles, and the flesh was near like venison, with no stringiness of antelope. I am of the opinion they shed the outer part of the horn, the same as antelope, for we found many of the little slender shells, singly or in pairs, as they naturally would have been left from a killed carcass.”

I have to believe that Lemmon wrote this with ”tongue in cheek.” As far as I know, ibex are found in Europe from Spain through the Alps, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. Today some introduced ibex roam Texas. Judging from the Bad Lands/Scenic location where Lemmon supposedly saw and hunted ibex, I’m guessing that Lemmon had seen the thousands of prehistoric oreodont skulls, a sheep-like mammal that once roamed the Bad Lands, lying about on the ground, and fabricated a story around them. Years ago I took my grandchildren on a motorhome tour that included the Bad Lands, and while hiking, we found oreodont skulls.

A frustrating if not catastrophic end to an otherwise successful hunt or fishing expedition would be discovering that your vehicle’s wheels had been stolen at the trailhead or wilderness lake access. Such a tragedy can be prevented with Wheel Locks, a General Motors product. A Wheel Lock kit contains four lug nuts (one for each wheel) and a specially keyed socket.

Last spring, after giving our Chevy Equinox to our youngest daughter for her Cabo San Lucas home on the Baja Peninsula, we bought a late model Dodge Journey from Mitchell’s Iverson Motors. Little did Iverson or I know that our Dodge was equipped with Wheel Locks. When I went to Dave’s Service in Wagner for an oil change/tire rotation, Dave couldn’t get the wheels off as the specially keyed socket was not in the vehicle. Iverson assured me that they could remove the wheels, but I got to wondering just how they could do it.

I called the Wheel Lock people on a Friday and explained our predicament. They told me to take a close-up photo of the Wheel Lock lug nut and email it to them. They would identify the keyed impression on the nut and send me the proper socket. It arrived in Monday’s mail and our problem was solved. If you are an off the main traveled road enthusiast, you might consider Wheel Locks. I’ve also known of wheels being stolen in a busy shopping mall.

See you next week with an incredible whitetail story.