You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"If you gotta get hit by a tree, this really is the way to do it...."}]

You still here 5 3 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Friday, May 3, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

If you gotta get hit by a tree, this really is the way to do it....

You Still Here? Friday, May 3, 2024

 If you gotta get hit by a tree, this really is the way to do it....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Former Yellowstone National Park Ranger Carl Dunrud was no stranger to danger when he came up against four boys in the wilderness of Wyoming. 

 and rode a buffalo for a Wild West show stunt before buying a dude ranch at the height of the Great Depression. 

He had paid $2.50 an acre for the former Kerwin mining claim to serve as the starting point of his pack trips into the Absaroka Range for his Double Dee Dude Ranch, and was focused on making a living, not tracking fugitives.

However, the many guests Dunrud and his wife, Vera, were expecting didn’t come. 

As they struggled to feed their family and survive the monotony, Dunrud got the urgent call from the warden at the Wyoming Industrial Institute in Worland, now called the Wyoming Boys' School, about four teen inmates on the run. 

Despite his misgivings, Dunrud agreed to help, although he knew this task might prove more dangerous that lassoing a walrus.

“I was reluctant to stop breaking sod since I had just taken the rough edge off four young horses, but the pay was quoted at the unheard-of price of a dollar an hour, and I could keep my own time,” Dunrud wrote years later in his autobiography, “85 Years of Adventure.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Boy Called Sunshine"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It was after midnight in 1932 when the telephone rang at the Double Dee. "}]

The warden explained that four teens had escaped two days earlier, and no one had seen them since. Their tracks had just been discovered on Gooseberry Creek, about 20 miles southeast of Meeteetse.

Their leader was Sunshine, and it was his tracks that helped them identify the teens. He was wearing cowboy boots with steel plates on his heels. One heel was worn to a sharp point, so there was no mistaking who it was.

“We think they are heading across the mountain for Dubois,” the warden said. “Will you go and see if you can intercept them?”

The warden offered to send a trustee to Dunrud who was Sunshine's friend, and who the warden hoped would be a help

in apprehending Sunshine. The boys were traveling slowly, and the warden said there was no doubt they were tired and hungry.

Except, they were now armed. The boys had been tracked to Clarence Dollar's sheep wagon. They had robbed it of groceries, a .30-30 rifle and ammunition.

“Now remember, Sunshine is dangerous. He's young, but he's a pretty tough hombre,” the warden said. “The other boys are just kids.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Industrial School"}]

, the Wyoming Legislature passed a law in 1911 that established a “Reform Institution” to serve and house young male felons like Sunshine. The Wyoming Industrial Institute opened its doors in 1915 and by the time Sunshine and his boy gang were housed there, the institution was self-sustaining.

The school maintained a productive farming operation manned by inmates and was considered a model of self-sufficiency, especially during the Great Depression. The idea was that the wards, boys ages16 to 25, would learn life skills and a useful trade.

Sunshine would have been expected to help with the chores related to fattening the Hereford cattle for market, milking the dairy cows and caring for the sheep, hogs and chickens. Gardens and large fields of sugar beets were also planted and the boys were employed in a small, on-site cannery.

According to State Archives records the sale from the excess products equaled $86,700 for the 1928-1930 biennium, which is equivalent to $1.1 million today. By the time Sunshine was working in the fields, the institute was making an average of $700,000 in today’s dollars per year.

Sunshine obviously had enough of forced labor and escaped, taking with him three other boys.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Ski Patrol"}]

The snow still lay deep on the mountains between the Double Dee and Dubois, so Dunrud took along old “Agony and Torture,” the hickory skis he had used on patrol in Yellowstone.

“I had traveled almost 3,400 miles on patrol as a ranger,” Dunrud said. “I figured that I could make better time on these old skis than the boys could on foot.”

Sunshine’s trustee and friend arrived at the ranch early the next morning. Dunrud saddled two horses and they rode 12 miles to the rimrock on Chimney Creek. He then sent the trusty boy back to the ranch with the horses.

“I had a bite to eat from food I had rolled in my bedroll and stayed in the lee of the rimrock that afternoon,” Dunrud said. “I decided to stay in the same spot that night while I scouted around for tracks.”

Dunrud had reasoned that if the boys were ahead of him, he could overtake them easily because they had been on foot on short rations and had been sleeping on the cold ground for two nights. After Dunrud climbed the rim and walked around on top, he could not find any signs of the boys.

“There was nothing to do but go back to my makeshift camp and wait,” Dunrud said. “On my way back, I almost walked into the boys coming my way."

[{"type":"text","text":"Dunrud would have run “smack into them” except that their dog barked."}]

“I still hadn't seen the boys, but I heard them call the dog,” Dunrud said. “They were only 100 yards downhill from me when they started running.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Dunrud raced downhill and identified Sunshine's tracks."}]

“The boys were running down a well-worn elk trail in high gear,” Dunrud said. “It was no use trying to outrun these young boys, especially since they had a head start.”

Dunrud went back to his “spike camp,” picked up his bedroll, and climbed the rimrock again. He followed the boys' tracks until dark.

“I had been warned that they were armed and could be dangerous, so I didn't want to come upon their camp in the dark,” Dunrud said.

The next morning, Dunrud headed back to the Double Dee. He figured they would have to come within a half-mile of the ranch if they were still planning to go to Dubois.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sunshine Escapes"}]

At daybreak, Dunrud drove up the Wood River Valley toward Kirwin to a sandy place where the boys had to cross. He found no tracks there, so headed back to where he had last seen the boys' tracks.

He stopped at the sawmill to let the men know about the fugitives and discovered fresh tracks from Sunshine.

“I was only about two miles from where I had seen the boys' tracks the day before, when it began to snow hard,” Dunrud said. “It snowed intermittently for two days as I tracked the boys down Wood River.”

At one point, the boys stopped at the Paul Foster ranch and asked for matches. Once more, they had eluded Dunrud.

their escape with determination, Dunrud noted, but now they were faring badly in the snowstorm and had no food as they headed toward Cody.

“When they got to a telephone, three of the boys had been “bad men” long enough,” Dunrud said. “They called the school collect and asked them to come and get them.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Sunshine was not about to go back and left the boys behind."}]

“To the best of my knowledge, Sunshine never was apprehended nor ever was seen in these parts again,” Dunrud said. “Maybe he changed his name and became an honorable citizen, or maybe he was one of the lawless men that we read about in the newspapers or hear about on the radio.”

For a man who had captured live polar bears and rode a buffalo, it left quite an impression that Dunrud was outwitted by a boy criminal who had disappeared into the Wyoming wilderness, never to be seen again.

Sunshine 2 Carl Dunrud dude ranch 7 11 26

<title>How A Legendary Ex-Yellowstone Ranger Chased Down The Notorious 'Sunshine' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Although young, "Sunshine" was already a dangerous inmate at an institute in Worland. When hand three others escaped, a legendary former Yellowstone ranger was called to hunt Sunshine down. "He's young, but he's a pretty tough hombre,” the warden said.

How A Legendary Ex-Yellowstone Ranger Chased Down The Notorious 'Sunshine'

Journalist Margaret Coel’s journey to become The New York 

 best-selling author of a fiction series about mysteries and murders on the Wind River Reservation began with a question: Who was this “Left Hand” that had his name everywhere in Boulder, Colorado?

“We have Left Hand Creek, Left Hand Canyon and Indian Mountain,” said Coel. “The town of Niwot is named for him. Niwot is the Arapaho word for 'left hand'."

Coel discovered that Left Hand was a Southern Arapaho who would bring his people to Boulder to their winter camping area each year.

“I always thought he was a really well-known unknown,” said Coel, who lives in Boulder. “We all knew his name, but we didn't know who he was, and I got interested in him as a journalist.”

She intended only to write an article, but when she 

about him, such as he was fluent in English in the mid-1800s, her curiosity was piqued. Her article became her first book, “Chief Left Hand.” Published in 1981, it is still in print and selling.

“I started coming to the reservation then and began to get to know the people,” Coel said. “I met some wonderful people and learned some stories.”

Scotty Ratliff, a Shoshone, was especially helpful to Coel when she first came to the reservation. The first time she said she met Ratliff, Coel had an appointment with Arapaho elders. As a journalist, she was all set with questions.

"Margaret, zip up your lips. You don't ask anything,” Ratliff said to Coel. “You just sit there, and they will tell you what they want to tell you and you will learn things you wouldn't know to ask about.”

She always abided by his words and connected with people on the reservation.

“I just kept coming back and getting to know more people,” Coel said. “They were so friendly to us.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Catholic Father And Arapaho Lawyer"}]

“Left Hand” had introduced Coel to the publishing world and she decided her next project would be to write fiction.

“I thought maybe I could do that and set it on the Wind River Reservation,” Coel said. “I wrote the first book, “The Eagle Catcher,” and ended up writing 22 novels set on the reservation.”

The focus of Coel’s fiction is a mission on the reservation based on St. Stephen's Mission, which she calls St. Francis Mission in her books. Coel has two main characters, the first of whom is a Jesuit priest who she said came from her dreams.

“They're not based on real people, and they're probably not a composite,” Coel said. “I call them my dream people.”

Her second character is Vicky, an Arapaho lawyer who is determined to use the white man's law to help her people instead of 

“I realized I had this white man on the reservation solving all the problems, and I knew what was wrong with that picture,” Coel said. “I thought, no, we need a really strong Arapaho voice, and we need a woman.”

That gave Coel the idea for Vicky Holden, so named because “she's holding on.” Coel describes her female lead as a “a holding-on person”  who is a lawyer and there to help her people.

“Those are my two people, and they get involved in solving crimes,” Coel said. “I've laughed about that with Father Drew at St. Stephens. Father John doesn't have time to be a priest. He's so busy being a detective.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Stories Find Her"}]

Coel said she loves history and many of her novels go back in time. Through her fiction, she tries to show how 

 still affects the way people live today.

“Eye of the Wolf”, for instance, deals with the Bates Battle and the animosity and uneasiness between the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes. Even though they live together, inter-marry, and have to 

 different people and were traditional enemies.

“A couple of my Arapaho friends have said they're pretty sure the government deliberately put the Arapahos on the Shoshone Reservation thinking they would kill each other, and then that would be the end of the government's problems,” Coel said. “Isn't that horrible? There's probably some truth to it.”

 first book that hit the New York Times bestseller list was “The Lost Bird.” It was a novel about Indian babies stolen from the reservation and put on the black market.

“What I found out in doing my research was that it was alive and well,” Coel said. “It was pretty horrible and these people were finding out they had been taken from a tribal family.”

The details Coel came from the newspaper accounts of stolen children rediscovering their families.

“One of my Arapaho friends, Virginia Sutter, said to me, 'If something happened on one reservation like that, you can be sure it happened on another',” Coel said.

She created a story then about a young Arapaho infant who was stolen from her parents.

“When that book came out, it made the New York Times bestseller list, which was exciting,” Coel said. “But I also got a phone call from a young Arapaho woman who asked me how I knew her story.”

The woman told Coel she had been taken from her family as an infant and adopted into a white family in Longmont,

 but she knew they were not her family. When she 

to the reservation, she discovered who her parents were. Just like the characters in Coel’s fiction, her mother was dead but she found her father.

“That happened in my book,” Coel said. “My main character had been taken, and I had a whole plot about how that happened which was just like this young woman's real story.”

When Coel got the call that this book made the 

 thought they were about to cancel her contract because she wasn’t selling enough books.

 that her book had resonated with readers. Over the years, different books in her murder mysteries have made the best-selling list.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mixing History With Mystery"}]

“I love bringing in the history and seeing how history is still important today,” Coel said. "It still impacts us."

She said that as a historian, she does not take liberties. Occasionally, small facts must be changed to make her stories flow better, but in those cases she lets her readers know.

In “Buffalo Bill's Dead,” Coel wanted to tell the story of Buffalo Bill 

, his Wild West Show and what it meant to the Arapahos who were there. It became a mystery about the theft of artifacts in the past and present.

“I've learned so much over the years coming to the reservation, and I've been so influenced by their spirituality,” Coel said. “If I didn't feel that way, I would not have written 22 novels about them.”

Every time a book came out, Coel would send a copy to each of the Four Old Men, the Tribal Council, St. Stephen's, and to many 

“I wanted the people to know what I was writing,” Coel said. “I figured if they didn't like it, they would let me know.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A New Modern Audience"}]

The world of books has changed over the years and Coel now mostly sells e-books and audiobooks.

“I just got a new audiobook publisher, so there are new readers, and they're doing new editions,” Coel said. “It's amazing. It just keeps going.”

When her first novel came out in 1996, Coel said her character Father John had a landline with a long cord. At night, when he went to bed, he had to put the phone on the stairway so he could stretch the cord upstairs. That way, if he got a call in the middle of the night, he could hear it. 

As the books went on, Father John got a mobile phone but the service didn't work on the reservation.

“Technology has changed so much, and I've tried to let Father John keep up with technology,” Coel said.

Coel may have retired from writing, but her books continue to evolve with the same technology as a new generation are introduced to her murder mysteries on the Wind River Reservation and the Arapaho people that Coel has come to respect and admire.

Margaret Coel and St Stephens Mission on Wind River Luc Novovitch via Alamy 7 11 26

<title>Best-Selling Wind River Reservation Mysteries Author Inspired By Famous Chief Left Hand | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When Margaret Coel first started writing history – then murder mysteries – she just shut up and listened to the Arapaho elders she met with. This ability to listen led her books to the New York best-seller list and ended up mirroring real life more than she expected.

Best-Selling Wind River Reservation Mysteries Author Inspired By Famous Chief Left Hand

Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"text text text"}]

Darwin no play 7 12 26

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 12, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

text text text

Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

A man was seriously injured Friday evening after being thrown 8 feet into the air by an angry bull bison in Yellowstone National Park.

Mike MacLeod, a professional photographer from Bozeman, Montana, said the incident happened at the Bridge Bay Campground, south of Fishing Bridge.

MacLeod said the man was walking with his grandson when the agitated bison made them the targets of its aggression.

“I was just trying to get some dramatic footage of that bison having a fit,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s changed my idea of what to expect from these guys at this time of year, because I would not have predicted that happening.”

The National Park Service has not released any information on the incident.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bull In A China Shop"}]

MacLeod was camping in at the Bridge Bay Campground when his wife pointed out the bull bison entering the area. He grabbed his camera and started shooting from a safe distance.

“He started walking through the campground,” MacLeod said. “He was coming up to this group of kids, who were taking pictures on their cellphones from a good distance away, and then the buffalo charged these kids.”

When the bison charged, the kids safely scattered. But the bison wasn’t done yet.

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s when McLeod started filming."}]

“I used to be a combat photographer in the Army,” he said. “I could see this thing coming.”

MacLeod said the bison kept running through the campground, while people occupants yelled and screamed at each other to alert one another to the threat. After a while, the bison found a patch of dirt to wallow in.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, the victim appeared. He had no idea what was about to happen."}]

“They weren't even in that camping loop,” McLeod said. “They were walking along the road, quite a ways away from the bison, and it started running at them.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Closed The Distance, Up And Over"}]

The victim and his grandson were at what even the National Park Service would say was a safe distance, at least 100 yards, from the bison. They stopped for some pictures while the bison lay down and seemed to have calmed down.

“He was sitting in the dust, like bison do, with his head out towards the road,” MacLeod said. “When the bison started to get up, the grandfather's like, ‘OK, time to leave,’ and they moved off behind these trees.”

Then, a white pickup appeared. For whatever reason, that set the bison off again.

“The bison was charging the truck,” MacLeod said. “The guy in the truck saw that happening, and he just kept going. The bison (then went) to where these two were hiding in the trees.”

After expending some of its energy on a sapling, the bison tore into the trees and chased the victim and his grandson.

While the grandson escaped, his grandfather wasn’t so fortunate. The bison chased him around the trees while he tried to escape.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, according to MacLeod, the victim got flipped."}]

“The bison hooked him with his left horn on his hip and tossed him in the air,” he said. “He made a perfect flip and landed on his side. The bison was at least 6 feet tall, and (the victim) was several feet above him.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Observer To Rescuer"}]

When the older man hit the ground, the bison stopped but didn’t run away. It stood over the man he’d just tossed, shaking his head in an obvious display of agitation.

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s when MacLeod decided he had to do something."}]

“I had to get the bison's attention,” he said. “I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible.”

Following MacLeod’s lead, a few other observers did the same and darted toward the bison. That was enough to send it running.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He really took off when he left,” MacLeod said."}]

When the bison was gone, everyone rushed toward the victim. He was in a lot of pain, particularly in his hips and the leg he landed on, but MacLeod and others couldn’t see any external injuries.

“One guy held his hand,” MacLeod said. “Another guy pulled security on the outside to make sure that bison didn't come back. A gal in a car was on the phone with 911, and another gal did a blood sweep, but we couldn’t find any blood.”

Yellowstone EMS quickly arrived and took over. MacLeod has been in touch with the victim’s grandson, who told him that his grandfather “has some pretty significant injuries and is not out of the woods yet.”

“He was really worried and wanted to see the video to make sure that it wasn't his fault,” MacLeod said. “You can tell in the video it's not his fault. You can tell from the very beginning.”

This is Yellowstone’s second human-bison incident in 2026. 

 when a 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano, north of Fishing Bridge.

What stuck out to MacLeod in the Friday incident was that nobody was at fault for what happened at Bridge Bay Campground. People do “stupid things” in Yellowstone all the time, but this wasn’t one of those cases.

“I didn't see anybody getting close,” he said. “People were yelling, ‘Careful, there’s a bison coming through,’ and they kept their distance. They were very respectful.”

In this incident, the bull bison was the instigator. MacLeod said it was extremely evident that the bison entered Bridge Bay with a chip on its humped shoulder.

“You can tell he was agitated, pissed off, and charging anything and everything,” he said.

The biological explanation for what happened is the annual bison rut, which runs from June to September. During that time, bull bison surge with energy and aggression as they compete for dominance and females.

MacLeod doesn’t blame anyone, especially not the victim or his grandson, for what happened.

“They were just out for an evening walk, just happened to turn around the corner, and there’s a bison,” he said.

In MacLeod’s opinion, this bull bison was looking for a fight and, for reasons known only to itself, chose those two as the targets of its aggression.

“I’ve been around bison for a while, but this was really weird,” he said. “Why did it pick those two? There were so many people around, and most of them were closer to and behind the bison. It was really weird.”

Closeup of bison launch 7 11 26

<title>Tourist Seriously Injured After Yellowstone Bison Launches Man 8 Feet In The Air | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A tourist was seriously injured Friday evening after being thrown 8 feet into the air by a bull bison in Yellowstone National Park. Professional photographer Mike Macleod filmed the incident and said the bison was "angry, agitated and charging anything and everything."

Tourist Seriously Injured After Yellowstone Bison Launches Man 8 Feet In The Air

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

On a recent afternoon, the Old Government Bridge 20 miles southwest of Casper stood as a landmark on the North Platte River for fishermen floating underneath.

But if those nuts, bolts and steel beams could speak, they would tell stories about the bootlegger arrested in the 1930s and teen runaways rescued on a bitter winter day in the 1940s.

Beyond decades of use that witnessed Model A Fords and little Chevy trucks to Buick Roadmasters and semis crossing its 300-foot span, the bridge resurfaced in national headlines tied to the abduction and murder of a young Montana woman.

“Lawmen recover body of woman,” The Billings Gazette reported on April 3, 1988. “The body was about a half-mile downstream from the old government bridge … evidence found on the bridge indicates that an incident took place there that may relate to the body.”

Today the bridge, accessible just south of Wyoming Highway 220 off Country Road 404, continues to serve as a place where cattle can cross above the swift North Platte. 

Spokespersons for Natrona County Road & Bridge, the Wyoming Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management as well as the Bureau of Reclamation, all say they don’t own the bridge.

WYDOT spokesperson Jeff Goetz said his records show that in 1961 the then State Highway Department initiated efforts to abandon the structure and realign the highway.

“By September of that year we were working on the new route where the highway is now,” he said. “That involved the Bureau of Land Management and local landowners to get right-of-way. And then it was determined at that time that the bridge was used to move cattle.”

The department then decided to vacate the bridge but leave it standing for landowners to move their herds. Goetz said in 1967 it was officially vacated and turned over to “Miles Land and the BLM.”

A spokesperson for the BLM in Denver said the agency does not own the bridge but does administer the land.

Attempts to reach a Miles Land & Livestock Co. found online and based in Casper were not successful by publication time.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cottonseed Cake Stolen"}]

an Alcova rancher and former Natrona County commissioner, told the Casper Daily Tribune that his son been involved in an accident on the government bridge. He told the paper his son was driving a truck filled with bags of cottonseed cake and that an oncoming truck from a Sheridan brewing company collided with Miles on the bridge.

“In rounding a curve on the bridge approach, the Sheridan truck swerved past the center of the road,” the rancher reported.

While he was stranded overnight, thieves stole seven bags of cottonseed cake, Miles reported.

The bridge’s foundations trace back to 1923, when heavy rains sent water surging down the North Platte, taking out the previously sturdy wooden 1905 bridge upstream. That bridge was built to access the Pathfinder Dam area and allow for the wagons of material and men to complete its construction.

Within weeks, the State Highway Department had bids out for a replacement structure that would carry traffic between Casper, Alcova, Rawlins and beyond.

“Construction of a new steel bridge across the Platte River on the Alcova Road will be started immediately,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported on Aug. 9, 1923. “On a bid of $48,341 the contract was awarded by the state highway department to the Missouri Valley Bridge company. Natrona County is to pay $22,500, the state is taking care of the balance.”

The Old Government Bridge spanning the North Platte 20 miles southwest of Casper is rusting, mostly abandoned and nobody claims ownership of it. But if those nuts, bolts and steel beams could speak, they would tell stories about bootleggers and murder.

You Still Here? Friday, May 3, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Today In Marriage: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Bonus Video 2: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Today In Parenting: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Today In Golf: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Most read