Monumental Sculpture by J.C. Dye

A Close Call on the C.Y. Cattle Trail by Rick Bonander
The Story Behind the Monument
It was a cool crisp morning in early October 1877. George and Gilbert Searight had just brought up 27,000 longhorns from Texas. These cows were almost as wild as the buffalo on the open range that they were replacing. The Searight brothers were stocking the Goose Egg Ranch that they had just started. That spring a couple of the cowboys had found a nest full of Canadian Goose eggs and brought them back to camp for the cook to fry up for breakfast. They all thought that Goose Egg Ranch would be a good and fitting name for the new spread.

These wild longhorns had a tendency to wander far and wide over the range and it was a full time job for all of the ranch hands to keep them near the ranch boundaries. George Searight had gotten an early start and found two stray steers almost ten miles up the North Platte River from the ranch house. He was driving them back toward home along the C.Y. ranch house and just up from the river stood a huge old solitary buffalo bull blocking the trail. Ownership of that particular part of the trail was certainly in question. The bison charged the oncoming longhorns and the lone cowboy. It was only a matter of luck and of course good riding that no one was killed or maimed and all made it back home safely. Yup, just another day in the life of a Wyoming cowboy.