I remember Uncle Lyle, at his older sister Maude's (my Grandmother) funeral, telling me that he could pick up a handful of dirt and taste it, and tell you whether there was oil there. You had better believe every thing he said, I ate up. I was a very awe-struct 14-year old. Grandma's three brothers were there, Uncle Ellis, Uncle Lyle and Uncle Claude and I had never seen anyone like them. They were all over six feet tall, and very Impressive. Uncle Ellis was the shortest, but still very tall and broad. He had on a dark grey Stetson, a string tie, (which I had never seen before) , a very neat, well cut suit and cowboy boots. I understood that he was a rancher in Wyoming. Uncle Lyle was dressed the same, but with a white Stetson and a tan Suit. I understood that he was a wild-catter, an oil driller. Uncle Claude had a black, high crown cowboy hat on and he was very talkative, telling me all kind of stories. (My mom later sniffed that the brothers had stopped somewhere after the funeral and had been drinking).
 

I had heard some wild stories about Uncle Claude in his younger days and he proceeded to bend my ear with some. He showed me a hole on the front of his leg, below the knee, that you could have laid a golf-ball in. The story went that he had been either a Texas Ranger or a Federal Marshall and he was out by himself in the middle of nowhere at night by his campfire when he got bit by a rattlesnake on the leg. I've always heard that the first-aid for this is to cut slits across the wound with your knife and suck the blood out. The problem was, that this was in a place where you couldn't suck out the blood. He proceded to cut a big hunk of meat out of his leg. Then he took a 45 cal. cartridge, pried the lead out and poured the gunpowder into the wound. he then took a piece of burning wood from his fire and lit the gunpowder. It must have worked, because this had happened many years before. This was not just a liquor driven story he just made up for a very impressed kid because I had heard this story but never expected to see where 'X' marks the spot. Needless to say, this dumb kid really looked up to those guys. I never did know what Uncle Claude did in his later years.

( Charles M. Hoyt, grandson of Maude Wham Moore)