Enter now for a chance to win a copy of
Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
Nineteen-year-old Fannie Sperry squinted into the sun and drew on the stub of a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. The cowboys working around the Herrin Ranch in Montana eyed her closely as she made for the corral. She was slim beauty with porcelain skin, and her black locks were tucked tightly under a wide-brimmed hat. The ranch hands saw her as a mass of contradictions, an attractive woman one might be inclined to settle down with if not for the fact she could ride and rope like a man.
Fannie paid no attention to the inquisitive stares as she climbed on the wooden posts surrounding a restless bronco. The brick-colored horse known as Blue Dog was a fierce animal, and no one stayed on his back long. Broncobusters at the Herrin determined he was impossible to break. In spite of his surly reputation, Fannie wanted Blue Dog for her own. She saw something promising in the horse no one else did.
After convincing the ranch foreman to accept her mild-mannered horse as trade for Blue Dog, she saddled the outlaw. She spoke gently to the animal as she climbed on his back. He hesitated for a moment. The cowboys looked on, waiting for the cantankerous beast to throw her. Nothing happened. Fannie eased Blue Dog into a walk and rode him out of the corral. The animal that was deemed unridable was tamed in the hands of a Montana horsewoman who would eventually join Buffalo Bill Cody’s program in 1916.
To learn more about Fannie Sperry and the other women who performed with Cody read Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
