“I did not hunt any the next day but contented myself following the others around just keeping in Kodak range and trying to get a snap at one of them in the act of firing at game. But we had no luck and spent the second night in camp with nothing killed except the one I got the first evening.
“On the third morning we saddled the horses and started bright and early for the big Powder River Canyon, a famous piece of country that no one had ever taken a camera of any kind into before. At about nine o’clock we found ourselves at the break of the canyon looking down into a gash in the earth fifteen hundred feet deep. Right here is where I wish for the ability of a good writer to describe the scene — the many colored walls of the canyon, the dense growth of pines in places that reached in broad green strips from the top of the canyon to the river bed, with the bright yellow and red colorings of the cotton wood trees, aspens, mountain laurel and other brush and timber that grow along the bed of the canyon. But I can’t do it and wont try. Anyway, we stood there and rubbered a while. Then Mr. F— (Fly), or Al, as we called him, came to us with the news that we had missed the trail, but that he had found a place where we could go down all right.
“So we left our horses on top and started down; and such a time as we had, too. In one place we all jumped down over a ledge of rock about fifteen feet high supposing the trail to be smooth from there on, and found ourselves on a shelf about twenty yards wide with a sheer drop of thirty feet below us. But we at last found a dead tree leaning against the cliff and down it we went like so many cub bear. Just below that cliff we struck fresh bear sign, too, and big ones. Old silver tip made a track like a dish pan; and I made up my mind that I had not lost that bear and did not want to find him in that jungle at all. After about two hours hard work we reached the bottom and Al guided us down the bed of the stream and up the opposite wall to the old outlaw cave ——– the real Hole in the Wall and for (y)ears the safe retreat of the worst class of men that ever cursed the West.
“The cave is simply a pocket in the face of the cliff just even with the tree tops, and from which a good view can be had of the canyon and the only trail over which the cave can be approached. The pocket, or room, is about fifteen feet in diameter, with a high, dome like roof and low, wide entrance. The entrance had been closed partly by a stone wall with loop holes left in it and partly by a frame work of poles with cow hides nailed to them.
“Inside the cave were the rude slab bunks, benches and tables used (as shown by their blackened and warn condition) for years by the outlaws. I took two time exposures of the inside of the cave and two snaps of the outside; and as far as anyone knows I am the first man who has ever photographed that place, or any other place in the Big Powder River Canyon. There were three elk heads in the cave; two of them in splendid condition and one old bleached out head. After loafing around looking at the place for a while we cut up one of the old cowhides tacked over the entrance and then amused ourselves by shooting off the old elk horns. We would shoot them off about three inches from the tip and then keep the tip for a souvenir of the place. It was not very long until we had that old head stripped and were on our way out of there. We had work getting out, too. Altho’ we followed the old outlaw trail we were plenty tired when we got back to our horses. It was almost dark when we reached camp.
“The next day (Thursday) John and I took the small rifles and went down in Eagle Creek Canyon after blue grouse. Al and Henry went after big game again and were lucky enough to get two nice fat deer each.
“The next day (Friday) we packed in the four deer and prepared to break camp and start home. I got some good camp views and snaps at Al packing his two deer out on his old white horse. On Saturday morning we woke up with big snowdrifts in the tent and a fine old storm blowing. We knew it was a case of get out at once or be snowed in for perhaps a month, and we sure got.
“We all had “ice-sticks” three inches long hanging to our faces when we got down into the valley at the Hole in the Wall ranch. But we got out, anyway, and reached home next day in spite of the storm. I had accomplished the two things I had set out to do. I had brought first meat into camp, and I had some excellent pictures of the Hole-in-the-Wall country.”
Source: Edna Greet collection copied by Bonita Drake, 1967. Bonita is granddaughter of Edna daughter of Mrs. Ed Pyle, niece of Oscar E. Hoback.
When I read Oscar’s stories, I wanted to see his photos and he had mentioned they were in Paul Frison’s “Calendar of Change”. I proceeded to check it out of the library and took photos of his photos. I did read the entire book, but no where in it did it talk about Oscar or his adventures. We took the kids to this Outlaw Cave when they were little and quite the hike it was. I remember passing the boys across the creek to Johnny so we could scramble up to the cave. I suppose I have photos of that somewhere!
I find it fascinating that he was such a photographer. I knew cameras were around then, but not that they were carried around and used like that. Do you suppose his camera was one of the bellows ones that pulled out?
I have no idea.