Virgil Rule Rice chased horse thieves through the snow, participated in gunfights in illegal slums, and herded cattle with future members of the Hole in the Wall gang.

He was the first sheriff of Bighorn Basin, but his story has been almost lost to history.

Rice came to Wyoming in 1880 when he was 14 years old. He had joined his mother’s brothers, Robert and Jay Torrey, at Fort Washakie in Wyoming Territory.

When he was 16, he was working on his uncle’s ranch along the Owl Creek Mountains in what would become Hot Springs County.

He eventually partnered with his uncle Jay Torrey in the Embar Cattle Co., which was one of the largest ranches in the Owl Creek region and employed many members of the Hole in the Wall Gang before becoming their greatest nemesis.

Nicknamed “Bones”, Rice was the Embar’s field foreman. The Fremont Clipper Newspaperr He reported that he was well liked by the men who worked for him.

Chasing horse thieves

In the winter of 1892, the 26-year-old Rice pursued horse thieves, the Nutcher brothers, who had worked for the Embar Ranch. He was accompanied by Walter Punteney and Andrew Price, and the three young cowboys followed the thieves through the snow and mud.

After his trail was snowed over three times, Rice continued alone to Casper and took a train to scare off thieves, following rumors about his whereabouts.

The Fremont Clipper later reported: “Rice enlisted the help of the sheriff and after Nutcher left town they followed his trail; (Joe) Nutcher was located and arrested upon leaving the cabin the next morning at dawn; He was immediately taken to Alliance (Nebraska) and Rice brought him back and took him alone to the Lander jail.

“A plot was planned to rescue Nutcher, but Rice foiled it by taking an unexpected route and riding so fast that would-be pursuers could not catch up with him.”

The three cowboys received silver-inlaid saddles and equipment from Rice’s uncle, Jay Torrey, for recovering the horses. However, their friendship would soon be threatened when assistant cattle foreman Punteney was accused of stealing cattle from the Embar just four years later.

Punteney had left Embar to raise his own cattle on the neighboring Padlock Ranch, but soon after, Torrey had accused Punteney of stealing cattle from Embar. Punteney not only lost his ranch, but fled to the Hole-in-the-Wall and joined the outlaws there. Punteny later suggested that he had been forced to plead illegal over false accusations.

Whatever the reason for his downfall, it would become a pattern for Rice. Many of his former cowboys, such as Butch Cassidy and Tom O’Day, rode and even led the loosely organized gang.

The den of thieves

Rice was not afraid to confront those who dared to steal, not only from Embar, but also from local businesses.

On Election Day 1894, the only polling place for those in the original town of Thermopolis was in Embar, about 30 miles above the town at the mouth of Owl Creek. With the exception of three men, the inhabitants of the small town had gone to Embar to vote and attend an electoral dance.

That afternoon, outlaws from the Andersonville shacks on the opposite side of the Bighorn River from Thermopolis robbed the store’s safe.

The Fremont Clipper once again reported on the incident:

“The owner, Ed Enderly, fought desperately but was defeated, only after being hit in the head by a six-shooter that nearly severed his scalp. They forced him to open his safe and got about two thousand dollars, mounted a horse and tried to escape.

“But here they didn’t have their host. Slane and the blacksmith, who were in another house, were drawn to the scene by the noise of the fight just in time to open fire on them. A fight ensued which resulted in the capture of one of the bandits, Jacob Snyder.

“The fight had been so intense that the money was lost in highway robberies. This was recovered. Snyder was held by his captors in the back room of Enderly’s store, but during the night he was recaptured by his friends across the river.

Rice joined the group to recapture Snyder and the men rode quickly from Embar to the shantytown, known in the region as a hideout for members of the Hole in the Wall gang.

“Arriving in the middle of the night, they immediately posted guards and patrolled the town until dawn, when they crossed the river and surrounded all the large cabins there and demanded the immediate surrender of the inmates,” the Fremont Clipper reported.

“He found the greatest resistance in a house of bad reputation that was held there. After much negotiation, everyone surrendered and, with them, Snyder, who was hiding in this house. Snyder was released on bail, but before the trial he was caught stealing livestock from the Embar company, prosecuted and convicted of grand theft.

American folklore inspired

The same year he helped thwart safecrackers, Sheriff Rice married Elizabeth Lanigan, a Lander socialite. His uncle was his best man and his wedding was the talk of the region. His life seemed blessed.

However, just seven years later, Rice died of “throat complications” in a Casper hospital. He left behind his pregnant widow and three young children. Tragedy stalked the family when his wife was declared insane and the children were distributed among relatives.

Although Rice is no longer frequently mentioned, his legacy lived on in fiction.

Rice’s uncle, Jay Torrey, was good friends with the young author Owen Wister. When Wister was collecting stories for his short story and ultimately his novel, “The Virginian,” he most likely met Rice, as they shared the same social circles. There are those who believe that Rice was one of the many cowboys Wister used as composites for his character, the Virginian.

When his book was published, Wister sent a first edition to his friends at Owl Creek. The community eagerly read the novel to see if they recognized any of the characters. After reading it, many claimed that a famous scene was directly inspired by his former Sheriff Virgil Rice. The scene that caught the attention of Wyoming residents from the Virginian is the following:

Now it was the Virginian’s turn to bet or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.

That’s why Trampas spoke. “Your bet, son of a…”

The Virginian’s pistol came out and his hand lay on the table, holding it without aiming. And with a voice as soft as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but slurred a little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he gave his orders to the Trampas man: “When you call me So, SMILE.” And he looked at Trampas across the table.
Wister claimed that he did not know the origin of the original story he had heard told by the cowboys he had interviewed, however, the people of ancient Thermopolis said that they knew the man who spoke those words. They said he was none other than Virgil Rule Rice, a young cowboy and the first Sheriff of Bighorn Basin.

Rice’s old friend and former outlaw, Walt Punteney, later said that it had occurred in a dark saloon in Old Thermopolis and that Rice had muttered those words to an impatient card player during a poker game many years before.

Although most may no longer remember Rice, his words will forever be immortalized in Western fiction.

Jackie Dorothy can be reached [email protected].