In 1933, Earl Ozel Osbon was a homeless waif of 11, living in filthy squalor in a barn on a ramshackle ranch a few miles southeast of Lander Wyoming. My parents, who were childless at the time, paid the rancher $50.00, took the boy from the ranch and informally adopted him as their own. The family soon found employment at Torrey Lake Ranch, near Dubois, where they lived until 1942.

After being homeschooled to an 8th grade level, Earl spent his teenage years working as a cowboy on several Dubois area ranches. In 1940, he enlisted in the Navy and spent all of World War II in the Pacific Theatre. A career Navy man, he also served throughout the Korean conflict. He died tragically in 1956 while still serving his country.

After a summers work on the Double Diamond ranch near Dubois, Earl accepted this rifle as partial payment of wages. He made the scabbard himself and carried the rifle on his saddle for the remainder of his years as a cowboy. When Earl enlisted in the Navy, he left the rifle with his foster father , who then passed it to me, his son . I used the rifle for hunting occasionally, the last time in 2009, harvesting a bull moose only a mile or so from the old Double Diamond ranch. I also shot it quite a bit in Metallic Silhouette.

The rifle is an 1886 Winchester, caliber .33 WCF, made in 1907 and shows the scars of years in the saddle and in hunting camps.

Last Summer, my wife and I donated the rifle, the scabbard and a pair of Earls spurs to the Lander Pioneer Museum. The Museum was very happy to receive the items, and made them a central part of their cowboy memorabilia. There was a nice article in the local paper about the donation, which brought about a truely astonishing event .

Soon after the article was published, I received a call from an elderly lady who told me she had known Earl and wanted me to come over, which I did. It turned out that she, Marie, had been Earls first love, his girlfriend all during his cowboy days in Dubois. He had proposed during the war, but she had turned him down, something she said she had regretted over the years. She gave me some pictures taken of him and his group of friends back in the 1930's and when he was home on leave in 1942. Marie is now my only link to my beloved foster brother, I left her home with tears in my eyes. These are the things that can only happen in small town America.

Here are some pix of the rifle:
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