One bright spring day in May 1897, William Cameron, a young editor for the new sportsman’s magazine Western Field and Stream, paid a visit to Russell and his bride, Nancy Cooper Russell, at their one-room home in Cascade, Montana. Cameron was interested in commissioning a number of paintings by Russell for his magazine, and he was thrilled to be invited to watch Russell paint. As Cameron looked on, he described the painting Russell had on his easel as a scene in a roundup camp, where a cow pony was objecting to a cold saddle on its back by “bucking a hole in the cook’s nice breakfast fire.” The painting shown here was undoubtedly the work Cameron saw that day. He recalled that Russell “seemed to be enjoying himself” as he painted, because “he evidently had the scene clearly mapped out in his mind.”

Russell painted more than one version of this subject, each one referring to a particular story he had heard. This painting depicts the predicament of one of Russell’s closest friends, Robert “Corduroy Bob” Thoroughman, as his horse scatters the campfire and various cooking pots across the ground. The exasperated cook, with shovel upraised, is about to give Thoroughman’s horse an additional brand on its backside. Russell loved hearing such stories, especially when the riders told them on themselves. The horse Thoroughman is riding was apparently an ill-disciplined Indian pony that had been only recently broken to the saddle. The “ST” painted on the tent to the left refers to the pioneer cattle outfit Sands & Taylor, that Thoroughman worked for as a young cowboy. Thoroughman bore the distinction of being the first settler in the Chestnut Valley, where the town of Cascade is located.