It was a summer day like any other on the Herring Ranch near Laporte, Colorado, in August 1908. A young man was walking along the river that flowed through the ranch from the mountains west of town when something bobbing in the ripples caught his eye. It was a glass bottle with a sheet of paper rolled up inside. He pulled the bottle to the riverbank with a stick and read the message it contained:
Dixon’s cabin, Aug. 13, 1908
For heaven’s sake, send a relief train. We’re living on wild cherries and trout. We need a new pack of cards. Our deck is frazzled at the edges and we can’t play without cheating. There are three children in the party and several snakes were seen around here last week. We shouldn’t like to see the children suffer.
– Garbutt, Bumstead
The two men who signed the message, Garbutt and Bumstead, were well known around the area. Garbutt was a seasoned county judge, more formally known as Judge Garbutt. Bumstead was the president of the Colorado Sugar Beet Growers Association. They were neighbors in nearby Fort Collins and frequently fished the Poudre River together. Their favorite spot to camp and fish was across the river from Dixon’s cabin, which was built by a pioneer family.
Their message of distress seemed legitimate, so a relief expedition was organized to bring supplies to the marooned fishermen and the people they were camping with.
The night before the expedition was set to head into Poudre Canyon, something unexpected happened. Judge Garbutt and Bumstead staggered into town. Nearly a week after sending their message in a bottle floating down the river, they had come down from the hills looking worse for wear.
Judge Garbutt shared an interesting account of how he, Bumstead, and the other campers had become stranded by the river and how they passed the time. Some people in Fort Collins who heard their tale of survival concluded that with a bit of investigation, it might be proven that if the men had suffered at all, it was only from eating too much fish.
According to the judge, their misadventure began a week earlier when he received word from his contact at the Fort Collins Water Works that the river was dropping rapidly and “all the fish with a full set of teeth are biting fiercely.” He shared the news with Bumstead, and after loading a horse cart with a three-day supply of food and gear, the fishermen made their way up Poudre Canyon.
They reached camp that evening after an exhilarating ride and a hazardous crossing of the river near Dixon’s cabin. Two families were already camping along the north bank, and the fishermen were glad to join them. A pair of cooks were on hand, and since Judge Garbutt was a “champion fisherman,” there was no shortage of good things to eat.
After a couple of days, the men had their fill of fishing and camping and were ready to head back to Fort Collins. But there was a problem. The river had risen substantially, and fording it for the return trip was out of the question. Garbutt and Bumstead were marooned, along with the other two families.
Another family arrived at Dixon’s cabin the following day. They intended to cross the river to join the campers on the north bank, but the waters remained impassable. Judge Garbutt and Bumstead made several attempts to communicate with them by shouting across the river, but they could barely hear each other. With the help of hand motions, it seemed like the family hadn’t been able to catch fish and needed meat.
Judge Garbutt devised a clever plan to ferry them a supply. He borrowed a stocking from the wash line, filled it with trout, tied off the end, and motioned for the family to toss him a fishing line across the river with a rock attached. Once they did, he secured the stocking to the end of the line and set it in the river for them to pull the fish to shore.
A similar method was used the following day when the fishermen realized their own supplies were running low. The family across the river was grateful for the trout the judge had given them, and volunteered to send a man from their group into town for provisions if they knew what was needed. The judge wrote a list on a sheet of paper, tucked it inside a stocking, fastened the stocking to a rock, and had the best thrower in camp hurl it across the river.
Since the ride to Fort Collins would take the man some time, the judge, Bumstead, and members of the families at their camp set off into the woods to search for food. It was their lucky day.
Judge Garbutt recalled how one person unearthed “a strange, two-headed worm, with which he caught two trout on a single cast.” Another person stumbled upon “an old cache left by a trapper fifty years ago, that contained a nice chunk of bear meat, good as new, a bottle of whiskey, and some powder and shot.” The ladies of the group found wild cherries, which they were able to pick “once the judge lifted them over a large boulder.”
Bumstead shared that he made an interesting discovery too. Behind a rock by the river, he uncovered an unopened bottle of beer that must’ve been left by campers the previous summer. He drank the beer, and with the empty bottle in hand, he and the judge hatched an amusing plan.
On a sheet of paper, they wrote a brief message pleading for supplies and complaining of snakes and frazzled playing cards. They slid the message into the bottle, set it in the river, and let the rapids carry it downstream, where it was discovered by the young man at the Herring Ranch.
Everyone who heard their story thought a fair amount of it was probably made up. No one believed they had found fifty-year-old bear meat fit to eat. Judge Garbutt stood by his claims that the story was true. Bumstead backed him up, saying he intended to write a book documenting their adventure stranded at camp. He’d already picked out a title: “How to Play High Five Under a Tarpaulin in the Rain.”
The Weekly Courier newspaper in Fort Collins printed their story in August 1908. The only detail the paper couldn’t vouch for was the discovery of the fifty-year-old bear meat. The rest of it checked out.
That camping spot along the Poudre River remained a special place for Judge Garbutt. In the months that followed, he erected several tents in a grove of trees near the riverbank and called his retreat “Mycamp.” Guests from across Colorado came to Mycamp to spend time fishing, camping, and enjoying the judge’s hospitality.
A family from Denver fondly recalled their experience at Judge Garbutt’s camp in a letter sent to The Weekly Courier in October 1909:
Mycamp is protected on all sides by mountains, whose towering heights almost pierce the skies, making it one of the most charming spots to be found anywhere. Judge Garbutt’s genial hospitality, his excellent and well-stocked larder, the cozy camp and its attractive surrounds, and added to the fact that the judge could give any Denver hotel chef aces and spades and then beat him at the game… a guest would be a confirmed grouch if they did not wear an approving smile from sunrise to bedtime.
