Doing my undergrad in Texas this was something to be arranged *before* getting onto someone’s land…

My one field trip west of the Mississippi, we had an… issue. One paleontology professor, his grad student assistant and maybe eight students in three cars looking at an outcrop about 100 meters off a county road in Wyoming. Not a fence, cow, or habitation within sight, and the outcrop had quite a commanding view. We’d been there about 20 minutes when a truck pulled up about a quarter mile away, spotted us, and headed straight for us.

A man dressed like a rancher gets out of the truck with a shotgun, ‘casually’ slung over his shoulder. Tells us we’re trespassing on Mr. So-and-so’s land, and we needed to clear off. And leave any samples we’d taken in the process. The professor was ready for this pulled out a map and politely informed the man that he had a copy of the county’s deed maps, and Mr. So-and-so’s land ended a couple sections over at the creek bed to the east. We were standing on federal land. Also, he had cleared the visit with the owners of all the land in the area, just in case. We’d be done in a few minutes anyway.

The man in the truck was having none of it, because he took the shotgun off his shoulder and pointed it in our direction, waving it vaguely toward our vehicles. “You’re trespassing, and I have every right to shoot you.  Now leave!”

The professor looked at him and put his hand down on the gun at his hip, that he’d said he’d brought “in case of rattlesnakes.” His grad student came out of the professor’s truck with a shotgun they said they’d brought for the same reason. He repeated calmly that he didn’t want any trouble,  we were not trespassing and this was federal land. The ranch hand was suddenly not so sure of himself. “We’ll see what the sheriff says.” He got in his pickup, and drove off. We stayed about another half hour, and nobody bothered us. This was long before the days of cell phones. One of my fellow students spent the rest of the stop throwing up, and three people didn’t finish the rest of the week.

The professor told us the next day that the ranch owner had called to apologize, and that he was welcome on his ranch any time.

Holy shit

So this story got added to the photo I shared last night.