A Shot in the Arm

John Byrd Robertson

O. Dunc Robertson

the Millegan Country

 O.D. Robertson would have probably spent all his life working jobs that involved manual labor and the outdoors if his brother hadn't shot him in the arm.

According to my Dad, O.D. Robertson (known as Dunc) and his brother, John Byrd Robertson (known as Byrd) were hunting in the Millegan country with a few other men.  Byrd's rifle discharged into Dunc's arm. The wound was a bad one.  Doctors wanted to amputate Dunc's arm, but there was a doctor in Great Falls who treated Dunc and didn't insist on amputating the arm.

For over a year, bone fragments worked their way out of the wounded arm.  Finally, the arm did heal.  It seemed like Dunc would never be able to return to being a wrangler, rancher, miner, or all the other jobs he did.  So Dunc took a business course in accounting.  He became an accountant and worked for a store owner in Marysville.

After working for the store for about a year, the owner committed suicide.  To Dunc's mind, if that was what working inside and in a store did to you, it was for the birds.  He went back to all his previous occupations. While one arm was an inch or so shorter than the other one, he seemed to function without impairment.

Dad related that later Dunc and Byrd went on another hunting trip.  Byrd was holding his rifle in the same unsafe position that had caused the first gun accident.   My grandfather had a few choice words for Byrd's edification.  They arrived back from that hunting trip unscathed.