Secreted in a towering Pryor Mountain cave, the Little People danced.

Keening a mournful chant, the knee-high, no-neck beings circled a fire that sprang from a glowing rock. At irregular intervals, an anguished wail in an ancient language crackled like lightning flashing from the ground to gathering clouds.

Deep in heart of the night, their drums faded and dancing stopped. From the cave soared a flight of great winged creatures.

Invisible against a starless night, they swooped low over the Children of the Large-Beaked Bird camped in buffalo-hide tepees near the banks of Pryor Creek. Their powerful wings loosed a howling wind through the sleeping village, rattling the lodge poles and unnerving ponies grazing nearby.

Together the creatures banked south and east, headed for the steep canyons that caged the Bighorn River. On sheer cliffs rising hundreds of feet above the river’s surface at Devil’s Canyon, the Little People painted new warnings.

It would be a grim message this wild October night. A terror of a new kind floated up the Missouri, felling the Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan by the thousands. Wolves and foxes stalked boldly through empty villages rotting in winds and rain.

The terror preceded light-colored men up the Yellowstone and crept through its tributaries spreading through the Bighorn country and into the Pryor Mountains, moving faster even than trappers and traders.

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Ever since he proposed limits on this city's long-standing tradition of public drinking, Sheriff Ed Lester has heard a barrage of insults. "Teetotaler" and "prohibitionist" were bad enough. But "do-gooder"?

In this 134-year-old, rough-and-tumble mining town, even the top lawman cherishes being a part of its rugged image. "It's just something I never envisioned myself to be," the sheriff sniffed.

Mr. Lester finds himself in the middle of a raucous debate in Butte, one of a few U.S. municipalities that allows drinking in public. His proposal is part of a municipal identity crisis, pitting the city's hopes of encouraging new investment against a desire to stay true to its roots as a blue-collar outpost that likes its whiskey straight and its government hands-off.

Earlier this year, after getting complaints about noise and vandalism in Butte's historic uptown area, the sheriff proposed a ban on public drinking between the hours of 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. The long-forsaken uptown with its cluster of remaining bars was the round-the-clock heart of Butte when it was a copper-mine boomtown a century ago. Today, as new residents and businesses have begun to move in, the late-night carousing out on the streets has gotten more notice.

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Check out the LIST and Vids!

10:46 a.m. A woman on Klondyke Loop reported that her daughter pushed her dresser in front of her door and refused to go to school.

11:14 a.m. A woman called in to ask if a deputy would accompany her while she removed her belongings from her ex-boyfriend’s house.

11:25 a.m. Several residents of an apartment complex on Southside Drive reported that local transients have been sleeping under their porches and parked vehicles.

12:21 p.m. A habitually naughty little chihuahua was loose and chasing children through the streets of Somers.

2:10 p.m. A 2-year-old in Columbia Falls called 911 looking for Snow White.

4:18 p.m. An intoxicated Hungry Horse man threatened to beat someone up.

9:13 p.m. Ten cows were seen loitering on Amdahl Lane.

9:33 p.m. A dozen or so teenagers were heard screaming help near a church on Whitefish Stage. Apparently this was a youth group and no one actually needed help. They were told to be quiet.

2:12 a.m. Two miniature horses were seen on McCaffery Lane in Bigfork.

3:44 a.m. A woman on Shady Lane hit her husband with a notebook.

MORE>>> Flathead Beacon

Sometimes a little means a lot.

Certainly that’s the case with a mere 10-yard-wide connection of private land with public land that will provide a wealth of access to hunters and hikers in the Big Snowy Mountains starting Oct. 26, the opening of the deer and elk rifle season. 

That’s when property acquired by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which is selling the 40-acre parcel to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, will be opened to public use. The land is located about 20 miles south of Lewistown, west off Red Hill Road.

“This is a major, major access point,” said Bruce Auchly, information officer for FWP in Great Falls.

South of Lewistown

The land is located near the northeast corner of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, which surrounds the Big Snowy Mountains, an island range in central Montana. On its southwest corner the small parcel barely touches the forest land, but it's a sufficient abutment to allow hikers and hunters into No Name Canyon and the East Fork of Big Spring Creek, as well as the surrounding area — about 18,000 acres.

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Polar bears serve as the poster children for climate change. But global warming also threatens many other species that don't get as much news coverage.

Moose in the Rocky Mountains become the latest climate change catastrophe icon recently, as their populations have plummeted with warming temperatures. But it's not just heat stress that is killing them off. Biologists are finding brain worms, liver flukes and ticks, as many as 150,000 on a single moose, are infecting the population to death.

Increased temperatures are allowing northern forest ticks to survive over the winter, when the blood-suckers and their eggs would normally die. This leaves an infected moose with no respite as the ticks breed again in the spring. The moose will continue to scratch and rub off its fur, develop anemia, and eventually die of emaciation.

MORE>>>Discovery

What makes a city livable? More importantly, what makes it livable for everyone? We searched the nation and partnered with Richard Florida's Prosperity Institute to run the numbers to create our inaugural list of the Best Places to Live.

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A new survey shows that more folks may want to swap beaches and cities for big skies and open spaces.

Popular states like California and New York are no longer topping the "best states" list in the opinion of America's new workforce - with the latest survey showing that Montana ranks fourth in the nation.

"You can go forty minutes in any direction and do pretty much whatever you want, fish or hunt," said student Brad Harrelson.

"There are plenty of jobs and it's definitely a growing state," added Professor Paul Pope.

The Treasure State is a hot commodity, showing up as one of the best states for young adults.

"This economy has created some very steep challenges for young people, they are graduating from college with an unprecedented amount of student loan debt and they're entering a job market where the unemployment rate for young people is about thirteen percent," said senior financial analyst Richard Barrington.

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"Parents:  We want to inform you that three mountain lions were seen on the 2600 block of Arcadia on Sunday, October 13, 2013. These mountain lions were two blocks from Cold Springs Elementary School. Bob Wiesner from FWP is in the area tracking the mountain lions with dogs this morning. He can be reached by cell phone at 406-240-3296 with any reports about mountain lion activity.

"Please continue to send reports to Mr. Wiesner and report to www.missoulabears.org and the Missoula Bears Facebook page."

MORE>>>KECI

Rand McNally has long pointed the way to destinations for travelers, but it’s now directing those who enjoy geocaching to Helena.

The company’s Best of the Road awards, which in past years has celebrated towns for most fun, most patriotic, friendliest, most beautiful and best for food, added a category this year for best for geocaching.

Geocaching is kind of a game of hide and seek. Caches, which can be small, hand-sized containers or metal boxes about the size of a shoebox, are hidden and people use GPS devices or smartphones with global positioning system technology to try to find those caches.

A cache can be little more than a logbook, pencil or a few trinkets for people to take with them as a souvenir in exchange for something they leave behind for the next person to find. The contents of a cache can also be more elaborate.

“Geocaches on the Helena GeoTour are so rewarding that even locals swear they learn new things about their town,” the Rand McNally website noted in its praise of Helena from among five finalists.

“I was convinced by the words taken directly from the geocaching community: This is an authentically engaging place to geocache. You can feel the historical connection to the gold treasure hunters from long ago while using today’s satellites and smartphone apps. The gorgeous scenery just adds to the adventure,” a judge wrote on why Helena was honored.

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