By Mabel Chadband.

I FOUND it was quite a family affair. When I knocked on the dressing room door, behind which I was told by a newsboy I should find Lucille Mulhall of wild west fame, it was opened by a person who gave her name as Georgia Mulhall. Georgia is all right, but I was sent to interview Lucille. "Where was she." "She's in here with me," said sister.

The Mulhall girls were in the act of "making up" and invited me to have a chair. I had no sooner become comfortably seated than a knock on the door was followed by the entrance of a man with a cowboy hat on. "This is brother Charlie Mulhall," said the girls in chorus. The woods seemed full of Mulhalls. "If you've any more Mulhalls I'd like to meet them," said I. The girls laughed and replied: "If you'll go over to the hotel after the show we'll introduce you to another." With three Mulhalls in the act and father along I agreed that the family of Mulhall from Mulhall, Okla., were well represented in Cedar Rapids this week.

When the girls told me their father, Colonel Mulhall, was with them I immediately thought of Colonel Mulhall who occupied the front page of the great American dailies for several days not a great while ago. "So many people ask us if our father the Colonel Mulhall who wrote that letters in connection with lobbying Washington, are one and the same," said Miss Georgia. "You will remember his name was William, while my father's name is Zach. He lives in Washington, while our ome is Mulhall, Okla., the town being named for my father. Father looks after all our correspondence and business and we coax him to remain with us a few weeks at a time. He is now visiting us, but is anxious to get back home on the ranch."

"My land be careful of that cigaret," said Georgia, as she reached over and rescued the "pill" which came near being crushed by Lucille putting down her makeup paraphernalia. "Brother Charlie has to smoke one in the act and you can't buy them in Cedar Rapids. They're precious. He doesn't smoke them off the stage. He prefers the old fashioned cigar," siad Miss Georgia. As it was, the coffin nail was damaged a trifle, and it was put aside with a great deal of care.

Lucill Mulhall much prefers that sister Georgia do the talking for her. "Lucille has been riding since a child, so small that she had to be lifted on and off the saddle," said Georgia. Living with the cowboys on the western ranch Miss Lucille just picked up the many tricks she can do with the rope. In fact there seems to be nothing she can't do with a rope. Will Rogers, the expert fancy roper and lariat artist who is in vaudeville, taught Miss Lucille some of his tricks. In the calf pens as a little girl she learned to throw the animals with the lariat.

Miss Lucille admits she would prefer riding the wildest bucking broncho in the world to riding aboard one of the mighty "boats" crossing the Atlantic. "I'm afraid to cross the water," said she. "If it were not for this fear we would have signed up for several weeks at the Palace in London but I wouldn't cross the ocean."

Col. Mulhall and Col. Theodore Roosevelt have long been friends. When Roosevelt as a rough rider made a trip through Oklahoma he was entertained by Col. Mulhall and at an exhibition in the town Lucille, then only thirteen years of age, rode aand mastered an "outlaw" horse. The former president was amazed at her skill and told her father the exhibition was wonderful and that he should not keep her from the public bnut that the people should have a chance to see her skill as a rider and master of the wild animals of the prairie. It was during his incumbency as president of the United States that Mr. Roosevelt sent Miss Lucille a handsome bridle and breast collar for her pony and not so very long ago there came from him a hand carved saddle with silver mountings, an artistic piece of work which the recipient has used chiefly for exhibition purposes. Miss Lucille says, however, that she is going to use it when she gets back home this summer.

For six years now this accomplished little woman has been on and off the stage. When not at home with her family she is giving exhibitions at fairs and roping contests. She is pardonably proud of two handsome medals won at roping contests, one at Denison, Texas, and the other at San Antonio. The contest at Denison continued for ten days and of the forty five participants all were men with the exception of Miss Mulhall. The winner of the contest had to make the best average in roping ten steers and Miss Mulhall carried off the prize.

"I'm crazy about my mother," said Miss Lucille. "She's a thorough little business woman and just loves her life on the ranch. When she's away from it she worries about whether everything is running smoothly. Occasionally we cozx her to visit us when we make a town near our home and all the time we try to keep her entertained for the minute there's a lull she wants to go right back to the ranch."

Because of being reared on a ranch and brought up with the cowboys one might suppose that such a life might make a girl less womanly. Both Miss Mulhall and her sister are cultured and refined and wholesomely womanly.

Miss Lucille is the world's champion rider of high school horses. She came prominently before the public in 1903 by winning the $5,000 prize for roping and tying a steer in the wild west tournament in Indian Territory. This feat was accomplished in 30 1/2 seconds. Before reaching the age of sixteen she had roped a "loafer" wolf and beat it to death with her wooden stirrup. In addition to being a rider of wild horses she is a dead shot with either pistol or rifle.