We arrived at the Government Meadows Horse Camp early Saturday. While were engaged in tacking up the animals, from the other side of the trailer I heard Steve L. say "we've got a horse and mule here."
Admittedly, my first thought was, "no kidding, we brought them." Then I looked over behind the trailer, and discovered that the horse and mule to which he referred had not arrived in our party. These two miscreants were standing there looking expectantly at us:
They both had halters on, and the horse had the remains of a set of hobbles on his right leg. As they were both clean, and obviously well fed, we concluded that they had escaped from their camp. Since there were no other trucks or trailers at the horse camp, we decided that they had come in off the Pacific Crest Trail after hearing our horses.
After some discussion as to what to do, we decided to leave them tied to one of our trailers. We filled a hay bag with alfalfa and hung it between them. Our thought being that either the owner would find and claim them, or, if they were still there when we returned on the morrow, we would take them with us, and advertise that they had been found via the Backcountry Horsemen and Craigslist.
When we returned Sunday afternoon, they were gone. On the windshield of the pickup was a note that stated "Please call Russ", with phone number and smiley face. We were relieved that their owner had claimed them, as we certainly knew how we would feel if our stock were missing on the trail.
As it would turn out, I know Russ, as well as the other members of his party. Talk about a greater sense that we had done the right thing. The group had ridden in from Sand Flats Horse Camp, which is south of where we were. The pair had vanished sometime in the early morning. After searching all day on the trails, Russ had, on a whim, driven to Government Meadows, where he found his wayward horse and mule.
It's a small world, folks.
10 comments:
Nice story and glad it all worked out OK.
Nice story.
Pretty cool, BR. Ya done good.
I'm sure it was the mule who led them off on their little adventure.
That's a cool story, Dave. I had a couple of sons that wandered off at a campground once.
Somebody found them and brought them back. I was glad about it. I guess.
And yeah, it was the mule son that instigated the whole wandering away deal...
And yeah, it was the mule son that instigated the whole wandering away deal...
Democrats. ALWAYS goin' astray.
Whoops. Missed the "son" part, Andy. My bad. I thought you were agreeing with Lou.
No problem Buck. Even though you missed that "son" part, your comment was as right as two right shoes.
Small world and very lucky horse, mule, and owner.
Great end to the story, Dave.
I had my worries when you began the story that this was not going to end well, but I am very glad to hear that it did. It was a nice story to read, and the fact that it is sometimes the little things in life that make us happy, like reuniting some horses with their owners to truely make your day.
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