More Lst Chance

Every time I'd see LeGrand Brink, he'd tell me about those big buck out at Last Chance, just standing around there, broadside, as gentle as his cows. I'd think, "Gee! gentle bucks like that would probably stay put long enough to give even me a shot." But then I didn't realize how wild his ol Brahma cows were, a feller was lucky to get a fleeting glimpse of one of them. After he'd get me all worked up with his b.s. stores he'd urge me to come out to help cut the number down, so one Fall, at pine nut picking time, I talked my brother Keith and some of his boys into going out there for a few days. I told him what LeGrand said and couldn't understand why he acted skeptical. After all LeGrand was his brother-in-law. He should know that he spoke the facts.

We took our guns along as well as some nut picking equipment. Verla went with us and it seems like Dwight and probably Clay went along, too. We picked nuts while the boys fetch in the meat. As I remember the afternoon of the first day Derk and Drannan downed about 3 or 4 head up Last Chance Draw, a couple of miles. Most of them was does and Keith asked why they shot does. "Oh, they just got in the way while we's shootin at that buck." The weather was nice and warm in the daytime, good for picking pine nuts and about 30 degrees at night which cooled out the meat good and kept it from spoiling. Needless to say that we ate mighty well on that trip and had a lot of fun. Can't remember if we had horses but that ol' jeep could get way out on most of the points if you took a round-about way.

Later, when LeGrand heard about our camp out, he complained because Keith hadn't asked his permission. He'd forgot that his rangeland was Public Domain, or maybe it belonged to the B.L.M.