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BUGKSKEi jLOVES Theodore. A. Christensen 371 Eudora Street Denver, Colorado 80220 Seriior Citizen Division First Place Short Story-Day dawned "bright and clear on the Andrew 0. Madsen farm as his son, Evan, and I hitched Queen and Prince to the front running gears of the farm wag-on on which, the night before, we had tied securely several hundred pounds of rock salt. He had been assigned the task of hauling salt to the summer range. Of course, this would tie more like a holiday for us and a welcome relief from the back-breaking job of weeding the sugar beet field all day. Perhaps one of us could have handled the assignment to haul the salt, tut Uncle Andrew knew his boys. This would be a great experience for us because we enjoyed working together, since we were more like brothers than cousins. My Uncle might even have been the original author of the buddy system used so universally. Within two hours we were in the foothills. Our pace slowed considerably as we "began to climb the steep road into the mountains. One could hardly call it a road-a trail, maybe. That Is why we had used only the front running gears of the wagon. In places the trail was very ateep and rocky, and we were glad we had two heavy work horses to do the pulling. Frequent rest periods for the horses lenghtened the travel time, and it was midday before He reached the Slopes of "Tow-Head," the name given by the early Danish pioneers to this bald prominence in the Wasatch plateau framing the border of the Sanpitch Valley. Experience gained over many summers of grazing cattle In these mountains had dictated the strategy now used in locating the "salt licka" high, on the mountain aide, because it forced the cattle to graae up and down the grassy slopes between the salting grounds at the top and the springs and creeks at the bottom where they watered. During our descent, after unloading the rock salt, we stopped at Cold Spring to eat our lunch. Paradise couldn't be more beautiful and peaceful than this sylvan retreat, and Evan and I took full advantage of it before we headed for home. It wasn't until we were safely back at the farm and the horses were unhitched, watered, fed, and curried, that Evan discovered he did not have hie leather gloves. He was crestfallen. Where had ha lost them? They were not ordinary gloves. They were real, honest -6> |
