The Measure Of A Jackass

One of my neighbors asked for help in rounding up the cattle on his brother’s spread in the Chilcotin, down by Alexis Creek. His brother had been killed when a horse flipped over and crushed him against a log.

I was always up for an adventure and for seeing new country, so I told him he could count on me. The Chilcotin is about halfway to Vancouver and we considered it to be in the tropics. They could count on the thermometer dropping to sixty below come winter, but it is only a few hours from the Okanagan and they grow peaches down there.

Actually, we considered anything south of Prince St. George a suburb of Vancouver, but the Chilcotin was still a wild country with wild people and cattle.

The ranch was sold and we could round up as many cattle as possible before the new owners took possession. We planned to take the culls to market and haul the better looking stock to my friend’s ranch in the North Peace country. The cattle were wild and some had not seen a man or horse for several generations, at least that was the way it seemed. We didn’t catch all of them, but we sold several truckloads and hauled a truckload of Hereford heifers up north.

It was a nice trip, but we needed several more men on horseback to catch enough cattle to make the trip pay.

The country was beautiful and we saw lots of animals, especially Grizzlies.

We did some hard riding and tried to anticipate the antics of wild cattle that had spent their lives trying to outwit and outrun Grizzlies, Timber Wolves, and Mountain Lions. It’s not as easy as you might think.

On one of our last days, I saw what looked to be a group of cattle surrounded by wolves. They were close to a thousand yards away. I dismounted after pulling my rifle from its scabbard and got down in the prone position to see if I could help out. My scope revealed a band of mares with cute little mule foals. The mares were standing in an irregular circle with their hindquarters bunched together and the mule foals were standing at their sides.

The mares were showing their teeth and striking at the wolves with their front hooves without much effect. The poor little foals were staring in disbelief and stark terror at the ferocity of the wolves. Their eyes were wide open and they were leaning back away from the mayhem.

I couldn’t get a shot, the wolves were circling and rushing in at the mares. It was only a matter of time, before the wolves pulled all the mares down.

It was a helpless feeling watching the mare trying to defend their foals through my rifle scope and not being able to get a shot.

A wolf jumped up and grabbed a gray mare by the side of the neck and she fell forward to her knees with the forlorn hope that she could defeat this wolf in this dance of death. Suddenly, the most horrendous noise I’ve ever heard came from my left and a mammoth jack ran in and grabbed the wolf by a hind leg, pulled him off the bleeding mare shook him like a dog shaking a squirrel. The jackass then tossed the broken and mortally wounded wolf away like yesterday’s trash and went after the other wolves like a fiend from Hell.

The wolves scattered and the jackass was in hot pursuit. Once they ran into the timber, we had no idea what was happening, but the ear splitting screams were still erupting and the wolves were not making a sound.

In a few minutes, the jackass came out of the timber and started moving his band of mares and foals in the opposite direction.

We rode over to see if the mare could be saved, but she was bleeding profusely and couldn’t stand up. I eased her crossing over with a well placed round. I think she and the little jackass would have tanked me if that were possible.

I often think back to the ferocity and determination displayed by the jackass to singlehandedly defeat a band of wolves. You must remember, these are not the compound semi-domestic wolves that are used to film the so called nature documentaries, these are wolves that kill big game almost every day. Against all odds, the jackass defeated an overwhelming force with an overwhelming desire to protect his family. As Americans, we should use this little jackass and his courage as an example to defeat our enemies both foreign and domestic.

I know the analogies to the Democrat Party are cute, but the Democrat Party has become the International Socialist Party and in no way resembles the Democrats of Andrew Jackson’s era when the jackass was adopted as a party logo.

We are fighting an enemy that wants to weaken the US by every means available. If we are content to wait until the next campaign to resist, the wolves will have pulled down enough livestock to make the US weak and unable to resist. Remember the determination and courage of the little jackass as he fought for his family and that will tell you how hard we must resist this transformation of America.

The wolves are literally trying to pull down America.

Sorry Folks, the above quote in the phone is from Will Rogers