Another time was early spring. The road was a bit soft, so harder to pull the load. The horses were soft after a hard winter. When I got about through Bountiful, the horses would go no more. I took the Bamberger train home and got another horse and rode back to Bountiful. The team was rested and with an extra horse we went OK. But it was dark when I got to Beck's, where I met Rulon Clark, who was on his way home from delivering a load of hay. He stopped me. The place where he took his hay was filled up, he could not sell his load so he had unloaded it where I was to take my load. With my load it would really fill the barn, so he drove back and we both unloaded my load. It was 10 p.m., so we left both our teams and took the train home, he paying my fare and a Hershey Bar. Next day (Sunday) we got our teams.
One summer, a couple of days before we left Farmington for the ranch, father bought Oliver Pierce's pony from him. It was so skinny and hard-ridden and under-fed that everybody felt sorry for the poor nag. Father decided to take the pony to the ranch with us. The pony would not lead very good, so father tied it to the right of the right horse on the team. By the time we got to Mantua the pony was so fagged out it would not go further, so we stopped at a ranch and father arranged to leave the pony for the summer. About two months later we called on our way back and got the pony. It was slick and fat and a really spirited pony.
In 1914 I was on the ranch with father. It was late summer and I was already late for school. We got a young 3 year-old horse off the range which had never been ridden before. I left on the colt next morning for Farmington. I was going over the mountain to Georgetown. I remembered that part way I would intersect with a forest phone line that went to Georgetown. After a while I saw the phone line in the distance and left the road and cut across to the line. This was an error. I was following the line in the wrong direction. The road and trail kept getting dimmer and dimmer and it was getting darker. I decided to build a fire and bed down for the night, then found that I had lost my knife, also my matches, so I decided to follow the wide canyon without a trail. I saw a brief flicker of light in the distance. I hollered until I got an answer, to follow down a ways and the trail crossed back to my side.
They were a couple of elk hunters returning to camp after having killed an elk that day. I had seen one of them as he lighted a cigarette. I stayed the night with them, learned my mistake, and headed back for Georgetown. I continued to Paris and stayed at a farm house. Next day I went over Paris Mountain to Franklin and to Preston, stayed overnight, then arrived at Logan afternoon.
Heber, at Logan, was expecting me. He had taken a team and hay rack from Farmington to Logan so he could attend the A.C. He was married. I took the team and wagon, tied my horse to the back, and headed for Farmington. A little before Wellsville I bought 25 cents worth of hay from a farmer and camped by the side of the road. I slept on a little hay and put the saddle blanket
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