Cheney Free Press -

Vern Hopkins

Our Montana ranch was on the Valley Creek Road, halfway between Arlee and Ravalli Junction. It laws about a quarter of a mile off the highway and across the Jocko River Bridge to our lane.

One day around the middle of December, a few days before Christmas, I went out in the dark as usual, to do morning chores. There was a skiff of new snow on top of a couple inches of the old. I grained the two saddle horses that I kept up to use for the winter, let my milk cow in the barn, locked her in the station and fed the barn cats.

I milked the cow, let her and her calf out for the day,...