HEADS AND HOOVES
by Edwin Brown

I mind one time I was mowing hay down on our meadow by the river. It was getting close to hunting season and Howard Copp had gone up the Portage River Road to get his cattle. The cattle would be allowed to run loose all summer up around Three Islands but you had to bring them home before moose season. You can imagine why!
Anyway, fifteen to twenty head of cattle were coming down the road with the men driving them along from behind. Everyone was taking their time and there didn't seem to be much to worry about. Then out of nowhere's a car came sailing around a corner heading straight for the herd of cows! They all took off in a stampede down through the woods! Yon know that high ledge across the river from my place? It must be fifty feet high and those cows bailed out of the woods and down over that cliff! I heard the racket and looked over in time to see heads and hooves rolling over and over down that bank and into the river. What a racket! Four of them fell down into the river, crawled up out of that and made 'er over to my meadow. One of them was limping. I later told a friend of mine that the cows' adventure would have been something to capture on film with a movie camera. It reminded me of those old cowboy movies with all the action and everything. My friend said that there always seemed to be weird things happening up around our place and then asked, "You ever see any elephants up there?"