Once again I was invited to go out on a scout. This time by my friend Hal. He's a member of the A.L.R.A. I would be going as his guest. I was a little leery at first to do .The rep. These boys have for authenticity. I'm still trying to get everything together (never ending process). So off I went. Like normal I was the first to arrive ,then shortly Sully (eagle eye) arrived then Roy. We made a short hike to the rock house we would be using for a base camp.
The rock house was quite large and was elevated about seven feet above the ground but there were easy terraces to climb into it. We dropped our packs and started to bring wood up for the fire we would need later.
Hal was the next to arrive so we decided to go on a short scout to check for any signs. Hal came up with the idea of laying out trails using broken ranches and pillow ticking with a little flag (simulated captive) .So we split into two groups and each group laid out a trail for the other.
The next day dawned bright with a few scattered clouds we awoke from the night filled with strange noises (mostly Sully and Roy's snoring) after a quick breakfast we broke into our two groups of the day before and started out. Luckily for our group (Hal, Joe, Sully and myself) eagle eye Sully was along all the rest of us except Sully passed the first sign but he saw it right off now the hunt was on! The ground was soft but leaf covered we would see a scuff mark here a marker there. We lost the trail a few times but leaving one person at the last sign and running a circle with the others we were able to pick it up again. Joe was the one who found the captive.We saw no sign of her captors so thinking prudence was the better part of valor we decided to head back to camp we could punish the captors later after we had the captive safe.
The other group was not so lucky.They ran into a group of forty or so hostiles and had to take cover. This group destroyed the trail so after fruitlessly looking for the trail they headed back to camp. Upon there arrival they questioned the captive and she told them where her group and the other parted ways. Being still hot to reclaim the other captive they headed out once more. Luck was with them this time for they also found their captive a little worse for wear but still alive.
We all met back at the rock house and celebrated our successes into the night. Mind that we were quiet for the most part except for the snoring duel of Sully and Roy (grin). In the morning we were treated by the mornings light with seeing six deer pass with in a hundred yards of our rock house .We could have made meat but still fearing that the hostiles might still be in the area. Joe Crammer and I decided to go along the ridge top to see if we could find any sign of the hostiles. It was an energetic scout we had to make many detours around gullies which added to our scout but we saw some awesome wonders. One was a little stream star steeping down little rock ledges into a pool before falling down into a water fall. Another was two little steams doing the same but joining each other but a rock shelf we didn't follow that down to it's end but proceeded back to camp as night was approaching. We arrived back at camp with nothing to report.
That night we talked and joked of our adventures and went to bed filled with the pleasure of being once again in the woods we all love. As morning dawned we ate breakfast and prepared to go on our separate ways. Sully and myself left first as we had long journeys to make it back to our homes but not before we made our good-byes to new and old friends
Y.H.S.
Bill Miller