THE DAKOTA FARMERS’ LEADER — JULY 31, 1908
Stolen and Published Everywhere under a Worthing Date Line After Some of the Ear Marks Had Been Pulled Off.
Here is the story as published in the LEADER last week from the pen of Mr. Larson, and we republish it in order to show that the gentlemen who did the bold act of piracy did not improve their “find” by poor paint:
“Last week we had another dose of high water and a lot of big fish came up the canal from the Vermillion river. The boys were out in force and had lots of fun catching 50 lb. carp, and four feet pike and pickerel. We heard a rather surprising story about a monster carp dragging a calf into the canal. Melvin Sundvold reports the story as given to Henry Hanson by the man who lost, the calf. A farmer living over near the canal where it overflows when a cloud-burst comes heard a terrible racket among his cattle one night and rushed out towards the trouble. He found a lot of calves standing in water belly deep and noticed one little calf making a desperate effort to pull its tail free from something. The farmer in his bare legs was afraid of barb wire but he waded towards the calf in trouble and just as he grabbed the calf by the neck a monster fish lashed the water all over him and for an instance he was blinded. Wiping the water out of his eyes he found the calf was being dragged away towards deep water. He made a frantic effort to reach the calf before it was dragged into the canal but failed. Whether it was a big catfish or a carp or a pike the farmer was unable to say, but it was big enough, to drag the calf away by the tail and drown it. The farmer released his cattle and gave them a chance to find higher ground.”
