Word: crawford
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...peals from the north. The two-way radio crackles to life: "We're two miles out, coming in with seven horses." That sends Tracy Robison, 16, leaping onto a sorrel mount. He wedges the horse behind a mound of sagebrush and keeps as still as he can. Gil Crawford, 58, dives for cover behind an embankment, grabbing a yellow rope that will release the trap gate on the quarry...
...Gate!" screams the rider, as the horses enter the enclosure. Crawford releases the rope, but the gate is jammed and does not close. The pack wheels and madly bolts for the 6-ft.-wide opening. But Robison and his mount block the way. He grabs the hulking steel frame and yanks it shut behind the wild bunch. Confined for the first time, the mustangs bellow with anger. In his fury, an aging stallion throws himself against the steel grating, opening a gash across his forehead...
...Bureau of Land Management estimates that there are upwards of 70,000 horses and burros loose in the West, perhaps a third more than the land can handle. For that reason, the BLM stages periodic roundups and puts the trapped horses up for public adoption. Dale Crawford, 53, an Oregonian who runs down horses for a living, has outbid-at $58 a head-a passel of others for the right to thin the Piceance herd from 346 horses to 166. Along with his wife Shirley, 52, and brother Gil, Crawford has spent hours in the garage perfecting the labyrinthine steel...
Finding the quarry in this 100,000-acre expanse requires sharp eyes and unflagging concentration. From the air, both the horses and the forest appear gray. The chopper darts up ridges and down canyons until Crawford, in the copilot's seat, spots a band of bobbing heads in a grove of cedars. The men use their craft as an earthbound cowboy uses his horse at roundup time, circling and feinting and cutting off lines of escape. Biggs sets the rotor low and at the mustangs' tails. When they break again, the copter sets down, Crawford leaps...
...second foray, the men light upon five more mustangs picking at strands of Indian rice grass in a boulder-strewn ravine. They manage to move the pack to a clearing but the lead stallion refuses to cooperate. He attempts to bring the others back downhill. Crawford gets the horses moving and then sweeps in suddenly at tree level, splitting off the leader and chasing him down a gully. Quickly he gets the other four moving toward the trap. Better to lose one than the pack...