The Unlikely Huntress
A Horse Heaven rancher who had never held a rifle proves her mettle when an intruder threatens her flock.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Although she never shot a gun in her life, Mrs. C. L. Dietrich one day last week demonstrated that she knows the muzzle from the breech and commands an aim that would make some of the local pheasant hunters look like toy pistol four-year-olds. Mrs. Dietrich was at her home in Horse Heaven alone when she heard a commotion in the chicken house and went to investigate the cause. When she discovered the invader was a bobcat, she returned to the house for the rifle. The first shot got him, and Mrs. Dietrich believes she is now entitled to qualify as a real rancher, although this is her first year in the hills.
“Mrs. Dietrich believes she is now entitled to qualify as a real rancher, although this is her first year in the hills.”
Horse Heaven remains an expansive, rugged agricultural region in Benton County today. Tales of self-reliance and predator control persist in the local culture, even as the landscape transitions from homesteads to massive wind farms.
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