The Great Mountain Lion Caper

So Friday the landowner where we keep our mares, Icicle, Ribbon, Maggie, Cenisa and Valentine calls and says our mares are loose. It seems they took out the electric fence and were headed up over the mountain.
He said a mountain lion came down that morning and killed a deer right outside their fence, and then proceeded to drag the carcass through their pasture and ate it right on the other side of the fence. I believe that was a little much for our girls.
Don heads over to see if he can find them, and after 4 hours of searching(the land is totally surrounded by forest service) he locates them at a distance looking through binaculors. But the problem was how to get to them, there were no roads or nothing. And you had to cross a lot of private ground.
So he heads back to town to try and find out who owns the land. No luck, it seems no one has an idea.
By this time I am off work and we head back out, and of course they are gone. Neighbor sees them going the other direction.
Back to town we go, get halters, leads and grain. By the time we got back out to where they were seen last it was pitch black out. We started walking through the woods and kept calling for the girls. After about a half and hour I heard a noise to the left and lo and behold here they come a running out of the trees. They heard us and followed our voices.
They followed us back to the road, the neighbor let us put them in his pasture for the night, tucked them and came back the next morning and picked them up.
Never a dull moment that is for sure, but I am certainly glad our horses love us and are easy to catch. Not many horses could you walk out into the forest service in the dark at night and call them by name and have them come a running to you.
We definately love our ponies.
Moved them to a different pastuere for a few days to make sure the scent of the lion and kill disapates a bit before turning them out.
Never a dull moment around here:)