Arizona's yesterday . these cows andtheir calves into one of the secluded and naturalcorrals with which the range abounds, rope thecalves, brand them with his own brand, hobble andsometimes kill the mother cows to prevent them fol-lowing their offspring, and drive the latter to hishome corral, where in the course of a few weeksthey would forget their mothers and be successfullyweaned. They would then be turned out to grazeon the Range. Sometimes when the rustler did notkill the mother cow the calf proved not to have beensuccessfully weaned, and went back to its mother—the worst possible advert
Arizona's yesterday . these cows andtheir calves into one of the secluded and naturalcorrals with which the range abounds, rope thecalves, brand them with his own brand, hobble andsometimes kill the mother cows to prevent them fol-lowing their offspring, and drive the latter to hishome corral, where in the course of a few weeksthey would forget their mothers and be successfullyweaned. They would then be turned out to grazeon the Range. Sometimes when the rustler did notkill the mother cow the calf proved not to have beensuccessfully weaned, and went back to its mother—the worst possible advertisement of the rustlersdirty work. Generally, therefore, the mother cowwas killed, and little trace left of the crime, for thecoyotes speedily cleaned flesh, brand and all fromthe bones of the slain animal. The motto of most ofthese rustlers was: A dead cow tells no tales! Another method of the rustlers was to adopt abrand much like that of a big ranch near by, andto over-brand the cattle. For instance, a big ranch. CADY AND HIS THIRD FAMILY, 1915 Sheriff, Cattleman and Farmer 109 with thousands of cattle owns the brand Cross-Bar(X—). The rustler adopts the brand Cross L(XL) and by the addition of a vertical mark tothe bar in the first brand completely changes thebrand. It was always a puzzle for the ranchersto find brands that would not be easily engaged in this work invariably took gravechances, for a good puncher could tell a changedbrand in an instant, and often knew every cow be-longing to his ranch by sight, without looking atthe brand. When one of these expert cowboysfound a suspicious brand- he lost no time huntingup proof, and if he found that there had actuallybeen dirty work, the rustler responsible, if wise,would skip the country without leaving note of hisdestination, for in the days of which I speak thepenalty for cow-stealing was almost always death,except when the sheriff happened to be on the the sheriff was invariably heart and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfrontierandpioneerli
