The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1892-08-10
Montana Cattle Thieves.

ty, Wyoming, between the cattlemen
and the:rustlers, has been watched with
no little interest by the stock men
throughout the East and West and the
public generally, although it is doubtful
ifshe:lat,er fully understands the cause
of the trouble, owing TO the misleading
wording of the dispatches. The manner
in which the wires have applied the
term "rustler" has occasioned no little
merriment among Western men in Wash.
ington.
4tsA cattle rustler is a4cattle thief, and
the same term is used among horse:
mule, and sheep men. The rustler has
many plans under which he operates.
One would think it no easy matter to 60
among carefully guarded herd of stock
and drive away anywhere from so to 300
hesd.-, Yet, it is done. ,nrrs
The word :ustler is derived from the
way in which thieves usually drive the
cattle out of the herd. When the herd
is on che range feeding, the herders sleep
in a little improvissd shauty or tent near
them. Cattle invariably get up about 2
orb o'clock in the morning, Craze for an
hour or so and lie down again, and it is
at shis time that the rustlers steal quietly
up and with branches cut from neighbor.
ing trees makega rustling noise, which
serves thepurpose of starting the cattle
TO moving without stampeding them or
arousing the tired and sleeping herders.
A part of the herd are slowly driven
to q distance where the sound of their
hoofs CANNOT be heard by the herders,
and then the speed is increased to run,
taking care to keep them in the regular
trail, 80 they cannot be followed. Some
times, however, the thieves are heard,
buG usually they get away, as they have
their horses near at hand in charge of q
confederate, which they mount, and by
keeping the, herd between them and the
owners they beat safe retreat. The
men do not dare fire in the dark, for fear
Of killing cattle. s@g@
Another plan is to make q noise loud
enough to wake the herders, who rush
out in blind pursuit of the marauders,
who slip around to the tents, overpower
the men left on guard, and drive off the
herd. When captured, however, as
sometimes happens, justice is swift and
sure. A rope is thrown over limb, and
the rustlers career quickly ended.
In the Johnston County trouble it
seems that the rustlers were very active
and numerous, but could not be traced.
Finally, however, Nate Champion and
his partner, Nick Roy, two small cattle
men whose reputation was none too good,
were suspected frat of illegal branding,
and from that grew rumors of fthem being
in "cahoots" with the rustlers. The
regulators, under Maj. Wolcott and Fred.
Hesse, went to the home of the suspects
and demanded their surrender. They
refused and were killed. Their friends
in the neighborhood, some of them prom.
inent and wealthy cattlemen, believing
them innocent, determined to avenge
their death. A fight ensued and the
regulators were besieged first at the "T.
A." and later at the "T. A. R." ranch.
It is simply fight between two factions"
The dispatches, however, have designa-
ted all of Champions and Roy's friends
as "Rustlers." It is alleged by the reg
ulators that the other side has been rein.
forced by some we'll known rustlers from
Dakota.
The greatest rendezvous for rustlers in
the West is in the Blue Mountains of
Utah, where over 500 outlaws are said to
reside. The county is wildly desolate,
plenty with game, and can only be en-
tered by three narrow passes. One
thing is certain, no posse of regulators
or United States marshals ever tried to
enter it. When they trail rustlers and
find them making for that refuge, they
let them 20. The removal of the Utes
to that section shortly will result in the
rustlers being driven from their retreat.
- Two white smiths, working in a
blacksmith shop in Atlanta, drank flask
of csrbolic acid last week. One of them