Evening star., 1925-07-26

X dangerous to all folks, spe
Il cially women; unscrupulous,
with a hankering to kill and
destroy all what he runs across, leav
ing nothing behind but the smoke and
@ grease spot---is the impression folks
get through the movies and fiction OF
the cattle rustler and horse thief.
I don't blame them folks for shiver-
ing at the thought of ever meeting
such a bad hombre, but they can rest
easy, cause there is no such animal
in the cattle rustler. Picture for your.
self a man sleeping out under the
stars, watching the sunrise and sun
sets, where there's no skysCrapers or
smoke to keep him from seeing it all,
acting that way or being what they
say he is.
When 1 speak of cattle rustlers 1
don't mean them petty. cheap crooks
what's read dime novels and tries to
get tough, steals some poor old wild
ow's last few "dogies," cause they
amt got CUTS enough to get theirs
from the big outfit what keeps riders
the year 'round-them kind don't last
long enough TO be mentioned, any
how-and I always figgered the rope
what kept 'em from touching the earth
was worth heap more than what it
was holding.
To my way of thinking about the
cattle thief, or cattle rustler, the eX-
Citement he gets out of 1t is what he
likes most. You can bet your boots
that even though he may be dealing
from the bottom of the deck, he's
generally taking his from them what
he thinks won't suffer from the loss
or maybe even miss it.
You're plumb safe when that kind
rides up to your camp to leave your
ciI oil
tered around as usual, and most likely
II he sees you're in need of a fresh
horse he'll be real liberal in Offering
you the pick Of his string-only dan
ger is, if you're caught riding one of
them ponies it may be kind of hard to
explain Just how you come in posses
sion of said animal.
There's cases where some cowboy
what's kinda reckless and sorta free
with his rope might get a heap worse
reputation than what he deserves, and
he gradually gets the blame for any
stock disappearing within a couple of
hundred miles from his stomping
ground. Naturally, that gets pretty
deep under his hide, with the result
that he figgers he might just as well
live up to his reputation, cause if he
gets caught going south with 500
head he won't get hung any higher
just some old ring -boned" saddle
horse.
Consequences is when the stock as
sociations and others start TO keep
him on the move, he's using his long
rope for fair, and when he's moving
there's a few carloads of prime stock
making tracks ahead of him. In wy
oming a few of the feud men tried to
even scores that way. The hill-billy
was on horseback and toting a hair
trigger carbine. r
r *
/ DO NOT want to give the impress
sion that the cattlemen started in
the COW business by rustling, not by
a long shot-they are plum against it
in all ways. Most of 'em would let
their herd dwindle down to none
rather than brand anything lessen
they're shure it's their own.
But once in a while there is some
what naturally hates to see anything
go unbranded wether it's theirs or not,
and being the critter don't look just
right to 'em without said iron, they're
most apt to plant one on and some
times the brand don't always fit.
Like for instance, there was Bob
Ryan who got to thinking about
riding mean horses all day and a lot
OF the night in all kinds of weather