Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-03-25
HALF WILD HERDS OF HORSES ARE
LAST OUTLAWS OF The AGE; ROAM
in VALLEY PASTURES In FREEDOM
Brands of An Hundred Cow Camps Are Represented
Untamed Animals and Those Whose
Bitter Training Remains
SPUR SCARED ROAM DEFIES MAN
Army Horse Kills Rather Than Submit to Bit and
Cinch While Green Meadows Beckon

! the great open spaces but which lax
in this rule, and overlooking many
things, still permits that these outlaws
live on in peace and the JOY Of their
continued defiance.
Time Brings Change
Time was when, in all the rolling
mesa between Douglas and Stafford
there was nothing but two cattle
ranches with the headquarters of one
in the lower Sulphur Springs valley
close to where McNeal is now and the
other in the upper valley near what
is now the thriving city of Wilcox.
Douglas and Stafford were not cities
then, they were patches of mesquite
with gramma grass growing between
and chapparal cocks and lizards for
citizens
Those times were different from the
times that we have now. Gasoline sold
for dime gallon and was used for
cleaning clothes. There was no gaSo-
line in the entire state of Arizona for
no man then in the state knew of any
use he might put the stuff to. There
were no such things as automobiles.
Horses were priced in those days and
a good saddle animal equipped with
stock saddle, bride, blanket and rope
was prize worth guarding and many
a man dangled over the limb of tall
tree or from the arm Of the first
telegraph pole for meddling with such
property when it belonged to others.
I Old time COW punchers relate that in
those days there we're ranches that
specialized in breeding COW ponies and
where horses were raised and herded
and broken and trained and sold all
in a business like way and for profit
as cattle were raised and sold from
the majority of the ranches.
Horse Value Changes
| Each COW outfit had q brand or sew
eral brands and these were all regis
tered with the state and any infringe
ment meant trouble of peculiarly
violent and sudden sort. Each horse
ranch had it's brands also and every
animal that roamed the range or was
| corralled for sale or use was marked
indellibly
In those days any man riding across
the country could read the brand OF
| any animal he saw and tell to whom
! it belonged There was no guess work
about it. If a man sold an animal he
! vented his brand to the purchaser SO
/ that the bill of sale was really writ
/ ten in blazing letters across the hip,
neck or flank of the horse that changed
hands legally.
| Many things have passed from the
! great southwest The buzzard scars
! higher than in days gone by The
grass is shorter and gives way to dust
quicker in dry seasons. Cowboys are
fewer and cattle are hampered III
their search for grazing by wire fences
but perhaps the greatest change ano
the one most lamented by man IS the
change in the value and status OF the
horse.
Enter The Auto
With the coming of the rising price
for gasoline and the only cause toi
that rising price, the automobile
horses instead Of being, as they once
we're, the most rapid means OF trans
rortation aside from the railways
came to DE altogether two slow excep'
in districts where there were next tC
nc roads at all and such districts haVi
RAPIDLY given way before the on
slaughts of civilization until now tht
motor car may traverse almost any
section of the country and the use O.
the horse es a means of transportatlof
has become extinct as the dlnoSaur /
extinct.
While there are many wire fences II
the Sulphur Springs valley now tnef'
are vet vast open spaces where there
is long grass. The different opel
spaces are connected by highways O
bv necks of unfenced land or by tn
river bed so that ranging stock cal
travel about in the valley from on
district to another and even go up int
the hills without being greatly hamp
cred by civilization.
Can't Trace Brands
Because of this and because III tnl
valley there is always water and al
ways grass there have grown up Iarg
herds of wild horses, outlaws OF
modern age, roamers of the untll1e'
wastes that are as God made CneH
These horses, peculiar as it may seen
are nearly all branded animals marx
ed with the red hot iron Of some GOV
man. vet few years ago, when, nea
McNeal, o large herd of these horse
was thrown together and offered 10
sale it was found impossible to SCI
them because the brands could not D
traced back and legal ownership es
tablished.
These horses form an interestln
study for among the herds there az
many animals that have been broKe'
and used by man at some stage Q
their careers and that bear the marx
or plunging spurs, Of calling clnche
or poorly padded collar.
Cowmen riding into the valley thr9
wears ago from the northern part G
the state rounded up little buncn G
these rangy, half wild, horses not Ia
from Douglas in the Double Aoon
district and found an interesting am
NAL indeed, in the herd. This her
. had ranged along the Kings hlgnWa
and north as far as McNeal and oac
7 west toward Bisbee, for long tim
and few ranchers had taken Tn
trouble to check it over to see VIVA
i might be in it.
Dan McNeel's Brand
The travelling coWnlen from II>