Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-21

when the boom was at its height, the cattle
man sat on the top of the world.
He prospered, at least on paper, in spite of
an enormous amount of thieving. There was
lot of fence cutting. Cattle were driven out of
the immense pastures easily as they could
be from the open range. The foremen, and
even the managers of some of the big outfits
were stealing from their employers without
scruple 1t is charged that at one time most
of the men working for x I T, from the boss
down, were rustlers and crooks.
Hair branding was an effective method of ac-
quiring ownership without the cost of purchase.
Sometimes this was done at the roundup, with
the connivance of a wagon boss The man with
the iron put it on the calf so lightly that the
hair sizzled off without the skin being marked
More often the rustler did his hand branding in
the chaparral. He chose calf that had been
overlooked in the roundup and cut the ear
marks of the mother. With knife held against
the thumb, he plucked the hair from the skin
SO that the brand would be plainly seen by any
cowboy riding the range.
The calf became a Sleeper" The thief
watched it, If the animal got by at the next
roundup without arousing suspicion, he fin
ished the job with hot iron and def change
in the ear marking. Usually the yearling passed
muster now as the property of the hair brander
but sometimes wide-awake boss discovered the
fraud and rebranded, maybe with the guilty
The range rider and the COW thief matched
wits the one to get the evidence of guilt and
the other to escape proof Sometimes the
honest waddy cut small slit in the skin of
a cali and slipped inside a marked dime or
quarter. The cut was then sewed up. This
did not usually get the owner of the coin very
lar. He rarely ever saw the silver again. On
one occasion company went into court with
this evidence and the jury set the hair brander
With amusing tIa
manoed the quarter and was given it by the
judge. A few years later this cool customer had
stolen himself into responsibility and Joined the
livestock association to protect himself against
robbers. In his book. "The T Ranch of
Texas" j. Evotts Haley tells scores of stories
of the fight made by the big syndicate ranch
against the pestiferous rustler
On one occasion, Col A. c. Boyce general
manager OF the x T. was invited from the
ranch house to talk with a gang of rllstlers
headed by one Of his own wagon BOSSES Bovce
guessed they had come to shoot him down He
was FEARLESS, 1ndomitable man. and he went
out alone 10 meet them. His gaze ranged
coolly over the outlaws before he began tn
curse them for set of scoundreLs HARDLY he
asked them why they did not cut loose and
promised that he would kill their leader if one
of them lifted finger. Knowing he would keen
ms word none dared to start hostilities
OLD-T1MERS in the Panhandle will tell you
today that it never was bad country that
Its citizens held high average of character
rms is beyond question true. The incidental
lawlessness was much less than that which OBJ
tanned at the same time in the neighboring
Territory of New Mexico
A horse thief was one degree worse than an
Illicit dealer in calves. This conviction was
born of the frontier conditions COW was
property but in the Indian days, a mans horse
might be his life. To set rider afoot in the
wilderness was at times equivalent to pronounce
ing a death sentence upon him. Therefore
ones right to his mustang became sacrosanct.
captured horse thief expected little mercy.
The amazing story of the Marlows shows the
depth and fury of this feeling. The drama
centers at Graham, Young County, Texas.