Cattle theft

“ Cattle may not be killed without an order from the Court, and whoever kills a beast must expose its head and feet to ensure that it has not been stolen. Before this rule was made, cattle-theft is said to have been frequent. The market generally lasts about three hours, but some of the unsuccessful linger a little longer in the hope of selling their wares.
In the shops adjoining the market, some of which are kept by Chinamen and Burmese, the occupiers are general dealers. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the owner reports the theft to the police, no Kallan will help him to recover his animals, and these are eventually sold in other districts or Travancore, or even sent across from Tuticorin to Ceylon. Consequently, [68] hardly any cattle-thefts are ever reported to the police. Where the Kallans are most numerous, the fear of incendiarism induces people to try to afford a tiled or terraced roof, instead of being content with thatch. The cattle are always tied up in the houses at night. ”

“ The gangs which frequented these roads have now broken up, and the caste has practically quitted road dacoity for the simpler, more paying, and less risky business of stealing officials’ office-boxes and ryots’ cattle. Cattle-theft is now the most popular calling among them. They are clever at handling animals, and probably the popularity of the jallikats (see Maravan) has its origin in the demands of a life, which always included much cattle-lifting. ”

“ The ample proof at hand that he committed the great cattle theft in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and was then the cause of suffering and poverty of many whom fortune favored in the way of helping on retribution, by causing many whom he wronged, to live another life at the same time the Plunger lived, that this very thing for which you are working might come to pass. ”

“ The cattle were nervous and feverish through suffering from thirst, and had they been bedded closely, stampeding would have resulted, the foreman choosing the least of two alternatives in scattering the herd. That night we slept the sleep of exhausted men, and the next morning even awaited the sun on the cattle before throwing them together, giving the Indian thieves full ten hours the start. The stealing of cattle by the Comanches was something unusual, and there was just reason for believing that the present theft was instigated by renegade Mexicans, allies in the war of '36. ”

“ The immense majority of these laws relate to one crime, theft, and to one form of that crime, the theft of cattle. We have before us a population of herdsmen and sheep-masters whose chief concern it is to guard their live stock from the sly, roving cattle-lifter, and to recover them when thus purloined. ”

“ It was fast riding, too, for when word comes in that cattle stealers are in the neighborhood of any ranch, it behooves those charged with the safety of men and animals to be on the "jump." There is always more or less theft going on among the western cattle ranches but most of it is on such a small scale that drastic action is not often taken. ”

“ He knew what desperate chances rustlers take once they embark on the quick road to a bigger herd than comes by natural growth. Theft led to killing, as the cornered highwayman kills. That was the history of the cattle thief all the way from the Staked Plains to the forty-ninth parallel. Robin wondered where this unlawful venture of Mark Steele’s was going to lead all of them, more particularly himself. ”

“ So lately as 1878, when the Auvergne was wrecked near Tabarka, all on board were completely stripped, even to their shoes. In 1885, when another ship was wrecked at the same place, its cargo was instantly pillaged, though under the guardianship of the French authorities. Needless to say, robberies are of daily occurrence. Even in 1888 an officer’s horse was stolen on the road to Ain Drahm, in the Khrumir mountains.
[302] The prevalence of theft has originated a peculiar mode of earning a livelihood. Certain individuals gain their subsistence entirely by pursuing and finding stolen cattle. ”

“ In the way of altering brands there is comparatively but little mischief done in these days. Stock associations, and the like, have almost put an end to such trespasses. The ranchero who does not get his own calves now, or who loses his cattle, has only himself, and a carelessness or ignorance that absolutely offers a premium for theft, to thank for it. An old cow-puncher that I met in Washington Territory, regretted this new order of things very feelingly to me once, over our second cocktail.
"These ain't no sort of times to go to raising cattle down Texas way," he said indignantly. "No, sir ”

“ There it is impossible for man or beast to efface the track that he has made. In countries such as Kafirland, where cattle thefts are common, no evidence is required but the track of the stolen animals entering a village, and the headman is considered responsible until he shows where the same track has gone out again. ”

“ Either the spring or fall is considered a good time to brand, but the only best time to brand a calf is when you find it.
Dishonest men are found in the cattle business the same as in other occupations and every year a large number of cattle are misappropriated and stolen from the range. Cattle have been stolen by the wholesale and large herds run off and illegally sold before the owner discovered his loss. Calf stealing, however, happens more frequently than the stealing of grown cattle and many ingenious devices have been invented to make such stealing a success. ”

“ Stealing cows is one of the commonest of Indian offences—so much so that it is a regular profession to track stolen cattle. But if the buyer has a good title to the cow, unless he knows it to be stolen, the recovery would be generally impossible. ”

“ If any one be found guilty of stealing guinea corn, carravances, potatoes, or the like, out of any of the plantations, he forfeits a cow and a calf to the owner, or more, in some measure proportionate to the offence.
In case one man’s cattle break into another’s plantation, the owner, for every beast found there, must give an iron shovel.
If any one steal another man’s hive of honey, and be caught, the fine is three iron shovels. These iron shovels, hoes, &c., are a kind of small money with these people, for here is no trade but by barter, or the exchange of one commodity for another ”

“ Your robbing an Indian's body, and mocking his
soul with food.
Go back with your new religion, and find—if find
you can—
The honest man you have ever made from out a
starving man.
You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not
our meat;
When you pay for the land you live in, we'll pay
for the meat we eat.
Give back our land and our country, give back our
herds of game;
Give back the furs and the forests that were ours
before you came;
Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come
with your new belief,
And blame, if you dare, the hunger that drove him to
be a thief. ”

“ Every year we have two big round-ups, but the boys do some branding all the year. A calf should be branded as soon as it's found. This is a safeguard against cattle-thieves. We don't have the rustling of herds and bunches of cattle like we used to. But there's always the calf-thief, and always will be as long as there's cattle-raising. The thieves have a good many cunning tricks. They kill the calf's mother or slit the calf's tongue so it can't suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a calf and watch it till it's big enough to fare for itself, and then brand it. ”

“ But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that
lion had left his lair,
And they cursed like a troop of demons—for the
women alone were there.
"The sneaking Indian coward," they hissed; "he
hides while yet he can;
He'll come in the night for cattle, but he's scared
to face a man." ”

“ This system, fraught with mischief, continued for many years, in spite of the interdicts of the government, and the fatal results exhibited in the courts of justice. Cattle and sheep stealing were carried to an astonishing extent: the owners, ignorant sometimes of the amount of their wealth, confided its safety to men incapable of resisting ordinary temptation. The more opulent estimated their annual loss at one-fifth of the increase ”

“ The gent with the sad eyes is sent dressed up to fool a woman."
"But how could even robbers collect such a wonderful herd?"
"Kate, in them western states there's just about four hundred cow thieves working together, which you'll see them advertised in the papers robbing coaches, trains, pay for mining-camps, or now and again some bank. Still that's just vacations, and the main business is lifting cattle.
"Ye see, Kate, they'd collect an occasional stud, such as these here imported thoroughbreds, too good to lose, too well-known to sell, too hot to hold. They'd keep 'em in some hid-up pasture. ”

“ In others, they become the property of the man or company upon whose range they are found. This privilege, however, is seriously abused by dishonest ranchmen and cattle thieves, who infest every Western cattle-growing district. These men ride out over the ranges at times when they are not likely to be observed, carrying their branding-irons along, and rope and brand every animal they can find that does not already bear a brand. ”

“ The great dart is to keep the young stock away from their mothers until they forget one another, and then most of the danger is past. But if calves with one man's brand on are seen sucking another man's cows, it is pretty plain that the brand on the calves has been put on without the consent of the owner of the cows—which is cattle-stealing ”

“ Since the sheriff was invariably heart and soul a cattleman himself, he generally took care that he wasn't anywhere in the neighborhood when a cattle thief met his just deserts. Even now this rule holds effect in the cattle lands. Only two years ago a prominent rancher in this country—the Sonoita Range—shot and killed a Mexican who with a partner had been caught red-handed in the act of stealing cattle. ”

“ Last fiscal year our people had to mark more than $150,000 off their accounts to the credit of cattle thieves. To-day, because of the invasion of the sheep and the taking up of claims by homesteaders—every one of whom is a cattle thief, remember, Blunt—the available range for our people's stock is less than half what it was ten years ago. Absolute ruin stares us all in the face."
"Well, what can one man do about it?" ”

“ What th' rustlers didn't take th' buzzards did. But there was enough of th' hide left to show what work they were up to—blurring th' brand."
This, as you have learned from the previous books of this series, consists in burning some other mark over the legitimate brand on cattle, so that the original one can not be made out. Then the animal may be claimed by whoever has it. Blurring a brand, that is, making it illegible, or changing one brand into another, are two of the methods used by unscrupulous men to steal cattle. ”

“ I begged the driver more than once to stop the train and put the mutilated animal out of its misery with a revolver shot, but it was not thought worth while.
When a cow is destroyed by the "cow-catcher" the owner can claim from the railway company half its value; and it is said that in bad times when cattle are low in the market, or worse still, unsaleable, they are driven on to the line with a view to destruction. I have often in a day's journey perceived hundreds of the bleached skeletons of the animals killed outright by the "cow-catcher," or maimed and left to die. ”

“ Like enough somebody will be hollering again about being shy a few fat steers or calves. There were three hundred head of cattle reported missing off the ranges last year and about that much or more every year for a dog’s age––if all reports be true. Funny thing they can’t lay the rustlers by the heels and hang them by the necks in the good old-fashioned way.”
“Yes!” commented Jim, “if that crowd are mean enough to thieve feed and grain, I wouldn’t care to turn them loose among anybody’s cattle, especially now the feed and grain stealing business is unhealthy.” ”

“ The farmers are robbed of their property, acquired through whole decades of persistent toil, robbed of their houses, cattle, grain, clothing—of everything, down to their children’s last little garments and the last handful of grain. ”

“ A more aggravating annoyance, however, brings loss to the owners of the herds. Despite the stringent law, there is always a certain number of desperate men who take perilous chances in stealing cattle and running them off beyond recovery by their owners. ”

“ They talk about cattle thieves! Why, your outfit would steal the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee Robinson and German set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for themselves your bunch blacklists them, refuses 'em work anywhere on the range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb Doubleday; he branded mavericks for him, played dummy for his land entries, swore to false affidavits for him. ”

“ It was even positively asserted to me by certain cowmen (this was while I was confined in bed from an accident) that the buyer had a gang of men out operating on the far end of the range, catching and tally-branding for him the still untallied cattle. A simple operation enough, in such an immense district, where four men with their ropes could, in a few undisturbed days' work, cheat the Company out of enough cattle at $20 a head to be well worth some risk. Several men were positive in their assertions to me. ”