he rustler responsible, if wise, would skip the country
without leaving note of his destination, for in the days of which I
speak the penalty for cow-stealing was almost always death, except when
the sheriff happened to be on the spot. 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.

With the gradual disappearance of the open range, cattle stealing has
practically stopped, although one still hears at times of cases of the
kind, isolated, but bearing traces of the same old methods. Stampeding
is, of course, now done away with.

During the years I worked for D. A. Sanford I had more or less trouble
all the time with cattle thieves, but succeeded fairly well in either
detecting the guilty ones or in getting back the stolen cattle. I meted
out swift and sure justice to rustlers, and before long it became
rumored around that it was wise to let cattle with the D.S. brand alone.
The Sanford brand was changed three times. The D.S. brand I sold to the
Vail interests for Sanford, and the Sanford brand was changed to the
Dipper, which, afterwards, following the closing out of the Sanford
stock, was again altered to the Ninety-Seven (97) brand. Cattle with the
97 brand on them still roam the range about the Sonoita.

* * * * *

It was to a rodeo similar to the one which I have attempted to describe
that Jesus Mabot and I departed following the incident of the selling of
the sheep. We were gone a week. When we returned I put up my horse and
was seeing that he had some feed when a shout from Jesus, whom I had
sent to find the Chinese gardener to tell him we needed something to
eat, came to my ears.

"Oyez, Senor Cady!" Jesus was crying, "El Chino muerte."

I hurried down to the field where Mabot stood and found him gazing at
the Chinaman, who was lying face downward near the fence, quite dead.
By the smell and the general lay-out, I reckoned he had been dead some
three days.

I told Mabot to stay with him and, jumping on my horse, rode to
Crittenden, where I obtained a coroner and a jury that would sit on the
Chinaman's death. The next morni