were used as breeding stock to
furnish the upper cow range with horned population. Colorado, Wyoming,
Montana, western Nebraska, the Dakotas, discovered that they could raise
range cattle as well as the southern ranges, and fatten them far better;
so presently thousands upon thousands of cattle were turned loose,
without a fence in those thousands of miles, to exist as best they
might, and guarded as best might be by a class of men as nomadic as
their herds. These cattle were cheap at that time, and they made a
general source of food supply much appreciated in a land but just
depopulated of its buffalo. For a long time it was but a venial crime to
kill a cow and eat it if one were hungry. A man's horse was sacred, but
his cow was not, because there were so many cows, and they were shifting
and changing about so much at best.

The ownership of these herds was widely scattered and difficult to
trace. A man might live in Texas and have herds in Montana, and _vice
versa_. His property right was known only by the brand upon the animal,
his being but the tenure of a sign.

"The respect for this sign was the whole creed of the cattle trade.
Without a fence, without an atom of actual control, the cattle man held
his property absolutely. It mingled with the property of others, but it
was never confused therewith. It wandered a hundred miles from him, and
he knew not where it was, but it was surely his and sure to find him. To
touch it was crime. To appropriate it meant punishment. Common necessity
made common custom, common custom made common law, and common law made
statutory law."[E]

[Footnote E: "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co.
New York.]

The old _fierro_ or iron mark of the Spanish cattle owner, and his
_venta_ or sale-brand to another had become common law all over the
Southwest when the Anglo-Saxon first struck that region. The Saxon
accepted these customs as wise and rational, and soon they were the
American law all over the American plains.

The great bands of cattle ran almost free in the Southwest for many
years, each carrying the brand of the owner, if the latter had ever seen
it or cared to brand it. Many cattle roamed free without any brand
whatever, and no one could tell who owned them. When the northern ranges
opened, this question of unbranded cattle still remained, and the
"maverick" industry was still held matter of sanction, there seeming to
be enough for all, and the day bein