At any rate, cattle owners began to take notice of their cows as the prices went up, and they had laws made to protect property rapidly enhancing in value. Cow owners were required to have fixed or stencil-irons, and were forbidden to trace a pattern with a straight iron or "running-iron." Each ranch must have its own iron or stencil. Texas as early as the '60's and '70's passed laws forbidding the use of the running-iron altogether, so that after that it was not safe to be caught riding the range with a straight iron under the saddle flap. Any man so discovered had to do some quick explaining.
The next step after this was the organization of the cattle associations in the several territories and states which made the home of the cattle trade. These associations banded together in a national association. Detectives were placed at the stockyards in Chicago and Kansas City, charged with the finding of cattle stolen on the range and shipped with or without clean brands. In short, there had now grown up an armed and legal warfare between the cow men themselves--in the first place very large-handed thieves--and the rustlers and "little fellows" who were accused of being too liberal with their brand blotching. The prosecution of these men was undertaken with something of the old vigor that characterized the pursuit of horse thieves, with this difference, that, whereas all the world had hated a horse thief as a common enemy, very much of the world found excuse for the so-called rustler, who was known to be doing only what his accusers had done before him.
There may be a certain interest attaching to the methods of the range riders of this day, and those who care to go into the history of the cattle trade in its early days are referred to the work earlier quoted, where the matter is more fully covered.[F] Brief reference will suffice here.
[Footnote F: "The Story of the Cowboy." By E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co.]
The rustler might brand with his own straight running-iron, as it were, writing over again the brand he wished to change; but this was clumsy and apt to be detected, for the new wound would slough and look suspicious. A piece of red-hot hay wire or telegraph wire was a better tool, for this could be twisted into the shape of almost any registered brand, and it would so cunningly connect the edges of both that the whole mark would seem to be one scar of the same date. The fresh burn fitted in with the older one so that it was impossible to swear that it was not a part of the first brand mark. Yet another way of softening a fresh and fraudulent brand was to brand through a wet blanket with a heavy iron, which thus left a wound deep enough, but not apt to slough, and so betray a brand done long after the round-up, and hence subject to scrutiny.