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 being one of glorious freedom and plenty, the baronial day of the great and once unexhausted West.
Now the _venta_, or brand indicating the sale of an animal to another owner, began to complicate matters to a certain extent. A purchaser could put his own _fierro_ brand on a cow, and that meant that he now owned it. But then some suspicious soul asked, "How shall we know whence such and such cows came, and how tell whether or not this man did not steal them outright from his neighbor's herd and put his own brand on them?" Here was the origin of the bill of sale, and also of the counter brand or "vent brand," as it is known upon the upper ranges. The owner duplicated his recorded brand upon another recorded part of the animal, and this meant his deed of conveyance, when taken together with the bill of sale over his commercial signature. Of course, several conveyances would leave the hide much scarred and hard to read; and, as there were "road brands" also used to protect the property while in transit from the South to the North or from the range to the market, the reading of the brands and the determination of ownership of the animal might be, and very often was, a nice matter, and one not always settled without argument; and argument in the West often meant bloodshed in those days. Some hard men started up in trade near the old cattle trails, and made a business of disputing brands with the trail drivers. Sometimes they made good their claims, and sometimes they did not. There were graves almost in line from Texas to Montana.