department
HERITAGE
How to Rustle a Cow
How to Catch a Rustler
Frontier cattleman John
Bielenberg once tripped up a
rustler by branding unmarked
calves with his capital K between the forelegs. The rustler
was trapped when Bielenberg
and the stock inpsector roped
a suspect calf and revealed the
healed-up brand.
I
n an era when
foldout cardboard sunscreens include
photos by
national the warning,
park
"Do not atservice
tempt to operate vehicle while screen is in
place," it might be prudent
to mention that rustling is a
crime. "Do not attempt any of
By
Lyndel
Meikle
the techniques described here."
Stamp irons
Rustling falls into several catformed the
entire figure.
egories, among them subsistence,
commercial, brand altering, cow
borrowing (or bull borrowing), butcher rustling, and fraud.
Montana Territory was created in 1864, and one of the first
acts of the Legislature was to establish brand laws. A brand
is sort of like a hot tattoo. Applied by a skilled "iron man,"
it causes only enough scarring to make the hair grow back in
the shape of the brand.
76
It didn't take long
before stockmen
whose cattle grazed
the unfenced ranges
to organize to protect
their herds from rustling. Roundups were
cooperative affairs. If
all the ranchers had
rounded up their own
cattle separately, there
was a mysterious tendency for some ranchers' cows to have twins,
while their neighbors'
cows didn't calve at
all. This worked better for the would-be rustler if the
calves were a bit older and able to be separated from their
mothers. It looked pretty suspicious to see a calf with one
rancher's brand following a cow with another rancher's
brand.
distinctly montana • winter 2014
