By E.S. Dement

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Another incident, though it had no bearing on later trials, might be related as it seems to characterize the "livestock" methods of the Garner establishment. Sometime in June of 1939, Mrs. Garner, Stephens, her brother, and Jett arrived in Marshfield (now Coos Bay) with a very large steer carcass in a covered pick-up. They first tried to sell the meat to Charles Feller who operated a cold storage plant. Feller decided the carcass had been too carelessly handled. They next tried the Union Market which also turned it down, since there was no producers tag and the meat was prohibitively dirty. Finally, for a price, they made a deal with a local restaurant. After culmination of events leading to the trial we had no difficulty in believing that the big steer was one of 63 head that had been wintered on the back part of our range, and had been butchered, no doubt, on the range and carried out on horseback. It was also not difficult to imagine the impatience of the principals with such a slow and inefficient process and how it may have led to the eventual "contract" between Mrs. Garner and Loren Kerr.

Sometime early in 1938 Mrs. Garner was in Portland and wanted to buy a saddle horse. She met Loren Kerr, a horse trader who owned a small ranch three miles out of Vancouver, Washington. She bought a bay gelding, paying only a part down and took him to her ranch in Curry county. From same source, she also acquired a part Shetland pony. An interval went by during which Kerr was unable to collect for the horse he had sold and upon meeting Mrs. Garner during another of her visits to Portland he was given something in the nature of an alternative. An identical proposition had been made, incidentally, to Geo. Myers of Myrtle Point nine months before, but he had turned it down. Kerr went a little beyond listening. Mrs. Garner told him that on her range in Curry county there were quite a number of half wild cattle (woods cattle, she called them) which she wanted rounded up and driven three to five miles to her corral, loaded on a truck and hauled to market. Some of the wilder ones, she told him, might have to be slaughtered on the range and hauled out dressed. It would be Kerr's job to furnish crew, (cowboys) truck drivers and truck plus the necessary horses to gather the cattle. It would also be his responsibility to pay for any expense involved and to market the cattle. The pay-off would be a 50-50 split of all proceeds. Kerr replied that he thought the proposition had possibilities but that he wanted first to make a trip to the area and look the matter over more thoroughly to include, of course, a look at the cattle in question. A date was set for Kerr to be at the Garner ranch and he and his truck driver drove down from Vancouver. They were given the only two horses to ride, while Jett, the cripple walked to lead them over the trail to our range some three miles distant. After the three mile hike Jett decided that he had walked far enough and gave Kerr general directions to proceed from there to where he thought they might find the cattle or some part of them. Four hours or so later the three men arrived back at the Garner ranch. Kerr reported to Mrs. Garner that though she had told him the cattle were half wild, some probably unbranded or without earmarks and some with horns, he had found 62 head of large, white face steers, all dehorned, all earmarked and all branded, and none of which could be called wild. He had also observed that the three miles of timbered trail in its present condition would make it very difficult if not impossible to move cattle over. Mrs. Garner replied that he may have seen other cattle on the range than those she had in mind, that cattle from other ranges sometimes strayed in to the area and that as far as the trail was concerned, she would see that it was put in the proper condition.

It is interesting to note here that Kerr had seen the exact number of cattle that were supposed to be on this part of my range at that time due as much as anything probably to the fact that it had been a relatively cool day. On warm days cattle tend to "hide" in the timber and brush and are much more difficult to find.

Mrs. Garner's explanation, however, seemed to satisfy Kerr who returned home with his companion with the understanding that he would be back the following week with the necessary crew and equipment. On his return to Vancouver he lined up Young, a top cow hand, Coomer, a truck driver, two boys and five saddle horses plus a stock truck. Men, horses and all were moved down in the one truck and from the cab back a large canvas covered everything. It is also to be noted that that part of the trip on the county road from Highway 101 to the Garner ranch was made after dark. In addition to the above preparations Kerr had made a deal with a cousin, Charles Kerr of St. Paul, Oregon, a butcher, to follow up in a large pick-up truck containing slaughtering equipment.

The day following their arrival at the Garner ranch the crew spent cutting fir poles and putting together a close pen and loading chute. The second day was spent in cleaning out windfalls and other brush along the three miles of trail to our range. The morning of the third day the crew, six or seven, mounted and headed for Tent, Brush, Double and Top Hill Prairies (name designations for the open mountain meadows constituting the range) to round up the so-called "wild woods cattle." In their first round of these pastures Kerr was able to find only about 50 head so they started back with these. Once leaving Brushy prairie and out on a timbered trail to which the cattle were not accustomed the outfit had considerable trouble and arrived at the Garner place with only 33 head of branded and dehorned three and four year old steers, some carrying the D brand on the left hip, the balance a reverse E lazy P combined on the left hip. The steers carrying the latter brand were out of a shipment of calves that originated in Montana. Having been branded just before leaving Montana and still being quite raw and tender on the left hip I decided there was little room for another brand in the same area. I told my two sons at the time that there was little likelihood of their being stolen, anyway, and left them as they were.