I might also state here that the D brand on the left hip had been used by my
father 50 years before I took it over and the reasons it had not been recorded
were as follows. Back in the middle twenties a new state brand law went into
effect requiring
registration of all brands
with the State Dept. of Agriculture
office. Knowing there was to be a time limit for recording I sent in an
application two weeks ahead of time and received a reply stating that there
were eight ranchers ahead of me asking for the same iron on the same location.
Mr. Jay Dobbin of Wallowa county who happened to be a member of the State Board
of Agriculture got the brand recorded. Since there were no brands of this kind
in or anywhere near the locality in which I was ranching I did not bother to
create a new one, tough since the trials described in this narrative, I
submitted the D dot (a D with a dot in the middle) and had it accepted.
The fact that two brands were present on the cattle brought in by Kerr and
his cowboys presented an angle quick to be taken advantage of by his pardner
Mrs. Garner. She decided to include in the first load only those steers bearing
the reverse E lazy P brand, thinking, no doubt, that in all probability the D
brand was registered at Salem in my name. Following this, the problem of
marketing arose. She was too smart to send them directly to the Portland
livestock yards without ownership credentials. Consequently, the truck driver
was ordered to take them over into Vancouver to Kerr's ranch where they would
be held until someone would buy them. As a safeguard to any possible untoward
impulse on the part of the driver Mrs. Garner decided that she and her
sister-in-law, Mrs. Stephens, would follow the truck north in her own car. Two
miles down the mountain road the load bogged down in the mud. The cowboy,
Young, was sent for and after looking over the situation he advised unloading then
and there and trailing the cattle back to the pens. One steer on the way back
"spooked" and got away but the balance was penned up. Most of the
next day was spent on the road planking the mud hole, but finally at 4 p.m. the
truck and its seven steers with the Garner escort was on its way. It was this
load of cattle that the Logger Iverson noticed and reported on the road down
the Sixes river.
Somewhere along the way Mrs. Garner masterminded a scheme which pulled her
up in front of the Dept. of Agriculture building in Salem the next morning.
Waiting for the offices to open she went in and informed the clerk in charge
that she wished to record a brand. It was her idea to register a brand which
she identified as the reverse B lazy B; a simple procedure for any cowboy handy
with a running iron to alter the existing reverse E lazy P had occurred to her
as a neat solution to any questions she might have to answer which might
otherwise prove awkward. The party in charge of the office, however, informed
her that in order to record a brand it was necessary to have for submission in
advance or accompanying the application a special pad with the brand requested
burned into it with an actual iron. It must have been at this time, also, that
she learned that there was no D brand on the left hip registered in my name and
explained her vehement denial of my right to it when we met in the road on her
way back from Portland.
In the meantime the load of cattle proceeded to Vancouver and were unloaded
at Kerr's ranch by the time she caught up with them. Later that day or the next
she and the truck driver set out to find a buyer. They drove back over the
state line to the Union Stock Yards in North Portland and contacted various
buyers and commission men but no one was interested in cattle over the line in
Washington. Eventually they met Curt Slesher of Slesher Bros. packers. Slesher,
after having the cattle described to him, told that if the cattle were as
represented he would take them at seven cents per pound providing they be
delivered to their plant at Kenton, Oregon. The cattle were delivered and
accepted. A check was issued and the truck driver and Mrs. Garner went to a
bank in Portland, cashed the check and divided the money between them. The
driver headed his truck back to Curry county for another load arriving at the
Garner ranch at 12 o'clock that night. It was some 13 hours afterwards that
Officer Williams and I met Mrs. Garner and Mrs. Stephens getting back to the
ranch.
|
