Cattle  Controversy 

            Some  ranch and cattle deals drew public attention in 1884.   The FLUME had some careful editing to do on these highly sensitive issues as follows: 

“A Cloud no Bigger than a Man’s Hand, 

Which Threatens to Spread 

Over the Entire Horizon of South Park. 

A bitter controversy has arisen between the Reynolds Cattle company, of Canon, and W.R. Smith, a stock raiser well  known in Fairplay and on the Currant creek.  A couple of months since we reported the sale of Smith’s cattle and ranch to the company named at the stated price of $30,000.  Last Friday Smith was placed under arrest by a special officer from Canon, who was none other than H.H. Yard, the defendant in the notorious murder case tried in Gunnison a few months back.  Yard was cleared and is now acting as constable for a justice’s court in Canon.   

            The charge upon which Smith was arrested was failure to make a complete bill of sale of the cattle which he claimed to transfer.  Under the statute this is made malfeasance, although obviously a trifling offense.  In this case it was but the outcome of other matters that appear much more serious and which are likely to bring on protracted litigation.   

In the Watkins matter the FLUME was censured because it gave the particulars as they were received and commented on them in the spirit that then appeared right.   The censure convinced us of two things: first, that we had friends among the cattle men strong enough not to be swayed by unjust prejudice, and second, that there are a few narrow-minded, short-sighted stock raisers who will seize any and every opportunity for “doing dirt” to any one that may not fall in with their narrow-minded views. 

While we felt nothing but contempt for the latter we had so much respect for the former as to determine that when the next of the constant series of internecine wars among the stock raisers came up we would use every possible means of giving the right view of the question.  In order to do this in the case at hand we need only present both sides of the controversy. 

Smith’s attorneys, Pease & Bartley, of Fairplay, were summoned to defend him.  Bartley went down and returned Sunday night.  He claims that their client is the subject of a persecution uncalled for and unjustifiable.  That Smith was arrested on a trivial pretense because he had got the best of the Reynolds company in a cattle trade.  That Smith says himself that he made a sharp trade, but that is no crime.  That on his arrival in Canon in company with Constable Yard the latter was sought to be induced to turn him over to the sheriff to be locked up, and many other indignities were heaped upon him, a Canon paper even coming out and advocating his being lynched.  

                The Reynolds’ had employed every lawyer in town but one on their side of the case; endeavored to have the case tried before a justice who is a near relative of themselves, and threatened certain persons who were ready to go upon his bond with foreclosure of encumbrances if they did so.  In fact, used every means possible to secure the immediate locking up of the defendant.  Acting under advice Yard refused to give up his prisoner, but went with him to a hotel, while Bartley secured a change of venue and a continuance of the case until to-morrow.  That is one side of the case. 

            On the other hand, the friends of the Reynolds party, and not a few disinterested observers say that the case, when ventilated fully, will show some deep laid villainy on the part of Smith.  The sale of the Smith herd to the Reynolds Cattle company was for $30,000, as before stated, and was made on the basis of representations by the former that he had 1,000 head of cattle on the South Park range.  It is claimed that it can be proven that he never had more than 800 or 900, and that all his neighbors knew he had no more. 

            Neighbors of Smith are ready to testify, will probably do so tomorrow, as they have been subpoenaed, that he stated after his return from Canon that he had sold his entire herd.  Since then, however, he claims that the increase of the IXL herd, which were branded with a diamond on the left hip, were not included in the sale, and that this increase, known to number nearly 400 head, have since been sold by him to a man named Randall, who has lately been working for one dollar a day.   

            The value of these cattle is about $12,000 and 450 remaining cattle which the Reynolds’ hold have cost them $30,000.  It appears that the diamond brand was omitted from the bill of sale given by Smith, but the such omission was a clerical error the Reynolds’ expect to prove.  Farther than this, they threaten Smith with a suit for obtaining money under false pretenses.” 

Reynolds made a legal announcement in the next months issue of the FLUME that the diamond brand was his and that no sale of any cattle branded as such should be sold except through him.  So went the clarification on that issue.