| OCR Text |
Show Page 43 large cattle companies, which at that time had little luck opposing rustlers. Most townspeople, small ranchers and homesteaders disliked large cattle companies, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for no reason at all. Since the cattle barons were outnumbered by these people, juries were often biased against them. Many times the companies would gather evidence and haul a suspected rustler to court, only to see him set free. And no one in Brown's Park disliked the large cattle companies more than Ann Bassett. Ann believed these "bloated Behemoths of the cattle industry" wanted to take over the range in Brown's Park. Although the range was public land, open to all, Ann objected to the companies using the range. The big cattlemen were sometimes careless of the rights of others. On the Yampa River south of Brown's Park, they had turned so many cattle out on the range they ground the countryside to powder. Ann had no intention of seeing this happen in her beloved Brown's Park. So she appointed herself caretaker of the land open to public grazing. It was a decision which would get her into much difficulty. Actually Ann was more concerned than she needed to be. Even she admitted the owners of some large outfits were human, "the live-and-let-live fellows." And while incidents such as that on the Yampa River did occur where cattle barons grazed their huge herds, often the small ranchers benefited, especially |
