http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/modern-day_cattle_rustlers_hit.htmlJORDAN VALLEY -- They were spotted from a small airplane, two cattle rustlers on horseback hazing 125 white-faced cows across Malheur County's forbidding "empty quarter" in Oregon's far southeast corner.
The men, sighted last spring, were pushing the stolen herd south through a high-desert tapestry of chaparral, manzanita, juniper and sagebrush. They looked like ordinary cowboys.
The pilot descended for a closer view, but the men didn't look up, said brand inspector Rodger Huffman of the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The pilot finally had to break away, and the Malheur County Sheriff's Office didn't hear about the sighting until a week later.
'ION Country'
has reckless, dangerous past
In the 19th century, Oregon�s southeast corner was part of �ION country � � where Idaho, Oregon and Nevada meet � and some say it was among the most dangerous regions of the Old West.
Its gold and silver mines helped bankroll the Union during the Civil War, and gunbattles erupted inside mines over ownership of ore veins. Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock warriors fought to defend territory and their way of life.
As late as 1900, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rode through the Jordan Valley after a bank holdup in Winnemucca, Nev. Two decades later, so much bootlegged whiskey was produced that Jordan Valley was known as the �moonshine capital of eastern Oregon.�
Now, area ranches can be 60 miles long, and ranching families sometimes drive two hours to reach a paved road. Wild horses roam terrain shaped by canyons, arroyos and mountains with such names as Hoodoo Butte, Defeat Butte and Horse Hill. Stagecoach ruts are still visible in the desert.
Rand Collins, a Malheur County rancher who lost 150 cattle to thieves three years ago, says 19th-century Oregon ranchers sometimes rode into Nevada and Idaho to steal cows, swimming them back across the Owyhee River. Out-of-state ranchers retaliated by stealing Oregon cows.
�There were several cowboys drowned in the river and all kinds of stories,� he said. �But it�s not a game anymore.�
-- Richard Cockle It was one of the few glimpses anyone has caught of men suspected of stealing 1,240 cattle worth $1.2 million over the past three years from Malheur County ranches. Hundreds more cows have been taken in bordering counties in Idaho and Nevada.
Cattle rustling did not fade away with the Old West. What makes these thieves unusual, investigators said, is the scale and duration of their operations, their use of horses to reach areas inaccessible to car or truck, and the fact that they sometimes drive their plundered herds for days, carefully sweeping around ranches and people.
Ranchers are circulating wanted posters offering a $47,500 reward for information that leads to a conviction. Some are also spending spare time on horseback, ATVs and in pickups and airplanes trying to hunt the rustlers down, Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe said.
Malheur County sheriff's Deputy Bob Wroten and others suspect the thefts are the work of one group of four to six men who are well-acquainted with the territory.
"The way these cattle are ending up missing, those guys grew up tough," he said. "They lived the life all their lives. They aren't outsiders."
The losses have been devastating. Most of the stolen cattle were females that each year produce calves worth $600 apiece.
About 20 Oregon ranches have been hit, with a dozen taking the brunt of losses, Huffman said. In Humboldt County in Nevada at least 500 cattle are missing, and still more have been stolen in Owyhee County in Idaho.
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