Rocks and Pine Stumps

We grew wheat and oats for many years and while I was not in sheep camp, one of my main jobs from 7-16 years old was to keep the granter's cattle off the crops and remove all the rocks and pine stumps from the fields. When we finally finished the fence to keep the cattle out, Bill placed Emitt and Joe Morrow behind a couple of the many piles of pine stumps with rifles while Bill & I herded the cattle off our pastures. We were confronted by over a dozen armed granters, led by Jose Maria Martinez. Bill grabbed Jose Maria by the collar and jerked him up on his horse with his back on the saddle horn. He loudly explained in spanish, so all could hear that there were men with rifles behind many of the piles of stumps and that if anyone shot Bill, all of the dozen or so granters would be killed. We then proceeded to push all of the tresspasser's cattle out and not a shot was fired!
Many other incidents like this happened but the logging and incident and moving the cattle off remain most printable in my mind.
Also the threatening phone calls which Ethel constantly received, kept us on our guard. Bill put a dozer blade under the dining room window so we would have some protection if we needed to have a gun battle to protect us and the home we built to replace the one that the granters burnt along with 6 others after Bill won the first quiet title suit in the 500,000 acre Tierra Amarilla Land Grant in 1960.
Almost every fence that Bill had built was cut, 12 registered Hereford cows were poisoned with strychnine grain, many horses were gut shot and one of our barns full of hay was burned. Bill never considered giving up. Ethyl was one of the toughest ranch wives imaginable and fed hundreds of Bill's friends, hired hands many of who lived with us and she did their laundry as well.

Jim