186 FIERRO AND VENT A. 



prairies, are also successfully attacked in this 

 manner. 



The laws arid customs of the country with 

 regard to the ownersliip of animals are very 

 annoying to the inexperienced foreign travel- 

 ler. No matter how many proprietors a horse 

 or mule may have had, every one marks liirn 

 with a huge hieroglyphic brand, which is call- 

 ed the Jierro, and again, upon selUiig him, 

 with his veiita, or sale-brand; until at last 

 these scars become so multipUed as to render 

 it impossible for persons not versed in this 

 species of 'heraldry,' to determine Avhether 

 the animal has been properly vented or not ; 

 yet any Jierro without its corresponding venta 

 lays the beast hable to the claim of the brand- 

 er. Foreigners are the most frequently sub- 

 jected to this kind of imposition ; and when a 

 party of estrangeros enters any of the southern 

 towns, they are immediately surrounded by a 

 troop of loungers, who carefully examine eve- 

 ry horse and mule; when, should they by 

 chance discover any unvented brand, they im- 

 mediately set to work to find some one with 

 a branding-iron of the same shape, by which 

 the beast is at once claimed and taken ; for in 

 all legal processes the only proof required of the 

 claimant is his Jierro, or branding-iron, which, 

 if found to assimilate in shape with the mark 

 on the animal, decides the suit in his favor. 

 A colonel in Chihuahua once claimed a mule 

 of me in this manner, but as I was convinced 

 that I had bought it of the lemtimate owner, 



I 



The officer 



