You are missing the point.
This guy didn’t just “steal a few cows.”
He was a serial offender, multiple instances. It was a three-strikes-you’re-out situation.
This guy is, in simple terms, a bad man. He needed to be locked up for good.
Wonder why it took so long to catch him. Did he just get a slap on the wrist for the first two swindles? That ought to have earned him and his fingerprint a good blacklisting as well as any criminal penalties.
In the old days, if you wanted to steal cows, you didn’t write a rubber check to a rancher. You physically herded the contraband away under cover of darkness. Even cattle thieves have gone soft.