Cattle Brands: A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories

by Andy Adams

Here is a collection of gripping cowboy stories - written by a real-life cowboy. From the touching and elegiac "Around the Spade Wagon," a tale of two friends reminiscing over a campfire, to the thrilling kidnap by bandits of "The Ransom of Don Ramon Mora," to the slice-of-life account of a wolf hunt in "A Winter Round-up," the tales of Cattle Brands are steeped in the sights, smells and sounds of the old West. Adams knew his subject well, having spent a decade on the cattle trails of Texas and beyond in the 1890s. With fourteen short stories in all, Cattle Brands is a treat for all lovers of Western fiction.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction

338 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1906

About the author

Andy Adams (1859–1935) was born to pioneer parents in Indiana, worked in Texas for ten years driving cattle, and settled in Colorado Springs, where he began writing his "real" stories of cowboys in the West.

While still in his teens, Adams ran away from home. He eventually made his way to Texas, where he found work as a cowboy. From 1882 to 1893, Adams witnessed firsthand the golden era of the Texas cattle industry, a time when the cowboys ran cattle on vast open ranges still relatively unrestricted by barbed wire fences. In 1883, he made the first of many cattle drives along the famous cattle trails running north from Texas to the cow towns of Kansas. As farmers began to challenge the ranchers for control of the land, Adams witnessed the gradual fencing-in of the cattle country that would eventually end the short age of the open range. He made his last cattle drive in 1889.

In 1893, Adams left Texas for Colorado, attracted by rumors of gold at Cripple Creek. Like most would-be miners, he failed to make a fortune in the business. He eventually settled in Colorado Springs, where he remained for most of his life. While doing on a variety of jobs, Adams began to write stories based on his experiences as a Texas cowboy. In 1903, he found a publisher for his novel The Log of a Cowboy, a thinly disguised autobiography of his life on the plains. A fascinated public welcomed tales from the former cowboy, and Adams wrote and published four similar volumes in less than four years.

Adams distinguished himself from the majority of other western authors of the day with his meticulous accuracy and fidelity to the truth. As its name implied, The Log of a Cowboy was a day-by-day account of a cattle drive Adams had made from Texas to Montana. The book had little plot beyond the progress of the cattle herd toward Montana, and had none of the romantic excitement offered by less literal chroniclers of the West. Adams' self-avowed goal was to make his fiction indistinguishable from fact, and as one commentator has noted, "in this he succeeds only too well."

While a reader searching for a good story might find Adams' books somewhat dull today, historians and writers looking for an accurate depiction of the cowboy life have found them invaluable. Beyond his five best-known books, Adams also wrote two popular novels for juveniles later in his career. When he died in Colorado Springs in 1935, he left a number of unpublished manuscripts of novels, stories, and plays that historians of the Old West have also found useful.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this Project Gutenberg edition on my Sony Reader. Now THIS is a book about cowboys that reads like it might have actually happened. Although it's fiction, the stories in this book sound like they might have been told by old hands around a campfire on roundup. Not much, if any, gunplay. Just hard-working people talking about amusing or unusual events they'd been part of , and the folks they'd encountered.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

While these stories are not your typical fantasised western drama, they provide a more realistic look at the life of lawmen and outlaws in the old west. Once I started reading them, they drew me in. I highly recommend you try this book.

[mzbeastle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Want a collection of cowboy yarns so realistic sounding that you can smell the Arbuckles and feel the chill of the Western night? Here it is...so easy to imagine sitting around the campfire with a group of hard-working cowboys, listening to tales so intriguing you might forget your cares and woes for an hour or two...and later trying to decide if one tale was "taller" than the other! I loved this book. To me, it is unique-not a history, not dry and delivered as a classroom lecture but rich with the style of the story teller. More fun than Ma Pettingill of Red Gap, which is also one of my favorites.

[Geoff Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly enjoyable, occasionally savage, hokey as hell.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many stories within stories being told around a campfire.

[Jim Lander · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the book was great. I have a proclivity for the western genre. This was great and came from a man well acquainted with life on a cattle drive. The story covers a drive which began in Texas on the Mexican border and went to the Blackfeet Indian Tribe in Montana. A great read. I read it aloud to my wife. She liked it as well.

[Judi Hahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Catle's role in the history of the west

This author lacks the drama and mystery of Louis Lamor but gives anexcellent understanding and feel
of ranching and cattle drives in the late 1800's.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found these stories to be boring.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Locations/Settings: [Chisholm Trail in Texas to Dodge City, Kansas; Arizona; Texas; Mexico; Colorado; Oklahoma; Yellowstone, Wyoming; New Mexico; Montana]