Son Of The Old West

An epic narrative of the Old West told through the vivid, outsized life of cowboy, detective, and chronicler Charlie Siringo No figure in the Old West lived or shaped its history more fully than Charlie Siringo, as Nathan Ward reveals in his colorful portrait of this epic era and one of its primary protagonists. Born in Matagorda, Texas in 1855, Charlie went on his first cattle drive at age twelve and spent two decades living his boyhood dream as a cowboy. As the dangerous, lucrative “beeves” business boomed, Siringo drove longhorn steers north to the burgeoning Midwest Plains states’ cattle and railroad towns, inevitably crossing paths with such legendary figures as Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, and Shanghai Pierce. In his early thirties he joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s Denver office, using a variety of aliases to investigate violent labor disputes and infiltrate outlaw gangs such as Butch Cassidy’s train robbing Wild Bunch. As brave as he was clever, he was often saved by his cowboy training as he traveled to places the law had not yet reached. Siringo’s bestselling, landmark 1885 autobiography, A Texas Cowboy, helped make the lowly cowboy a heroic symbol of the American West. His later memoir, A Cowboy Detective, influenced early hard-boiled crime novelists for whom the detective story was really the cowboy story in an urban setting. Sadly sued into debt by the Pinkertons determined to prevent their sources and methods from being revealed, Siringo eventually sold his beloved New Mexico ranch and moved to Los Angeles, where he advised Hollywood filmmakers, and especially actor William S. Hart, on their early 1920s Westerns, watching the frontier history he had known first-hand turned into romantic legend on the screen. In old age, Charlie Siringo was called “Ulysses of the Wild West” for the long journey he took across the western frontier. Son of the Old West brings him and his legendary world vividly to life.

Dramatic story of shoulder arms, hand guns, and other weapons also describes the men who used them. Detailed descriptions and illustrations of the Kentucky and Sharps rifle, Colt revolver, and much more. 499 black-and-white illustrations.

The Western Novel MEGAPACKTM series returns with its fifth rip-roaring installment! Here are four more great western novels: MANHUNT WEST, by Walker A. Tompkins ... Fleeing a posse, Cleve Logan boards a riverboat loaded with outlaws. Hands are dealt in a desperate game -- and Death will take the last trick! THE RENEGADE HILLS, by Allan K. Echols ... Saddle up -- and ride hell-bent-for-leather down the trail to a hidden valley -- but keep your guns loose in your holsters, 'cause you're riding to an outlaw showdown in the Renegade Hills! LAST-CHANCE RANGE, by Dean Owen ... Byrd Elkhart called the Territory his private range. He strung his barbed wire across forty miles of it, and the other ranchers just stood by with their tails between their legs. But then a different breed of man showed up in the person of Clay Janner, of Texas -- and he was going to drive his scrawny herd over the range even if he had to turn the whole Territory into a six-gun shambles! POWDER SMOKE, by Jackson Gregory ... "Double pay," Bart Warbuck told his gunmen, "and give hundred more to the one who gets Jeff Cody!" -- It was as simple as that if you were Warbuck, had 30 killers on your payroll, and made the law whatever you wanted it to be. But it was hard to take if you were young Cody, and if the only gun you could rely on was the one in your belt. And if you alone could stop Bart Warbuck! If you enjoy this volume of classic Westerns, don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 220+ other entries in this series, including not just historical fiction, but mysteries, adventure, science fiction, fantasy, horror -- and much, much more!

The story of the American West is that of a journey. It is the story of a movement, of a geographical and human transition, of the delineation of a route that would soon become a rooted myth. The story of the American West has similarly journeyed across boundaries, in a two-way movement, sometimes feeding the idea of that myth, sometimes challenging it. This collection of essays relates to the notion of the traveling essence of the myth of the American West from different geographical and disciplinary standpoints. The volume originates in Europe, in Spain, where the myth traveled, was received, assimilated, and re-presented. It intends to travel back to the West, in a two-way cross-cultural journey, which will hopefully contribute to the delineation of the New—always self-renewing—American West. It includes the work of authors of both sides of the Atlantic ocean who propose a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary dialogue upon the idea, the geography and the representation of the American West.

For many years, movie audiences have carried on a love affair with the American West, believing Westerns are escapist entertainment of the best kind, harkening back to the days of the frontier. This work compares the reality of the Old West to its portrayal in movies, taking an historical approach to its consideration of the cowboys, Indians, gunmen, lawmen and others who populated the Old West in real life and on the silver screen. Starting with the Westerns of the early 1900s, it follows the evolution in look, style, and content as the films matured from short vignettes of good-versus-bad into modern plots.

Things that go bump in the night, disembodied voices, footsteps in an empty stairwell, an icy hand on your shoulder ... let your imagination run wild as you read about the Old West's most extraordinary apparitions, sinister spooks, and bizarre beasts. You may know of the famous and well-documented Alamo, but perhaps you haven't heard about: The Mamie R. Mine, plagued by Tommyknockers who beckon miners into danger by mimicking the screams of children; The Mizpah Hotel, where a murdered seductress whispers in the ears of male patrons and leaves pearls to those she visits; and Yuma Territorial Prison, one of the most inhospitable prisons in US history where over a hundred inmates had perished—some by their own hand.

Bertha Muzzy Bower (1871-1940) was an American author who wrote novels and short stories about the American Old West. She is best known for her first novel "Chip of the Flying U" about Flying U Ranch and the "Happy Family" of cowboys who lived there. The novel rocketed Bower to fame, and she wrote an entire series of novels set at the Flying U Ranch. Several of Bower's novels were turned into films. Content: Flying U Series Chip of the Flying U The Flying U Ranch The Flying U's Last Stand The Phantom Herd The Heritage of the Sioux The Happy Family Ananias Green Blink Miss Martin's Mission Happy Jack, Wild Man A Tamer of Wild Ones Andy, the Liar "Wolf! Wolf!" Fool's Gold Lords of the Pots and Pans The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories The Lonesome Trail First Aid to Cupid When the Cook Fell Ill The Lamb The Spirit of the Range The Reveler The Unheavenly Twins Other Novels The Range Dwellers The Lure of the Dim Trails Her Prairie Knight Rowdy of the "Cross L" The Long Shadow Good Indian Lonesome Land The Gringos The Uphill Climb The Ranch at the Wolverine Jean of the Lazy 'A' The Lookout Man Starr of the Desert Cabin Fever Skyrider The Thunder Bird Rim O' the World The Quirt (Sawtooth Ranch) Cow Country Casey Ryan The Trail of the White Mule

Until the early twentieth century, life in the American West could be rough and sometimes vicious. Those who brought thieves and murderers to justice at times had to employ tactics as ruthless as their prey. In this follow-up to his first collection of biographies of the West’s most recognized man-hunters, noted western historian Robert K. DeArment recounts the remarkable careers of eight men—Pat Garrett, John Hughes, Harry Love, Harry Morse, Frank Norfleet, Bass Reeves, Granville Stuart, and Tom Tobin—who pursued notorious criminals. Volume 2 of Man-Hunters of the Old West shows that limited resources and dire conditions often made extralegal violence necessary for survival. Harry Love, the famous killer of California bandito Joaquin Murrieta, and Tom Tobin, who ended the murders of the Espinosa gang in Colorado, tracked their quarries to remote hideouts, shot them, and cut off their heads to prove they had been eliminated. Felon trackers, like the vigilante organizations that preceded them, on occasion administered summary justice—the on-the-spot hanging of their captured prey—especially if they believed the established court system was not working. Some of the man-hunters in DeArment’s accounts were freelance scouts and trackers; others were career officers of the law. At least one, Frank Norfleet, was a private citizen turned dedicated nemesis of con artists. Love, Stuart, and Morse began life as easterners who made their way West. All the others were midwesterners or far westerners. Some of these man-hunters wrote about their adventures, and were written about in turn. Garrett’s account of his hunt for Billy the Kid remains a best seller, for example, and both Reeves and Hughes have been credited for inspiring the Lone Ranger of TV and movie fame. DeArment discusses constant threats to the man-hunters’ survival, the federal government’s undependable presence, and extralegal violence as major themes in western law enforcement. In recounting these eight men’s adventures, this volume reveals the forces that made brutality seem commonplace.