Kirjahaku

The American cowboy emerges from these pages as a recognizable human being with little resemblance to the picturesque inventions of the horse opera. Ramon F. Adams, a highly respected authority on the old West, talks straight about what the cowhand really did and thought. His cow-punching, broncobusting, trail driving; his rodeo riding, poker playing, socializing; his horse, guns, rope, clothing, sleeping bag; his eating and drinking habits; his attitude toward God, women, bosses; his unwritten code of conduct—everything about this vanished breed is told with absorbing authenticity, in the rich and varied lingo of the range.

Come an' Get It was the most familiar and welcome call on the range era of the great trail drives following the Civil War. In this entertaining volume, Ramon F. Adams, author of the popular Western Words, tell the story of the old cowboy cooks, and the result is another highly original contribution to the folklore of the cattle country.Although the cowboy cleared the Southwestern frontier of savage Indians and opened the land for settlement, the cook and his commissary contributed greatly to the success of the operation; for as an army depends upon its mess-kitchens, so the cowboys depended upon the chuck wagon. Without it, there would have been to trail drives to rescue Texas from bankruptcy following the Civil War, no roundups to speed the development of the cattle industry, and no beef for the heavily populated areas of the United States.The author records the place and influence of the range cook upon Western life. He discusses the functions of ""coosie,"" the food he served, and his methods of preparing it-giving recipes for sourdough biscuits, fluff-duffs, son-of-a-bitch stew, and other distinctive dishes of the range. He describes, too, ""the wagon,"" its evolution, and its place in the hearts of the men who called it home.Although there remain a few chuck wagons on the larger ranches today, they have become so scarce that one is rarely seen except in a museum or a rodeo parade, and the younger generation of cooks, like the cowboys themselves has been tamed.Every cook was a ""character,"" perhaps with reason, for no man ever worked under greater difficulties or with fewer conveniences. Anecdotes and incidents which illuminate the idiosyncrasies of these ""Sultans of the Skillets"" are recounted with gusto.Nick Eggenhofer's drawings help Mr. Adams bring the cook and his accoutrement vividly to life.

This immense book, by a noted bibliographer of the West, is beyond question the fairest, most complete and most learned evaluation of printed references to western outlaws to appear until now....It will stand for many years, solid as a rock amid the flooding maelstrom of western myth and legend, pointing up the truth about those men of the past who lived by their wits and their guns. It will be impossible for anyone studying that era and such men to do so without reference to this volume."" - Los Angeles Times""Adams turns again to the books and histories of the western gunmen and outlaws and critically examines 425 titles, most of which rate as 'burs' under his saddle. Ramon Adams' plea is that the writers must stop compounding each other's errors into legend. In this book, with great skill and without malice, he has pointed out past mistakes. His book should be in the essential baggage of every writer on western outlaws and on every library shelf."" - American West""The value of this book to writers and historians of the badman tradition cannot be overestimated, for Adams has replaced rumors, myths, and falsehoods with documented historical facts. It is a book for all conscientious students of and writers on the American West; henceforth, any writer of 'authentic Western history' who refuses to check with Adams should be, as the judge said to Billy the Kid in one legend, 'hanged by the neck until dead, dead, dead.'"" - Southwest Review

One of the last Old-time cowboys here tells his own story: his boyhood in Texas, wandering from ranch to ranch in the Southwest, the trek to Montana with a trail herd, and his life thereafter among the people and ranches of the area. His account is full of anecdotes, humorous or tragic, which themselves illuminate facets of a way of life that is no more.Bob Kennon knew the Ketchums, Kid Curry, and Western artist Charles M. Russell, who was his friend, as well as many prominent ranchmen of his day.""Perhaps I am the last living rider of those boys who, in 1896, came up that long trail to Montana from what was then the largest ranch in the world, the Terrazas Ranch in Old Mexico,"" he begins. And he goes on to tell just what the cowboy business was really like not only on the trail and the range, but in the wild, infrequent visits to town, encounters with camp cooks and titled Englishmen, rodeo performances, and all that belongs to the cowboy's existence. The smell of the bunkhouse and the atmosphere of the range pervade every page.