Classic Short Story Collections: Westerms Series

Cattle Brands is a collection of 14 entertaining short stories depicting not only the life of cowboys in the wild, wild West, but also the harrowing skirmishes with banditos, thrilling shoot-outs, attempt at and the recapture of stolen chattel from fierce desperados, and much, much more exciting accounts that make one think it all actually happened.Excerpt: It was a wet, bad year on the Old Western Trail. From Red River north and all along was herd after herd waterbound by high water in the rivers. Our outfit lay over nearly a week on the South Canadian, but we were not alone, for there were five other herds waiting for the river to go down. This river had tumbled over her banks for several days, and the driftwood that was coming down would have made it dangerous swimming for cattle. We were expected to arrive in Dodge early in June, but when we reached the North Fork of the Canadian, we were two weeks behind time...Andy Adams (May 3, 1859 – September 26, 1936) was an American writer of western fiction.Andy Adams was born in Indiana. His parents were Andrew and Elizabeth (Elliott) Adams. As a boy he helped with the cattle and horses on the family farm. During the early 1880s he went to Texas, where he stayed for 10 years, spending much of that time driving cattle on the western trails. In 1890 he tried working as a businessman, but the venture failed, so he tried gold-mining in Colorado and Nevada. In 1894, he settled in Colorado Springs, where he lived until his death.He began writing at the age of 43, publishing his most successful book, The Log of a Cowboy, in 1903. His other works include A Texas Matchmaker (1904), The Outlet (1905), Cattle Brands (1906), Reed Anthony, Cowman: An Autobiography (1907), Wells Brothers (1911), and The Ranch on the Beaver (1927).The Log of a Cowboy is an account of a five-month drive of 3,000 cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to Montana during 1882 along the Great Western Cattle Trail. Although the book is fiction, it is based on Adams's own experiences, and it is considered by many to be literature's best account of cowboy life.[2] Adams was disgusted by the unrealistic cowboy fiction being published in his time; The Log of a Cowboy was his response. It is still in print, and even modern reviewers consider it compelling. The Chicago Herald said: "As a narrative of cowboy life, Andy Adams' book is clearly the real thing. It carries its own certificate of authentic first-hand experience on every page." (Wikipedia)

Excerpt: A man is very much like a horse. Once thoroughly frightened by something he meets on the road he will invariably shy at the same place afterwards until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to the spot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his own imagining; after which he will throw up his head and deny that he ever was afraid and be quite amusingly sincere in the denial.Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan, née Muzzy (November 15, 1871 – July 23, 1940), best known by her pseudonym B. M. Bower, was an American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West. Her works, featuring cowboys and cows of the Flying U Ranch in Montana, reflected "an interest in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as main characters (even in romantic plots), the occasional appearance of eastern types for the sake of contrast, a sense of western geography as simultaneously harsh and grand, and a good deal of factual attention to such matters as cattle branding and bronc busting." She was married three times: to Clayton Bower in 1890, to Bertrand William Sinclair (also a Western author) in 1905, and to Robert Elsworth Cowan in 1921. However, she chose to publish under the name Bower.

A collection of 19 short stories from the West.Several of the funniest and best stories by O. Henry appear in this book, which is made up of about twenty-five of his inimitable tales of Western life and types which have appeared at intervals in the magazines. These stories are the best of their kind since Bret Harte.William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, and his surprise endings, was an American short story writer. He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He changed the spelling of his middle name to Sydney in 1898. HEARTS AND CROSSES (excerpt)Baldy Woods reached for the bottle, and got it. Whenever Baldy went for anything he usually—but this is not Baldy's story. He poured out a third drink that was larger by a finger than the first and second. Baldy was in consultation; and the consultee is worthy of his hire."I'd be king if I was you," said Baldy, so positively that his holster creaked and his spurs rattled.Webb Yeager pushed back his flat-brimmed Stetson, and made further disorder in his straw-coloured hair. The tonsorial recourse being without avail, he followed the liquid example of the more resourceful Baldy."If a man marries a queen, it oughtn't to make him a two-spot," declared Webb, epitomising his grievances."Sure not," said Baldy, sympathetic, still thirsty, and genuinely solicitous concerning the relative value of the cards. "By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal. The cards have been stacked on you—I'll tell you what you are, Webb Yeager.""What?" asked Webb, with a hopeful look in his pale-blue eyes."You're a prince-consort.""Go easy," said Webb. "I never blackguarded you none.""It's a title," explained Baldy, "up among the picture-cards; but it don't take no tricks. I'll tell you, Webb. It's a brand they're got for certain animals in Europe. Say that you or me or one of them Dutch dukes marries in a royal family. Well, by and by our wife gets to be queen. Are we king? Not in a million years. At the coronation ceremonies we march between little casino and the Ninth Grand Custodian of the Royal Hall Bedchamber. The only use we are is to appear in photographs, and accept the responsibility for the heir- apparent. That ain't any square deal. Yes, sir, Webb, you're a prince- consort; and if I was you, I'd start a interregnum or a habeus corpus or somethin'; and I'd be king if I had to turn from the bottom of the deck."Baldy emptied his glass to the ratification of his Warwick pose."Baldy," said Webb, solemnly, "me and you punched cows in the same outfit for years. We been runnin' on the same range, and ridin' the same trails since we was boys. I wouldn't talk about my family affairs to nobody but you. You was line-rider on the Nopalito Ranch when I married Santa McAllister. I was foreman then; but what am I now? I don't amount to a knot in a stake rope."

A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West is a collection of short stories written by the American author Frank Norris. It was published posthumously in 1903 and composed primarily of recently published works.I. The first of the five sections of the story, entitled "The Bear- Wheat at Sixty-Two", takes place in rural Kansas. Sam Lewiston leaves his wife, Emma, home on the ranch while he goes into town one last time to try to sell his wheat to Bridges & Co., Grain Dealers before being forced out of the market. At sixty-two cents a bushel, Lewiston can no longer afford to raise wheat and must take a job with his wife’s brother in Chicago.II. The next section, "The Bull- Wheat at a Dollar-Ten", introduces the two main players of the Chicago-run wheat business, the bear and the bull: Treslow and Hornung. When Treslow had let the price fall to sixty-two cents, Hornung had almost run him out of business. Instead, Mr. Gates makes a deal with Treslow, on behalf of Hornung, to sell him one hundred thousand bushels for export at $1.10 each.III. Hornung has grown to dominate wheat sales at $1.50 a bushel. One day in "The Pit", a mysterious man named Kennedy sells one thousand bushels to three of Hornung’s men: Going, Kimbark, and Merriam. They get word that a total of twenty-five thousand bushels are being sold in Chicago by someone other than Hornung. Hornung instructs them to continue buying but, with The Bear supposedly out of the market, they do not know who they are buying from.IV. The fourth section, "The Belt Line", takes place in Hornung’s home. His broker, Billy, and a detective named Cyrus Ryder are there to discuss the now eighty thousand bushels he has purchased. Ryder reveals that the bushels are the same ones that Treslow had purchased to export. He had been shuttling them around the city on trains, making it appear as if they had just arrived. Hornung laughs upon finding out he has been cheated, and decides to further raise the price.V. The final section of the story, "The Bread Line", describes Sam Lewiston’s life in Chicago. He stands in the bread line with many other poor, hungry workers who rely on the bakery’s nightly giveaways, but the price of wheat has put too much of a strain on the bakery. Lewiston manages to find work as a street cleaner and climb the rankings to success but, because of his experiences as a farmer and a worker, his resentment towards the operators of the wheat business will not die.Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American journalist and sometime novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre.[1][2][3][4][5] His notable works include McTeague (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901), and The PitNorris's short story "A Deal in Wheat" (1903) and the novel The Pit were the basis for the 1909 D.W. Griffith film A Corner in Wheat.

A collection of Western short stories by Owen Wister. THE JIMMYJOHN BOSS (excerpt)One day at Nampa, which is in Idaho, a ruddy old massive jovial man stood by the Silver City stage, patting his beard with his left hand, and with his right the shoulder of a boy who stood beside him. He had come with the boy on the branch train from Boise, because he was a careful German and liked to say everything twice—twice at least when it was a matter of business. This was a matter of very particular business, and the German had repeated himself for nineteen miles. Presently the east-bound on the main line would arrive from Portland; then the Silver City stage would take the boy south on his new mission, and the man would journey by the branch train back to Boise. From Boise no one could say where he might not go, west or east. He was a great and pervasive cattle man in Oregon, California, and other places. Vogel and Lex—even to-day you may hear the two ranch partners spoken of. So the veteran Vogel was now once more going over his notions and commands to his youthful deputy during the last precious minutes until the east-bound should arrive.“Und if only you haf someding like dis,” said the old man, as he tapped his beard and patted the boy, “it would be five hoondert more dollars salary in your liddle pants.”The boy winked up at his employer. He had a gray, humorous eye; he was slim and alert, like a sparrow-hawk—the sort of boy his father openly rejoices in and his mother is secretly in prayer over. Only, this boy had neither father nor mother. Since the age of twelve he had looked out for himself, never quite without bread, sometimes attaining champagne, getting along in his American way variously, on horse or afoot, across regions of wide plains and mountains, through towns where not a soul knew his name. He closed one of his gray eyes at his employer, and beyond this made no remark.“Vat you mean by dat vink, anyhow?” demanded the elder.“Say,” said the boy, confidentially—“honest now. How about you and me? Five hundred dollars if I had your beard. You’ve got a record and I’ve got a future. And my bloom’s on me rich, without a scratch. How many dollars you gif me for dat bloom?” The sparrow-hawk sailed into a freakish imitation of his master...Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer, historian and "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. He began his literary work in 1891. Wister had spent several summers out in the American West, making his first trip to Wyoming in 1885. Like his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Wister was fascinated with the culture, lore and terrain of the region. On an 1893 visit to Yellowstone, Wister met the western artist Frederic Remington; who remained a lifelong friend. When he started writing, he naturally inclined towards fiction set on the western frontier. Wister's most famous work remains the 1902 novel The Virginian, the loosely constructed story of a cowboy who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War and taking the side of the large land owners. This is widely regarded as being the first cowboy novel and was reprinted fourteen times in eight months. The book was written in the library of The Philadelphia Club, where Wister was a member, and is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.In 1904 Wister collaborated with Kirke La Shelle on a successful stage adaptation of The Virginian that featured Dustin Farnum in the title role.Farnum reprised the role ten years later in Cecil B. DeMille's film adaptation of the play.He was a member of several literary societies and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University.