A Stove-Up Cowboy's Story

JAMES EMMIT MCCAULEY

Publication: Texas Folklore Society, 1943, Austin

First edition. Limited to 700 copies. Yellow decorated cloth, xxii [2], 73 pp. Illustrated by Tom Lea. For 15 years Jim McCauley was a common cowhand. This is the unvarnished tale of this ordinary cowboy in the 1880s and 1890s. A reflective piece of a real-life cowboy, lawman, and writer of the Old West. In this story, an aging, physically broken ("stove-up") cowboy recounts his youthful days working on cattle drives and riding the open range. He remembers the hardships, camaraderie, and freedom of life on the trail, often romanticized but filled with danger and exhaustion. Now injured and unable to ride, he shares his story with a sense of pride but also underlying regret, aware that his way of life is disappearing with the rise of barbed wire, railroads, and modernization. Six Score 75 says, "One of the most forceful and expressive autobiographies of the range country. McCauley lived hard." Contains some information about some of the outlaws in Texas and Arizona. Fine bright copy in dust jacket with tiny mark to front wrapper. The book was designed by Carl Hertzog. J. Frank Dobie says he liked "the uncommon saltiness of speech."