Books with title A Texas Cowboy: Or, Fifteen Years on The Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Boy

When legendary Charlie Siringo wrote this classic work, he was only thirty years old and had already spent half that life as a cowboy. With enduring wit, he tells the tale of long cattle drives, small-town beauties, meetings with Billy the Kid, and growing up on the Texas frontier.In plain language you'll read what it was like to live on the "hurricane deck of a Spanish pony" for months on end, earning enough to head into town and have a good time. Chris-crossing the Lone Star state, he lived a vanishing way of life. After only a few years of setting down, he was back in the saddle as a Pinkerton detective, a career he tells in later books.Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the westward expansion that changed the country forever.For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

Charles A. Siringo's dramatic and action-packed memoirs about life in the old American West are published here in full. As well as for his time as a lawman, Siringo was famous for epitomizing the spirit of adventure and free roaming that characterized North America during the 19th century. Born and raised on the Western frontier, it was through his years in the West that Siringo learned the rural life of a cowboy. By the time he published this autobiography in 1885 at the age of thirty, Siringo was an ambitious and confident fellow - "money, and lots of it", he declares, is the prime reason he wrote his memoirs. The book begins with Charles Siringo's account of his early life, as the son of immigrants; his father an Italian and his mother Irish. We follow his early life in and around Dodge City, learning the ways of the cattle hand and witnessing a few remarkable sights along the way. Eventually, Siringo sets up shop as a merchant, where he found the time to author this memoir. Perhaps the most vivid highlight among these recollections regards Billy the Kid, one of the most notorious outlaws to ever emerge in the West. Something of a nemesis for the law-abiding Siringo, the pursuit of Billy occupies several chapters of this book. In 1886, the year after this autobiography appeared, Siringo would enroll in the Pinkertons: bored with cowboy life, it was as a detective working undercover that his abilities were truly realized.

When legendary Charlie Siringo wrote this classic work, he was only 30 years old and had already spent half that life as a cowboy. With enduring wit, he tells the tale of long cattle drives, small-town beauties, meetings with Billy the Kid, and growing up on the Texas frontier. In plain language you'll hear what it was like to live on the "hurricane deck of a Spanish pony" for months on end, earning enough to head into town and have a good time. Crisscrossing the Lone Star State, he lived a vanishing way of life. After only a few years of setting down, he was back in the saddle as a Pinkerton detective, a career he tells of in later books.

When legendary Charlie Siringo wrote this classic work, he was only thirty years old and had already spent half that life as a cowboy. With enduring wit, he tells the tale of long cattle drives, small-town beauties, meetings with Billy the Kid, and growing up on the Texas frontier. In plain language you'll read what it was like to live on the "hurricane deck of a Spanish pony" for months on end, earning enough to head into town and have a good time. Chris-crossing the Lone Star state, he lived a vanishing way of life. After only a few years of setting down, he was back in the saddle as a Pinkerton detective, a career he tells in later books. Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the westward expansion that changed the country forever. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce, and began a life that embraced all the hard work, excitement, and adventure readers today associate with the cowboy era. He rid the Chisholm trail, driving 2,500 heads of cattle from Austin to Kansas; knew Tascosa-now a historic monument-when it was home to raucous saloons, red light districts, and a fair share of violence; and led a posse of cowboys in pursuit of Billy the Kid and his gang.First published in 1885, Siringo's chronicle of his life as a itchy-footed boy, cowhand, range detective, and adventurer was one the first classics about the Old West and helped to romanticize the West and its myth of the American cowboy. Will Rogers declared, That was the Cowboy's Bible when I was growing up.

After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce, and began a life that embraced all the hard work, excitement, and adventure readers today associate with the cowboy era. He "rid the Chisholm trail," driving 2,500 heads of cattle from Austin to Kansas; knew Tascosa—now a historic monument—when it was home to raucous saloons, red light districts, and a fair share of violence; and led a posse of cowboys in pursuit of Billy the Kid and his gang.First published in 1885, Siringo's chronicle of his life as a itchy-footed boy, cowhand, range detective, and adventurer was one the first classics about the Old West and helped to romanticize the West and its myth of the American cowboy. Will Rogers declared, "That was the Cowboy's Bible when I was growing up."For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

After a nomadic childhood, Charles Siringo signed on as a teenage cowboy for the noted Texas cattle king, Shanghai Pierce, and began a life that embraced all the hard work, excitement, and adventure readers today associate with the cowboy era. He rid the Chisholm trail, driving 2,500 heads of cattle from Austin to Kansas; knew Tascosa-now a historic monument-when it was home to raucous saloons, red light districts, and a fair share of violence; and led a posse of cowboys in pursuit of Billy the Kid and his gang.First published in 1885, Siringo's chronicle of his life as a itchy-footed boy, cowhand, range detective, and adventurer was one the first classics about the Old West and helped to romanticize the West and its myth of the American cowboy. Will Rogers declared, That was the Cowboy's Bible when I was growing up.

Charles A. Siringo was truly a Texas original not only in that his life was singular in its variety—youthful survivor, working cowboy, Pinkerton detective, early movie extra. He also was an original among Texas cowboys in providing a personal narrative of the actual experience of the uniquely American hero, the cowboy. A TEXAS COWBOY, OR, FIFTEEN YEARS ON THE HURRICANE DECK OF A SPANISH PONY, takes us through his journey as a fatherless child, the primary provider for his mother and older sister. Beginning on the Texas coast, detouring through Mississippi river towns and back to Texas, he eventually settles into the life of the working cowboy. An encounter with the famous outlaw Billy the Kid and his pursuer Pat Garrett is only one of the colorful experiences that shapes his life and makes his narrative so impelling.

A Texas Cowboy; Or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony CHAPTER I. MY BOYHOOD DAYS. It was a bright morning, on the 7th day of February 1856, as near as I can remember, that your humble Servant came prancing into this wide and wicked world. By glancing over the map you will find his birthplace, at the extreme southern part of the Lone Star State, on the Peninsula of Matagorda, a narrow strip of land bordered by the Gulf of Mexico on the south and Matagorda Bay on the north. This Peninsula is from one to two miles wide and seventy five miles long. It connects the mainland at Caney and comes to a focus at Deskrows Point or "Salura Pass." About midway between the two was situated the "Dutch Settlement," and in the centre of that Settlement, which contained only a dozen houses, stood the little frame cottage that first gave me shelter. My father who died when I was only a year old, came from the sunny clime of Italy, while my dear old mother drifted from the Boggs of good "ould" Ireland. Am I not a queer conglomerate--a sweet-scented mixture indeed! Our nearest neighbor was a kind old soul by the name of John Williams, whose family consisted of his wife and eleven children. In the fall of 1859 I took my first lessons in school, my teacher being a Mr. Hale from Illinois. The school house, a little old frame building, stood off by itself, about a mile from the Settlement, and we little tow-heads, sister and I, had to hoof it up there every morning, through the grassburrs, barefooted; our little sunbrowned feet had never been incased in shoe-leather up to that time.