Author: Ben E. Pingenot
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Few nineteenthcentury western figures had the wide range of experiences and acquaintances that Charles A. Siringo had. Stubborn and egotistical yet honest and freespirited, cowboy and private eye Charlie Siringo wrote several autobiographies that captured the interest of thousands of readers and contributed to the myth of the cowboylawman as an archetypal western hero. Charles Siringo was born on the Texas Gulf Coast in 1855. At an early age he became a cowboy, driving longhorn cattle up the Chisholm Trail. Shortly after writing his first autobiography, A Texas Cowboy, Siringo moved to Chicago, where he heard the bomb explosion that set off the Haymarket riot, and he witnessed its aftermath. The incident motivated him to join the worldfamous Pinkerton's detective agency, and for the next twentytwo years he tracked criminals, traveling throughout the West and to such faraway places as Alaska and Mexico City. Siringo eventually left the Pinkerton agency in 1907 and moved to Santa Fe to become a rancher, writer, and freelance detective. His second autobiography, originally entitled Pinkerton's Cowboy Detective, resulted in a lawsuit and launched a bitter conflict between Siringo and the agency. Ben Pingenot's biography of Siringo reveals him as a truly unique individual, but one with human imperfections. The result is the story of a man in the context of his times, of a man whose path crossed those of Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, Clarence Darrow, Charles M. Russell, Will Rogers, and others. It is a story of a character just as interesting as Siringo's writings made him appear, but far more complex than he knew, and more thoroughly human than any stiff mythical figure of Western lore.
Siringo
Author: Ben E. Pingenot
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Few nineteenthcentury western figures had the wide range of experiences and acquaintances that Charles A. Siringo had. Stubborn and egotistical yet honest and freespirited, cowboy and private eye Charlie Siringo wrote several autobiographies that captured the interest of thousands of readers and contributed to the myth of the cowboylawman as an archetypal western hero. Charles Siringo was born on the Texas Gulf Coast in 1855. At an early age he became a cowboy, driving longhorn cattle up the Chisholm Trail. Shortly after writing his first autobiography, A Texas Cowboy, Siringo moved to Chicago, where he heard the bomb explosion that set off the Haymarket riot, and he witnessed its aftermath. The incident motivated him to join the worldfamous Pinkerton's detective agency, and for the next twentytwo years he tracked criminals, traveling throughout the West and to such faraway places as Alaska and Mexico City. Siringo eventually left the Pinkerton agency in 1907 and moved to Santa Fe to become a rancher, writer, and freelance detective. His second autobiography, originally entitled Pinkerton's Cowboy Detective, resulted in a lawsuit and launched a bitter conflict between Siringo and the agency. Ben Pingenot's biography of Siringo reveals him as a truly unique individual, but one with human imperfections. The result is the story of a man in the context of his times, of a man whose path crossed those of Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, Clarence Darrow, Charles M. Russell, Will Rogers, and others. It is a story of a character just as interesting as Siringo's writings made him appear, but far more complex than he knew, and more thoroughly human than any stiff mythical figure of Western lore.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Few nineteenthcentury western figures had the wide range of experiences and acquaintances that Charles A. Siringo had. Stubborn and egotistical yet honest and freespirited, cowboy and private eye Charlie Siringo wrote several autobiographies that captured the interest of thousands of readers and contributed to the myth of the cowboylawman as an archetypal western hero. Charles Siringo was born on the Texas Gulf Coast in 1855. At an early age he became a cowboy, driving longhorn cattle up the Chisholm Trail. Shortly after writing his first autobiography, A Texas Cowboy, Siringo moved to Chicago, where he heard the bomb explosion that set off the Haymarket riot, and he witnessed its aftermath. The incident motivated him to join the worldfamous Pinkerton's detective agency, and for the next twentytwo years he tracked criminals, traveling throughout the West and to such faraway places as Alaska and Mexico City. Siringo eventually left the Pinkerton agency in 1907 and moved to Santa Fe to become a rancher, writer, and freelance detective. His second autobiography, originally entitled Pinkerton's Cowboy Detective, resulted in a lawsuit and launched a bitter conflict between Siringo and the agency. Ben Pingenot's biography of Siringo reveals him as a truly unique individual, but one with human imperfections. The result is the story of a man in the context of his times, of a man whose path crossed those of Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, Clarence Darrow, Charles M. Russell, Will Rogers, and others. It is a story of a character just as interesting as Siringo's writings made him appear, but far more complex than he knew, and more thoroughly human than any stiff mythical figure of Western lore.
A Texas Cow-boy
Author: Charles A Siringo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cowboys
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cowboys
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
A Cowboy Detective
Author: Charles A. Siringo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572
Book Description
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
Author: Leif Enger
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 1555848494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
“An almost perfect novel” of yearning, adventure, and redemption in the dying days of the Old West from the bestselling author of Peace Like a River (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Minnesota, 1915. With success long behind him, writer, husband, and father Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose . . . until he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale. Plagued by guilt over abandoning his wife two decades ago, Hale is heading back West in search of absolution. And he could use some company on the journey. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Becket agrees to travel into Hale’s past, leaving behind his own family for an adventure that will test the depth of his loyalties and morals, and the strength of his resolve. As they flee the relentless former Pinkerton Detective who’s been hunting Hale for years, Becket falls ever further into the life of an outlaw—perhaps to the point of no return. With its smooth mix of romanticism and gritty reality, So Brave, Young, and Handsome examines one ordinary man’s determination to risk everything in order to understand what it’s all worth, in “an old-fashioned, swashbuckling, heroic Western . . . [An] adventure of the heart and mind (The Washington Post Book World).
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 1555848494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
“An almost perfect novel” of yearning, adventure, and redemption in the dying days of the Old West from the bestselling author of Peace Like a River (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Minnesota, 1915. With success long behind him, writer, husband, and father Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose . . . until he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale. Plagued by guilt over abandoning his wife two decades ago, Hale is heading back West in search of absolution. And he could use some company on the journey. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Becket agrees to travel into Hale’s past, leaving behind his own family for an adventure that will test the depth of his loyalties and morals, and the strength of his resolve. As they flee the relentless former Pinkerton Detective who’s been hunting Hale for years, Becket falls ever further into the life of an outlaw—perhaps to the point of no return. With its smooth mix of romanticism and gritty reality, So Brave, Young, and Handsome examines one ordinary man’s determination to risk everything in order to understand what it’s all worth, in “an old-fashioned, swashbuckling, heroic Western . . . [An] adventure of the heart and mind (The Washington Post Book World).
Charlie Siringo's West
Author: Howard R. Lamar
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826336701
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Charlie Siringo (1855-1928) lived the quintessential life of adventure on the American frontier as a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, writer, and later as a consultant for early western films. Siringo was one of the most attractive, bold, and original characters to live and flourish in the final decades of the Wild West. His love of the cattle business and of cowboy life were so great that in 1885 he published A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken From Real Life, which Will Rogers dubbed the "Cowboy's Bible." Howard R. Lamar's biography deftly shares Siringo's story within seventy-five pivotal years of western history. Siringo was not a mere observer but a participant in major historical events including the Coeur d'Alene mining strikes of the 1890s and Big Bill Haywood's trial in 1907. Lamar focuses on Siringo's youthful struggles to employ his abundant athleticism and ambitions and how Siringo's varied experiences helped develop the compelling national myth of the cowboy.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826336701
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Charlie Siringo (1855-1928) lived the quintessential life of adventure on the American frontier as a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, writer, and later as a consultant for early western films. Siringo was one of the most attractive, bold, and original characters to live and flourish in the final decades of the Wild West. His love of the cattle business and of cowboy life were so great that in 1885 he published A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken From Real Life, which Will Rogers dubbed the "Cowboy's Bible." Howard R. Lamar's biography deftly shares Siringo's story within seventy-five pivotal years of western history. Siringo was not a mere observer but a participant in major historical events including the Coeur d'Alene mining strikes of the 1890s and Big Bill Haywood's trial in 1907. Lamar focuses on Siringo's youthful struggles to employ his abundant athleticism and ambitions and how Siringo's varied experiences helped develop the compelling national myth of the cowboy.
The Floor of Heaven
Author: Howard Blum
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307461734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Howard Blum expertly weaves together three narratives to tell the true story of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures--gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters, cowboys, and lawmen--are now victims of their own success. But then gold is discovered in Alaska and the adjacent Canadian Klondike and a new frontier suddenly looms: an immense unexplored territory filled with frozen waterways, dark spruce forests, and towering mountains capped by glistening layers of snow and ice. In a true-life tale that rivets from the first page, we meet Charlie Siringo, a top-hand sharp-shooting cowboy who becomes one of the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s shrewdest; George Carmack, a California-born American Marine who’s adopted by an Indian tribe, raises a family with a Taglish squaw, and makes the discovery that starts off the Yukon Gold Rush; and Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, a sly and inventive conman who rules a vast criminal empire. As we follow this trio’s lives, we’re led inexorably into a perplexing mystery: a fortune in gold bars has somehow been stolen from the fortress-like Treadwell Mine in Juneau, Alaska. Charlie Siringo discovers that to run the thieves to ground, he must embark on a rugged cross-territory odyssey that will lead him across frigid waters and through a frozen wilderness to face down "Soapy" Smith and his gang of 300 cutthroats. Hanging in the balance: George Carmack’s fortune in gold. At once a compelling true-life mystery and an unforgettable portrait of a time in America’s history, The Floor of Heaven is also an exhilarating tribute to the courage and undaunted spirit of the men and women who helped shape America.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307461734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Howard Blum expertly weaves together three narratives to tell the true story of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures--gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters, cowboys, and lawmen--are now victims of their own success. But then gold is discovered in Alaska and the adjacent Canadian Klondike and a new frontier suddenly looms: an immense unexplored territory filled with frozen waterways, dark spruce forests, and towering mountains capped by glistening layers of snow and ice. In a true-life tale that rivets from the first page, we meet Charlie Siringo, a top-hand sharp-shooting cowboy who becomes one of the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s shrewdest; George Carmack, a California-born American Marine who’s adopted by an Indian tribe, raises a family with a Taglish squaw, and makes the discovery that starts off the Yukon Gold Rush; and Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, a sly and inventive conman who rules a vast criminal empire. As we follow this trio’s lives, we’re led inexorably into a perplexing mystery: a fortune in gold bars has somehow been stolen from the fortress-like Treadwell Mine in Juneau, Alaska. Charlie Siringo discovers that to run the thieves to ground, he must embark on a rugged cross-territory odyssey that will lead him across frigid waters and through a frozen wilderness to face down "Soapy" Smith and his gang of 300 cutthroats. Hanging in the balance: George Carmack’s fortune in gold. At once a compelling true-life mystery and an unforgettable portrait of a time in America’s history, The Floor of Heaven is also an exhilarating tribute to the courage and undaunted spirit of the men and women who helped shape America.
Cherokee Outlet Cowboy
Author: Laban Samuel Records
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806128726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
At age fifteen, Laban Samuel Records (1856-1940), the youngest of twelve children, moved west with his family from Indiana to Kansas. About sixty-six years later, writing in pencil on Big Chief tablets, he remembered this move and his other western experiences through the year 1892, when he settled with his wife and children on the claim he had staked in the Cheyenne-Arapaho Run. In the intervening years, Laban was a freighter with his brother on the Santa Fe Trail and a cowpuncher in the Dodge City stockyards. He first encountered Indians on the banks of the Verdigris River in southern Kansas, learned the Osage language, and become an agency cook at Pawhuska. Later he worked in the Cherokee Outlet as a line rider for the T-5 and Spade ranches, eventually becoming a foreman. Because of Laban's firsthand knowledge of people and events, his account adds a new perspective to several infamous episodes. For example, he barely escaped the raid Dull Knife and other Cheyenne warriors in 1878, and he knew the participants in the Medicine Lodge bank robbery, the Talbot raid at Caldwell, and the Potts-Franklin shootout on the T-5 Ranch. In addition, Laban recounted many affectionate and often humorous stories about Outlet ranchers such as Maj. Andrew Drumm, Outlet cowpunchers such as Charlie Siringo, Texas trail drivers such as "Shanghai" Pierce, and western writers such as Thomas McNeal of the Medicine Lodge Cresset, Scott Cummings (the "Pilgrim Bard"), and Pawnee Bill. But perhaps most memorable are Laban's stories of every day cowboy life: herding cattle with his dog Shep, riding his favorite horses, and surviving the rigors encountered by everyone on the western range-tornadoes, rattlesnakes, cold and snow, outlaws, and hard work. Laban concludes, "The great open range that I know so well, worked on so hard, and loved so much ... [has] vanished, as have the signs of the old cow trail." Perhaps so, but thanks to Ellen Jayne Maris Wheeler's organization of these stories, and to Laban's colorful and entertaining writing, the readers of Cherokee Outlet Cowboy can still ride that range and see that old cow trail for themselves.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806128726
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
At age fifteen, Laban Samuel Records (1856-1940), the youngest of twelve children, moved west with his family from Indiana to Kansas. About sixty-six years later, writing in pencil on Big Chief tablets, he remembered this move and his other western experiences through the year 1892, when he settled with his wife and children on the claim he had staked in the Cheyenne-Arapaho Run. In the intervening years, Laban was a freighter with his brother on the Santa Fe Trail and a cowpuncher in the Dodge City stockyards. He first encountered Indians on the banks of the Verdigris River in southern Kansas, learned the Osage language, and become an agency cook at Pawhuska. Later he worked in the Cherokee Outlet as a line rider for the T-5 and Spade ranches, eventually becoming a foreman. Because of Laban's firsthand knowledge of people and events, his account adds a new perspective to several infamous episodes. For example, he barely escaped the raid Dull Knife and other Cheyenne warriors in 1878, and he knew the participants in the Medicine Lodge bank robbery, the Talbot raid at Caldwell, and the Potts-Franklin shootout on the T-5 Ranch. In addition, Laban recounted many affectionate and often humorous stories about Outlet ranchers such as Maj. Andrew Drumm, Outlet cowpunchers such as Charlie Siringo, Texas trail drivers such as "Shanghai" Pierce, and western writers such as Thomas McNeal of the Medicine Lodge Cresset, Scott Cummings (the "Pilgrim Bard"), and Pawnee Bill. But perhaps most memorable are Laban's stories of every day cowboy life: herding cattle with his dog Shep, riding his favorite horses, and surviving the rigors encountered by everyone on the western range-tornadoes, rattlesnakes, cold and snow, outlaws, and hard work. Laban concludes, "The great open range that I know so well, worked on so hard, and loved so much ... [has] vanished, as have the signs of the old cow trail." Perhaps so, but thanks to Ellen Jayne Maris Wheeler's organization of these stories, and to Laban's colorful and entertaining writing, the readers of Cherokee Outlet Cowboy can still ride that range and see that old cow trail for themselves.
Big Trouble
Author: J. Anthony Lukas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439128103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439128103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 884
Book Description
Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.
Charlie Siringo's West
Author: Howard Roberts Lamar
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826336699
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Charlie Siringo (1855-1928) lived the quintessential life of adventure on the American frontier as a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, writer, and later as a consultant for early western films. Siringo was one of the most attractive, bold, and original characters to live and flourish in the final decades of the Wild West. Siringo's love of the cattle business and of cowboy life were so great that in 1885 he published a rollicking, picaresque account of his experiences in A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken From Real Life, which Will Rogers dubbed "The Cowboy's Bible." In short, Siringo was a key player in shaping the romantic image of the Wild West cowboy. Howard Lamar's biography deftly shares Siringo's story with historians and the general public interested in the American West. Lamar's account is structured within seventy-five pivotal years of western history, from the Civil War in Texas to Hollywood's glorification of the West in the 1920s. Siringo was not a mere observer, but a participant in major historical events including the Coeur d'Alene mining strikes of the 1890s and Big Bill Haywood's trial in 1907. Within this framework, Lamar focuses on Siringo's youthful struggles to employ his abundant athleticism and ambitions and how Siringo's varied experiences helped develop the compelling national myth of the cowboy.
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826336699
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Charlie Siringo (1855-1928) lived the quintessential life of adventure on the American frontier as a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, writer, and later as a consultant for early western films. Siringo was one of the most attractive, bold, and original characters to live and flourish in the final decades of the Wild West. Siringo's love of the cattle business and of cowboy life were so great that in 1885 he published a rollicking, picaresque account of his experiences in A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken From Real Life, which Will Rogers dubbed "The Cowboy's Bible." In short, Siringo was a key player in shaping the romantic image of the Wild West cowboy. Howard Lamar's biography deftly shares Siringo's story with historians and the general public interested in the American West. Lamar's account is structured within seventy-five pivotal years of western history, from the Civil War in Texas to Hollywood's glorification of the West in the 1920s. Siringo was not a mere observer, but a participant in major historical events including the Coeur d'Alene mining strikes of the 1890s and Big Bill Haywood's trial in 1907. Within this framework, Lamar focuses on Siringo's youthful struggles to employ his abundant athleticism and ambitions and how Siringo's varied experiences helped develop the compelling national myth of the cowboy.
Man-Hunters of the Old West
Author: Robert K. DeArment
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806158093
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
Settlers in the frontier West were often easy prey for criminals. Policing efforts were scattered at best and often amounted to vigilante retaliation. To create a semblance of order, freelance enforcers of the law known as man-hunters undertook the search for fugitives. These pursuers have often been portrayed as ruthless bounty hunters, no better than the felons they pursued. Robert K. DeArment’s detailed account of their careers redeems their reputations and reveals the truth behind their fascinating legends. As DeArment shows, man-hunters were far more likely to capture felons alive than their popular image suggests. Although “Wanted: Dead or Alive” reward notices were posted during this period, they were reserved for the most murderous desperadoes. Man-hunters also came from a variety of backgrounds in the East and the West: of the eight men whose stories DeArment tells, one began as an officer for an express company, and another was the head of an organization of local lawmen. Others included a railroad detective, a Texas Ranger, a Pinkerton operative, and a shotgun messenger for a stagecoach line. All were tough survivors, living through gunshot wounds, snakebites, disease, buffalo stampedes, and every other hazard of life in the Wild West. They also crossed paths with famous criminals and sheriffs, from John Wesley Hardin and Sam Bass to Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. Telling the true stories of famous men who risked their lives to bring western outlaws to justice, Man-Hunters of the Old West dispels long-held myths of their cold-blooded vigilantism and brings fresh nuance to the lives and legends that made the West wild.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806158093
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
Settlers in the frontier West were often easy prey for criminals. Policing efforts were scattered at best and often amounted to vigilante retaliation. To create a semblance of order, freelance enforcers of the law known as man-hunters undertook the search for fugitives. These pursuers have often been portrayed as ruthless bounty hunters, no better than the felons they pursued. Robert K. DeArment’s detailed account of their careers redeems their reputations and reveals the truth behind their fascinating legends. As DeArment shows, man-hunters were far more likely to capture felons alive than their popular image suggests. Although “Wanted: Dead or Alive” reward notices were posted during this period, they were reserved for the most murderous desperadoes. Man-hunters also came from a variety of backgrounds in the East and the West: of the eight men whose stories DeArment tells, one began as an officer for an express company, and another was the head of an organization of local lawmen. Others included a railroad detective, a Texas Ranger, a Pinkerton operative, and a shotgun messenger for a stagecoach line. All were tough survivors, living through gunshot wounds, snakebites, disease, buffalo stampedes, and every other hazard of life in the Wild West. They also crossed paths with famous criminals and sheriffs, from John Wesley Hardin and Sam Bass to Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. Telling the true stories of famous men who risked their lives to bring western outlaws to justice, Man-Hunters of the Old West dispels long-held myths of their cold-blooded vigilantism and brings fresh nuance to the lives and legends that made the West wild.