Frank Benton, himself a wealthy rancher, provides a series of first-hand sketches of cowboy life of the late 19th and early 20th century from stories gathered from the "sidetrack." These were working cowpunchers with a subculture of their own who did the day-to-day work of the ranches. This is an important part of American history preserved for us in these stories.
By : Frank Benton (1853 - 1921)
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To the readers of this little booklet: I wish to say that while some things in the story seem over-drawn, yet I have endeavored to write it entirely from a cowboy standpoint.
To the sheepmen of the West: I want to say that I couldn't have written this story true to the cowboys' character without making a great many reflections on sheepmen, and I want to tender my apologies in advance for anything they may consider offensive, as some of my old-time and dearest friends in the West are among the large sheep owners. But I have been a cowboy and worked with the cowboys for thirty-two years, and have written the things set down here just as they came from the cowboys' lips on a stock train as we were waiting on sidetracks. The names of the cowboys used are the actual nicknames of cowpunchers whom I worked with on Wyoming ranges twenty years ago, and will be recognized by lots of old-timers.
The statement has been frequently made by newspapers that this volume was written as a roast on the Union Pacific railroad. I wish to correct that impression by saying that I selected that road for the groundwork of this story to give them a good advertisement free in requital for the many courtesies extended to me in times past by the officials of the road, for whom I have the warmest friendship.
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