FREE Westerns
that are PRICELESS!

I never was a cowboy but I have worked as a cowboy for most of my life, and I loved it. The "real" cowboys that I worked with varied from Yaqui to Irish immigrant and back to the Navajo.  Nothing like the Navajo for the flavor of real cowboying, well, back in the old days anyway. 

One day seven of us were working hard on a herd of wild cattle, fresh off the open range.  They were not a bit scared of us so that there were wounds aplenty and the smell of blood that hangs over a squeeze chute didn't all come from the cows we were working.

It grew dark, but we toiled on as if we would work the whole night through.  But suddenly Cowboy threw his branding iron down on the barrel and screamed:  "RAWHIDE is on.  Let's go."

I'm not ashamed to say that I watched Gil Favor ramrod his way north that night too.  But the point is that cowboys are more romantic today than they ever were.  Back in the old days cowboys would ride a crippled mule sixty miles to stare for 30 seconds, moonstruck, at a pretty girl's face that they hadn't the nerve to approach and introduce themselves to.  "Oh, if only I could save her life."

Yeah, anything to break the ice.

Anyhow, I feel qualified to pick out some really good westerns for you to read.  Let's start out with Campfire Tales by Andy Adams.