The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories

Rating:
Summary: Here's a book with atmosphere.
Review: Here's a book with atmosphere. You can almost smell the campfire and the Arbuckles' Coffee brewing over it, right alongside the scent of horses, cattle, and sage. "The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories" creates its own setting and Val FitzPatrick's style is such that you almost hear the cowboys swapping the yarns around the fire. However, there's far more truth to the tales than the title suggests. Although FitzPatrick, a Colorado native born in 1886, missed trailing the big herds, he began cowboying at age 13 for the K Diamond Cattle Company. At age 14 he began working for the Two-Bar Cattle Company, which was "the goal of nearly every young man in the area." Cowboying left its mark: FitzPatrick learned to appreciate a good tale and how to tell it.

Rating:
Summary: Here's a book with atmosphere.
Review: Here's a book with atmosphere. You can almost smell the campfire and the Arbuckles' Coffee brewing over it, right alongside the scent of horses, cattle, and sage. "The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories" creates its own setting and Val FitzPatrick's style is such that you almost hear the cowboys swapping the yarns around the fire. However, there's far more truth to the tales than the title suggests. Although FitzPatrick, a Colorado native born in 1886, missed trailing the big herds, he began cowboying at age 13 for the K Diamond Cattle Company. At age 14 he began working for the Two-Bar Cattle Company, which was "the goal of nearly every young man in the area." Cowboying left its mark: FitzPatrick learned to appreciate a good tale and how to tell it.

Rating:
Summary: Ah, that all books should be of this quality...a real treat!
Review: I've read some of the stories in this book 4 or 5 times. It's simply as authentic and well-written as it gets. I'm not an old-West fan at all, but a friend let me borrow their copy and now I'm hooked. I'm on my way to Colorado to visit some of the places FitzPatrick writes about. This book is a real treat! And it's beautifully done also - wonderful cover!

I also just finished FitzPatrick's other book, "Red Twilight." It's about his experiences with the Ute Indians. Also high quality and well-written - highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Don't miss this one!
Review: One of the best books ever. Great writing, authentic, entertaining. You won't want to put it down.

I also recommend "The Ozark Clan of Elkhead Creek" - about growing up on a ranch and VERY good.

Rating:
Summary: A real collectible!!
Review: This is a book you'll want to keep! Buy an extra for a friend. It's supurb!!!

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for students of western lore and literature.
Review: Written by a genuine turn-of-the-century cowpuncher, The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories offers modern readers an informative and entertaining window in time to the great roundups, trail drives, humor and hardships of handling cattle in the American west of yesteryear. Also included are pioneer anecdotes of northwest Colorado told with all the drama of tales around a campfire. The stories include: Dogies, Dust, and the Drink; Hired Killers and Winter Underwear; The Great Elk Migration; The Hermit of Yampa Canyon, Riding with Butch Cassidy; Buzzards Don't Talk; The Wild Horse Man; Dirty Cattle Thieves; Tom Horn; Queen Ann Bassett, and more. Of special note is the epilogue: The Demise of the Two-Bar Rooster. The Arbuckle Cafe is highly recommended reading for students of western lore and literature, and anyone who has ever day dreamed of what it would have really been like to punch cows on one of the last frontiers of the American west.