Emerson Hough wrote about the Bad Guys, as well as the Good Guys. He traveled with lawman Pat Garrett and interviewed eyewitnesses when researching his account of a uniquely American criminal type the frontier outlaw. Hough describes the circumstances that form outlaws, then provides vivid accounts of famous bandits and their pursuers.
Chapters cover the career of John A. Murrell, a cunning criminal who masterminded a gang of hundreds of killers and thieves that ranged across the South before the Civil War; the life of sometimes lawman Wild Bill Hickock, including the story behind his nickname; a firsthand account of the killing of Billy the Kid; the history and methods of rustling cattle; the criminal tutelage of Jesse and Frank James and Cole Younger, all of whom rode with Confederate guerrillas and participated in the bloodiest massacres in Midwestern history; and many other lesser known but equally sensational murders and robbers of the American borderlands.
This edition of the book contains the 17 original illustrations, rejuvenated.
Emerson Hough (1857–1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories and historical novels.
Hough was born in Newton, Iowa on June 28, 1857. He was in Newton High School's first graduating class of three in 1875. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1880 and later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1882. His first article, "Far From The Madding Crowd," was published in Forest and Stream in 1882.
He moved to White Oaks, New Mexico, practiced law there, and wrote for the White Oaks newspaper Golden Era for a year and a half, returning to Iowa when his mother was ill. He later wrote a novel, Story of the Outlaw, a study of the western desperado, which included profiles of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Hough moved to New Mexico after Garrett shot Billy the Kid, and he became a friend of Garrett. He wrote for various newspapers in Des Moines, Iowa, Sandusky, Ohio, Chicago, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, and Wichita, Kansas. In 1889 he got a position as western editor of Forest and Stream, editing the "Chicago and the West" column. He was hired by George Bird Grinnell, the owner of Field and Stream, who founded the Audubon Society in 1886 which, along with Theodore Roosevelt's Boone and Crockett Club, was a leader in the conservation movement.
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted in an attempt to remove imperfections introduced by the digitization process.
If typographic, spelling, or grammatical errors were present in the original, they may have been preserved.
As few changes as possible have been made to either illustrations or text in order to bring you an e-book that is as close to the original as possible.
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