“See the Elephant”
Andy Adams left the family farm in Indiana and headed west in the Early 1880s. For 10 years he was a working cowboy up and down the Great Western Cattle Trail. Who better, then, to give a first-hand account of what life was like in the Wild West?

When he published The Log of a Cowboy in 1903 he was disgusted with the portrayals he had seen in the penny dreadfuls. The Log of a Cowboy is a great read. Exciting, compeling, and suspenseful, it is a novel based on Adams own life experiences. The cattledrive encounters flooded rivers, Indians, Rustlers, and several cowtowns.

Great for it’s detailed description of the daily life of a cowboy, it is a perfect Western RPG resource.

Here’s some Linkage:
Andy Adams bio at Online-Literature.com Much more complete than Wikipedia.
The Log of a Cowboy at Gutenberg or at Amazon.

One scene comes up whenever I tell someone about this great book. It happened that the cowboys were in town when a ruckus broke out…

I saw The Rebel’s eyes, steeled to intensity, meet Flood’s across the table, and in that glance of our foreman he evidently read approval, for he rose rigidly with the stealth of a tiger, and for the first time that day his hand went to the handle of his six-shooter. One of the two pretended winners at cards saw the movement in our quarter, and sang out as a warning, “Cuidado, mucho.” The man on the bar whirled on the word of warning, and blazed away with his two guns into our corner. I had risen at the word and was pinned against the wall, where on the first fire a rain of dirt fell from the chinking in the wall over my head. As soon as the others sprang away from the table, I kicked it over in clearing myself, and came to my feet just as The Rebel fired his second shot. I had the satisfaction of seeing his long-haired adversary reel backwards, firing his guns into the ceiling as he went, and in falling crash heavily into the glassware on the back bar.

The smoke which filled the room left nothing visible for a few moments. Meantime Priest, satisfied that his aim had gone true, turned, passed through the rear room, gained his horse, and was galloping away to the herd before any semblance of order was restored. As the smoke cleared away and we passed forward through the room, John Officer had one of the three pardners standing with his hands to the wall, while his six-shooter lay on the floor under Officer’s foot.

What I like to highlight is a single sentence: “The smoke which filled the room left nothing visible for a few moments.” The Rebel fired twice and the man at the bar has fired 4 shots (2 pistols twice) and the smoke “left nothing visible.” Western movies have helped us forget that smokeless gunpowder wasn’t used in firearms until the end of the Wild West period. Whether as an additional rule in a shoot-out, or as colorful set dressing, including this nugget adds a touch of realism and authenticity to your Western RPG.

Andy Adams wrote several more books and from all appearances they were successful as well. I haven’t read them, but some are available on Gutenberg and at Amazon.