The Log of a Cowboy

First published in 1903, “The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days” by American author Andy Adams is the fascinating and captivating tale of an 1882 cattle drive of 3,000 head of cattle up the Great Western Trail from the Rio Grande to just south of the Canadian border in Montana. While written as a fictional narrative, “The Log of a Cowboy” is rich with authentic detail of the old west, due largely to the fact that the author Adams spent more than a decade in Texas in the 1880s driving cattle. The drive took five months from Brownsville, Texas to Northern Montana and the tale of the journey is full of dangerous river crossings, escapes from stampedes, gunfights between the cowboys, and fascinating characters, such as Bull Durham and Bill Blades. A delightful story of a bygone era, “The Log of a Cowboy” is considered to this day to be one of the most realistic depictions of cowboy life and cattle drives ever written. Adams’s tale of adventure and hard work on the frontier will entertain fans of the western genre and old west history buffs alike.