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9780700634101

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Growing up on ranches in the Flint Hills of Kansas, Jim Hoy has spent his life riding and writing. He leads us on a fun, information-rich tour of the people, places, and events of the Old West. We meet memorable cowboys, outlaws, and other frontier folk and explore cow towns, ranches, rodeos, and more. Saddle up and enjoy the ride! --Richard W. Slatta is professor emeritus of history at North Carolina State University and author of The Cowboy Encyclopedia, Cowboys of the Americas Jim Hoy is a fine storyteller with deep roots in the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Great Plains. This connection with the old days and old ways of the West gives him a perspective to interpret the history of the Great Plains. Anything he's written is well worth reading, including this fine book. --Jim Garry is a storyteller and the author of This Ol' Drought Ain't Broke Us Yet and The First Liar Never Has a Chance Gathering Strays is Jim Hoy's amble through a lifetime of stories that didn't fit in any of his other books. Already known for his history of cattle guards and the definitive chronicle of cowboy life in the Flint Hills, Hoy is a careful scholar and natural storyteller who turns his considerable attention to those true tales most Kansans have likely never heard before. Here you'll meet horse thief Hurricane Bill Martin, the terror of Wichita; hapless outlaw Elmer McCurdy, killed in a gunfight in 1911 and whose mummified body went on tour as a carnival attraction for the next six decades; performer Buddy Heaton and his trained buffalo Old Grunter; eccentric rancher and practical joker Henry Mudge, who used chicken blood to fake murders; and sixteen-year-old Minnie Walkup, who in 1885 got away with poisoning her middle-aged husband for the money. This is the kind of book you read not just for the stories, but also to spend some time in the gentle company of Hoy, a native Kansan who makes you feel at home in the Sunflower State, no matter where you're from. --Max McCoy, author of Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River

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Jim Hoy is professor emeritus of English, Emporia State University, and director emeritus of the Center for Great Plains Studies. Among his many books are My Flint Hills: Observations and Reminiscences from America’s Last Tallgrass Prairie, Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie, also from Kansas, and, with Tom Isern, Plains Folk: A Commonplace of the Great Plains.

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