Wild Cow Tales

This book of short stories, Wild Cow Tales, by Ben K. Green, was interesting and funny, even hilarious in places. Mr. Green's tales were written in a straight-forward style as he relates some of the wildest cow chases I've read about. As an independent rancher near Weatherford, Texas, he was hired by fellow ranchers and others to round up some of the wildest cattle to be found anywhere. In one of the tales, he tells his troubles rounding up a herd of cows in the Rocky Mountains for a bank that was taking over the herd because the Scottish owner owed the bank some money on a loan. The Scot didn't exactly want "that skinny little excuse for a cowboy" to push his cattle off his ranch and Ben had to battle him, too, on top of the ornery steers.

In another one, Ben was hired to round up a small herd of the meanest and wildest long horns in an out of the way town in southwestern Texas. Though only eight or ten of 'em, he had one of the toughest jobs he'd ever had catching and keeping these animals out of the brush and thickets where they usually could find peace and quiet in their daily routine. This was one of the best instances that rope is a cowboy's best friend and the long, sharp horns are one of the worst . He was horned on a leg, cutting a gash that caused Ben do to some quaint doctoring of the wound and wasn't anything I'd heard of before.

And there's a story about a young boy that helped him out with a small herd of the critters, and at the end of the book thee are some real short episodes he relates while herding and handling cattle, one about some cows reading a morning paper, and another tyring to head off a wild calf that ran into a schoolhouse. All very funny and exciting. Mr. Green is a writer that rode the trail and enjoyed his work. A real cattle man doing what he liked to do and his writing isn't so bad either.

This book was published by the University of Nebraska Press