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    Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings
    Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings
    Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings
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    Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings

    By Andy Adams

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    "Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings" is a 1911 Western novel by American writer Andy Adams. The story revolves around two young would-be cowboys and their attempt to build a herd along the cattle trail between Kansas and Texas. As with other of Adams' novels, it offers a profound insight into authentic frontier life based on Adams' own experiences. "Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings" is highly recommended for lovers of Western Fiction and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Adams' work. Andy Adams (1859 - 1935) was an American western fiction writer. Other notable works by this author include: "A Texas Matchmaker" (1904), "A Texas Matchmaker" (1905) and "Cattle Brands" (1906). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction and biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherClassic Western Fiction Library
    Release dateJul 19, 2017
    ISBN9781473346161
    Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings

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      Book preview

      Wells Brothers - Andy Adams

      WELLS BROTHERS

      THE YOUNG CATTLE KINGS

      BY

      ANDY ADAMS

      Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from

      the British Library

      Contents

      Andy Adams

      The History of Western Fiction

      CHAPTER I - WAIFS OF THE PLAIN

      CHAPTER II - THE HOSPITAL ON THE BEAVER

      CHAPTER III - THE BOTTOM RUNG

      CHAPTER IV - THE BROTHERS CLAIM A RANGE

      CHAPTER V - A FALL OF CRUMBS

      CHAPTER VI - SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

      CHAPTER VII - ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK

      CHAPTER VIII - THE LINES OF INTRENCHMENT

      CHAPTER IX - A WINTRY CRUCIBLE

      CHAPTER X - GOOD FIGHTING

      CHAPTER XI - HOLDING THE FORT

      CHAPTER XII - A WINTER DRIFT

      CHAPTER XIII - A WELCOME GUEST

      CHAPTER XIV - AN ILL WIND

      CHAPTER XV - WATER! WATER!

      CHAPTER XVI - A PROTECTED CREDIT

      CHAPTER XVII - THE WAGON

      CHAPTER XVIII - AN OPEN WINTER

      CHAPTER XIX - AN INDIAN SCARE

      CHAPTER XX - HARVEST ON THE RANGE

      CHAPTER XXI - LIVING IN THE SADDLE

      CHAPTER XXII - INDEPENDENCE

      Andy Adams

      Andy Adams was born in May 1959 in Indiana, America and became an influential writer of western fiction. He used his experiences of the Wild West to show Americans the realities of life in the west after being appalled at its depiction in other novels and plays.

      During his childhood, Adams attended school and also helped his father, who worked as a cattleman and farmer. At age fifteen Adams left home and travelled to Texas where he worked for approximately ten years rounding up livestock and driving them on the western trails to various locations. It was during this time that he became fascinated with cowboys and their lives. In the 1890s Adams briefly worked as a businessman, but failed in this venture. He then followed the rumours of gold to Colorado to pursue mining opportunities, but had little luck. He settled in Colorado Springs and it was during this time that he put pen to paper and began writing, drawing on his own experiences of the cattle trails.

      In 1903, his first and best-known novel, The Log of a Cowboy, was published. This novel tells of a trail drive from Brownsville to Montana and focuses on the tranquil, pastoral nature of the journey and its effect on the men making it, rather than the usual depiction of the wilderness of the Wild West. Although a fictional tale, the novel is thought to be based on Adams’s own involvement with a five month drive of over three thousand cattle along the Great Western Cattle Trail. It is said to be one of the most authentic accounts of that time in cattle country and is still influential for historians who are exploring the period.

      Adams went on to write a number of other novels, including A Texas Matchmaker (1904), The Outlet (1905), and Cattle Brands (1906). He also wrote Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings  (1911) and  The Ranch on the Beaver: A Sequel to Wells Brothers  (1927), two popular novels for children which told the story of two orphaned boys who defied everything and rose to success by establishing their own cattle ranch. His writing tended to build on the cowboy memoirist tradition and helped to shape and develop the cowboy genre.

      Adams never married and had no children. He died in September 1935 in Colorado Springs. Since his death many of his works have continued to be in a print and are thought to be accurate and honest accounts of life in the Wild West.

      The History of Western Fiction

      Western fiction is a genre which focuses on life in the American Old West. It was popularised through novels, films, magazines, radio, and television and included many staple characters, such as the cowboy, the gunslinger, the outlaw, the lawman and the damsel in distress. The genre’s popularity peaked in the early twentieth century due to dime novels and Hollywood adaptations of Western tales, such as The Virginian, The Great Moon Rider and The Great K.A. Train Robbery. Western novels remained popular through the 1960s, however readership began to dwindle during the 1970s.

      The term the American Old West (the Wild West) usually refers to the land west of the Mississippi River and the Frontier between the settled and civilised and the open, lawless lands that resulted as the United States expanded to the Pacific Ocean. This area was largely unknown and little populated until the period between the 1860s and the 1890s when, after the American Civil War, settlement and the frontier moved west.

      The Western novel was a relatively new genre which developed from the adventure and exploration novels that had appeared before it. Two predecessors of popular Western fiction writers were Meriweather Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clarke (1770-1838). Both men were explorers and were the first to make travel and the frontier a central theme of their work. Perhaps the most popular predecessor of Western fiction was James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). His west was idealised and romantic and his popular Leatherstockings series depicted the fight between the citizens of the frontier and the harsh wilderness that surrounded them. His titles included: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). His tales were often set on the American frontier, then in the Appalachian Mountains and in the land to the west of that. His protagonists lived off the land, were loyal, free, skilled with weapons, and avoided civilised society as best they could. His most famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans, also idealised the Native American.

      During the 1860s and 1870s, a new generation of Western writers appeared, such as Mark Twain (1835-1910) Roughing It (1872) and Bret Harte (1836-1902) The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868). Both writers had spent time living in the west and continued to promote its appeal through their literature. Harte is often credited with developing many of the cult Western’s stock characters, such as the honest and beautiful dance hall girl, the suave conman and the honourable outlaw. These characters went on to be firm favourites in popular, mass produced Western fiction. At the end of the nineteenth century, thousands of people were undergoing the treacherous journey to the west to make a new life for themselves and the fictional stories and legends of heroes and villains who had survived in this wild landscape captured the imagination of the public.

      Western novels became popular in England and throughout America through ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ and Dime Novels. These appeared in the late 1800s and were texts that could be bought cheaply (for either a penny or a dime – ten cents) as they were often cheaply printed on a large scale by publishers such as Irwin P. Beadle. Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (1860) by Ann S Stephens (1810-1886) is considered by many critics to be the first dime novel. These sensationalist dime and penny novels capitalised on stories of outlaws, lawmen, cowboys, and mountain men taming the western frontier. Many were fictional, but some were based on real heroes of the west such as Buffalo Bill (the scout, bison hunter and performer), Jesse James (the American outlaw, robber, gang leader and murderer) and Billy the Kid (the American gunfighter). By 1877, these Western characters were a recurring feature of the dime novel. The hero was often a man of action who saved damsels in distress and righted the wrongs of the villains that he faced. For this hero, honour was the most important thing and it was something that the dime heroes never relinquished.

      In the 1900s, Pulp magazines helped relay these tales over to Europe where non-Americans also picked up the genre, such as the German writer, Karl May (1842-1912). Pulp magazines were a descendent of the dime novel and their content was largely aimed at a mass market. As their popularity grew, they were able to specialise and there were Pulp magazines devoted specifically to Westerns, such as Cowboy Stories, Ranch Romances, and Star Western. The popularity for these magazines and for Western films in the 1920s made the genre a popular phenomenon.

      The status of the genre in the early twentieth century was also enhanced by particular novels by different writers. One of the most influential Western novels was The Virginians (1902) by Owen Wister (1860-1938) which was considered to be a ground breaking literary Western. Wister dismissed the traditional idea of the solitary pioneer conquering new lands and making a new life for himself, and replaced this traditional character with the cowboy. The cowboy was a mix of cultural ideals, such as southern chivalry, western primitivism and stout independence. These were characteristics that many Americans cherished. Wister contrasted the lawlessness of the West to the order and civilisation of the East. He introduced new characters, such as savages and bandits who attacked the more civilised Eastern characters. His cowboy heroes shared many features with the medieval knights – they rode horses, carried weapons, fought duals and valued their honour above all other attributes. Zane Grey’s (1872-1939) Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was also a popular Western novel. Grey was a prolific writer and wrote over ninety books which helped shape Western fiction. He changed Wister’s cowboy into a gunslinger who was feared by criminals and held in awe by other civilians. Other popular Western writers in this period include Andy Adams (1859-1935) whose titles include The Outlet (1905) and A Texas Matchmaker (1904), Edward S Ellis (1840-1916) who wrote Seth Jones, or The Captives of the Frontier (1860) and The Steam Man of the Prairies (1868), and Bertha Muzzy Bower (1871-1940) who wrote Chip of the Flying U (1906) and The Dry Ridge Gang (1935).

      The Western hero lived in an environment where climate, natives and the terrain could be his enemies, and it was his job to tame the wilderness around him, but in doing so he determined his own extinction. In bringing forward civilisation and settlement, they brought about their own demise and their reason for existing. Western heroes could only exist on the frontier. Rebels were popular heroes in the Western novel and these heroes were often compassionate to those less fortunate than themselves and fought for the downtrodden. They were loyal, idealistic, independent, and knew the difference between right and wrong. They fought for the good and made personal sacrifices in order that good would triumph. The hostile setting of the Wild West transformed the characters into survivors as they were forced to alter themselves in order to live in this new setting. The Old Wild West captured the attention of many as it exemplified the spirit of freedom, individualism, adventure and unspoiled nature. It depicted a world that was separate from organised, urban society and showed the life of the wilderness, frontier and its inhabitants. The Western romanticised American history and the treacherous, mysterious and otherworldly Old West.

      CHAPTER I

      WAIFS OF THE PLAIN

      The first herd of trail cattle to leave Dodge City, Kansas, for the Northwest, during the summer of 1885, was owned by the veteran drover, Don Lovell. Accidents will happen, and when about midway between the former point and Ogalalla, Nebraska, a rather serious mishap befell Quince Forrest, one of the men with the herd. He and the horse wrangler, who were bunkies, were constantly scuffling, reckless to the point of injury, the pulse of healthy manhood beating a constant alarm to rough contest.

      The afternoon previous to the accident, a wayfaring man had overtaken the herd, and spent the night with the trail outfit. During the evening, a flock of sand-hill cranes was sighted, when the stranger expressed a wish to secure a specimen of the bird for its splendid plumage. On Forrest’s own suggestion, his being a long-range pistol and the covey wary, the two exchanged belts. The visitor followed the flock, stealing within range a number of times, and emptying the six-shooter at every chance. On securing a fine specimen near nightfall, he returned to the herd, elated over his chance shot and beautiful trophy. However, before returning the belt, he had refilled the cylinder with six instead of five cartridges, thus resting the hammer on a loaded shell. In the enthusiasm of the moment, and ignorant of its danger, belt and pistol were returned to their owner.

      Dawn found the camp astir. The sun had flooded the plain while the outfit was breakfasting, the herd was grazing forward in pastoral contentment, the horses stood under saddle for the morning’s work, when the trail foreman, Paul Priest, languidly remarked: If everybody’s ready, we’ll ride. Fill the canteens; it’s high time we were in the saddle. Of course, that means the parting tussle between Quince and the wrangler. It would be a shame to deny those lads anything so enjoyable-- they remind me so much of mule colts and half-grown dogs. Now, cut in and worry each other a spell, because you’ll be separated until noon. Fly at it, or we mount.

      The two addressed never cast a glance at each other, but as the men swung into their saddles, the horse wrangler, with the agility of a tiger, caught his bunkie in the act of mounting, dragging him to the ground, when the expected scuffle ensued. The outfit had barely time to turn their horses, to witness the contest, when the two crashed against the wagon wheel and Forrest’s pistol was discharged. The men dismounted instantly, the wrangler eased the victim to the ground, and when the outfit gathered around, the former was smothering the burning clothing of his friend and bunkmate. A withdrawn boot, dripping with blood, was the first indication of the havoc wrought, and on stripping it was found that the bullet had ploughed an open furrow down the thigh, penetrating the calf of the leg from knee to ankle, where it was fortunately deflected outward and into the ground.

      The deepest of regret was naturally expressed. The jocular remarks of the foreman, the actions of the wrangler, were instantly recalled to the surrounding group, while the negligence which caused the accident was politely suppressed. The stranger, innocently unaware of any mistake on his part, lent a valuable hand in stanching the blood and in washing and binding up the wounds. No bones were injured, and with youth and a buoyant constitution, there was every hope of recovery.

      However, some disposition must be made of the wounded man. No one could recall a house or settlement nearer than the Republican River, unless down the Beaver, which was uncertain, when the visitor came to the rescue. He was positive that some two years before, an old soldier had taken a homestead five or six miles above the trail crossing on the Beaver. He was insistent, and the foreman yielded so far as to order the herd grazed forward to the Beaver, which was some ten miles distant in their front. All the blankets in the outfit were accordingly brought into use, in making a comfortable bed in the wagon, and the caravan started, carrying the wounded man with it. Taking the stranger with him, the foreman bore away in the direction of the supposed homestead, having previously sent two men on an opposite angle, in search of any settlement down the creek.

      The visitor’s knowledge of the surrounding country proved to be correct. About six miles above the trail crossing, the Beaver, fringed with willows, meandered through a narrow valley, in which the homestead was located. The presence of the willows was an indication of old beaver dams, which the settler had improved until the water stood in long, placid pools. In response to their hail, two boys, about fourteen and sixteen years of age, emerged from the dug-out and greeted the horsemen. On inquiry, it proved that their father had died during the previous winter, at a settlement on the Solomon River, and the boys were then confronted with the necessity of leaving the claim to avoid suffering want. It was also learned that their mother had died before their father had taken the homestead, and therefore they were left orphans to fight their own battle.

      The boys gave their names as Joel and Dell Wells. Both were bright-eyed and alert, freckled from the sun, ragged and healthy. Joel was the oldest, broad-shouldered for his years, distant by nature, with a shock of auburn hair, while Dell’s was red; in height, the younger was the equal of his brother, talkative, and frank in countenance. When made acquainted with the errand of the trail boss, the older boy shook his head, but Dell stepped forward: Awful sorry, said he, with a sweep of his hand, but our garden failed, and there won’t be a dozen roasting-ears in that field of corn. If hot winds don’t kill it, it might make fodder. We expect to pull out next week.

      Have you no cows? inquired the trail foreman.

      We had two, but the funeral expenses took them, and then pa’s pension was stopped. You see--

      I see, said the trail foreman, dismounting. Possibly we can help each other. Our wagon is well provisioned. If you’ll shelter and nurse this wounded man of mine--

      We can’t winter here, said Joel, stepping forward, and the sooner we get out and find work the better.

      Oh, I was figuring on paying you wages, countered the trail man, now aware of their necessity, and I suppose you could use a quarter of beef.

      Oh goodness, whispered Dell to his brother; think, fresh meat.

      And I’ll give each of you twenty-five dollars a month--leave the money with my man or pay you in advance. If you say the word, I’ll unload my wagon right here, and grub-stake you for two months. I can get more provision at the Republican River, and in the mean time, something may turn up.

      The stranger also dismounted and took part in urging the necessity of accepting the offer. Dell brightened at every suggestion, but his brother was tactful, questioning and combating the men, and looking well to the future. A cold and unfriendly world, coupled with misfortune, had aged the elder boy beyond his years, while the younger one was sympathetic, trustful, and dependent.

      Suppose we are delayed in reaching the Solomon until fall, said Dell to his brother; that will put us into the settlements in time for corn-shucking. If you get six-bits a day, I’m surely worth fifty cents.

      Suppose there is no corn to shuck, replied Joel. Suppose this wounded man dies on our hands? What then? Haven’t you heard pa tell how soldiers died from slight wounds?--from blood-poisoning? If we have to go, we might as well go at once.

      According to his light, the boy reasoned well. But when the wayfaring man had most skillfully retold the story of the Good Samaritan, the older boy relented somewhat, while Dell beamed with enthusiasm at the opportunity of rendering every assistance.

      It isn’t because we don’t want to help you, protested Joel, but it’s because we’re so poor and have nothing to offer."

      You have health and willing hands, said the trail boss; let me do the rest.

      But suppose he doesn’t recover as soon as expected, cautiously protested Joel, where are we to get further provision?

      Good suggestion, assented the trail foreman. But here: I’ll leave two good horses in your care for the wounded man, and all you need to do is to ride down to the trail, hail any passing herd, and simply tell them you are harboring a crippled lad, one of Don Lovell’s boys, and you can levy on them for all they have. It’s high time you were getting acquainted with these trail outfits. Shelter this man of mine, and all will come out well in the end. Besides, I’ll tell old man Don about you boys, and he might take you home to his ranch with him. He has no boys, and he might take a fancy to you two.

      Dell’s eyes moistened at the suggestion of a home. The two brothers reëntered the dug-out, and the men led their horses down to the creek for a drink. A span of poor old mules stood inside a wooden corral, a rickety wagon and a few rusty farming implements were scattered about, while over all the homestead was the blight of a merciless summer drouth.

      What a pretty little ranch this would make, said the trail boss to the stranger. If these boys had a hundred cows, with this water and range, in a few years they would be independent men. No wonder that oldest boy is cautious. Just look around and see the reward of their father’s and their own labor. Their very home denies them bread.

      Did you notice the older boy brighten, inquired the visitor, when you suggested leaving horses in their care? It was the only argument that touched him.

      Then I’ll use it, said the trail boss, brightening. We have several cow horses in our remuda, unfit for saddle,--galled backs and the like,--and if these boys would care for them, I’ll make their hungry hearts happy. Care and attention and a month’s rest would make the ponies as sound as a dollar. You suggest my giving them each a saddle pony; argue the matter, and try and win me over.

      The men retraced their steps, leading their horses, and when scarcely halfway from the creek to the dug-out, Dell ran down to meet them. If you can spare us a few blankets and a pillow, earnestly said the boy, we’ll take the wounded man. He’s liable to be feverish at night, and ought to have a pillow. Joel and I can sleep outside or in the stable.

      Hurrah for the Wells boys! shouted the trail boss. Hereafter I’ll bet my money, horse and saddle, on a red-headed boy. Blankets? Why, you can have half a dozen, and as to pillows, watch me rob the outfit. I have a rubber one, there are several moss ones, and I have a lurking suspicion that there are a few genuine goose-hair pillows in the outfit, and you may pick and choose. They are all yours for the asking.

      The men parleyed around some little time, offering pretexts for entering the shack, the interior of which bespoke its own poverty. When all agreements had been reviewed, the men mounted their horses, promising to fulfill their part of the

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