Andy Adams 
Cattle Brands 

Cattle Brands is a collection of 14
entertaining short stories depicting not only the life of cowboys in the
wild, wild West, but also the harrowing skirmishes with banditos,
thrilling shoot-outs, attempt at and the recapture of stolen chattel
from fierce desperados, and much, much more exciting accounts that make
one think it all actually happened.

Excerpt: 

It was a wet, bad year on the Old Western Trail. From Red River north and all along was herd after herd waterbound by high water in the rivers. Our outfit lay over nearly a week on the South Canadian, but we were not alone, for there were five other herds waiting for the river to go down. This river had tumbled over her banks for several days, and the driftwood that was coming down would have made it dangerous swimming for cattle. We were expected to arrive in Dodge early in June, but when we reached the North Fork of the Canadian, we were two weeks behind time…

Andy Adams (May 3, 1859 – September 26, 1936) was an American writer of western fiction.

Andy Adams was born in Indiana.
His parents were Andrew and Elizabeth (Elliott) Adams. As a boy he
helped with the cattle and horses on the family farm. During the early
1880s he went to Texas,
where he stayed for 10 years, spending much of that time driving cattle
on the western trails. In 1890 he tried working as a businessman, but
the venture failed, so he tried gold-mining in Colorado and Nevada. In 1894, he settled in Colorado Springs, where he lived until his death.

He began writing at the age of 43, publishing his most successful book, The Log of a Cowboy, in 1903. His other works include A Texas Matchmaker (1904), The Outlet (1905), Cattle Brands (1906), Reed Anthony, Cowman: An Autobiography (1907), Wells Brothers (1911), and The Ranch on the Beaver (1927).

The Log of a Cowboy is an account of a five-month drive of 3, 000 cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to Montana during 1882 along the Great Western Cattle Trail.
Although the book is fiction, it is based on Adams’s own experiences,
and it is considered by many to be literature’s best account of cowboy
life.[2] Adams was disgusted by the unrealistic cowboy fiction being published in his time; The Log of a Cowboy
was his response. It is still in print, and even modern reviewers
consider it compelling. The Chicago Herald said: ‚As a narrative of
cowboy life, Andy Adams‘ book is clearly the real thing. It carries its
own certificate of authentic first-hand experience on every page.‘ (Wikipedia)