Adventure in the Weird West

“It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“Never run a bluff with a six-gun.”
– Bat Masterson

“Can’t you hurry this up a bit? I hear they eat dinner in Hades at twelve sharp and I don’t aim to be late.”
– Black Jack Ketchum, just before he was hanged .

Poker is a science; the highest court in Texas has said so.
- Quince Forrest

“I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
- Daniel Boone

“The deceased came to his death at the hands of an unknown party who was a damned good pistol shot.”
– Judge Roy Bean

Only to the white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land “infested” with “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families that we loved was it “wild” for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the “Wild West” began.
- Luther Standing Bear

“Of all the eerie, dreary experiences, to be lost at night on the prairie … then to hear the chorus of coyotes, like hyenas, laughing at one’s predicament.”