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The Life and Adventures
OF
NAT LOVE
BETTER KNOWN IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY AS
"DEADWOOD DICK"
--BY HIMSELF--
A TRUE HISTORY OF SLAVERY DAYS, LIFE ON THE
GREAT CATTLE RANGES AND ON THE PLAINS
OF THE "WILD AND WOOLLY" WEST,
BASED ON FACTS, AND PERSONAL
EXPERIENCES
OF THE AUTHOR
Published: Los Angeles: Wayside Press, 1907.
[Illustration: Nat Love, Better Known as Deadwood Dick, and His Family]
* * * * *
This book is dedicated to my wife,
MRS. ALICE LOVE
* * * * *
PREFACE
Having passed the half century mark in life's journey, and yielding to
persistent requests of many old and valued friends of the past and
present, I have decided to write the record of slave, cowboy and pullman
porter will prove of interest to the reading public generally and
particularly to those who prefer facts to fiction, (and in this case
again facts will prove stranger than fiction). I assure my readers that
every event chronicled in this history is based on facts, and my
personal experiences, of more than fifty years of an unusually
adventurous life.
While many things contained in this record happened many years ago, they
are as fresh in my memory as if they happened but yesterday. I have
tried to record events simply as they are, without attempting to varnish
over the bad spots or draw on my imagination to fill out a chapter at
the cost of the truth. It has been my aim to record things just as they
happened, believing they will prove of greater interest thereby; and if
I am able to add to the interest and enjoyment of a single reader I will
consider myself well repaid for the time and labor of preparing this
history.
To my playmates of my boyhood, who may chance to read this I send
greetings and wish them well. To the few friends, who assisted myself
and widowed mother in our early struggles, I tender my sincerest thanks,
and hope they have prospered as they deserve. For those who proved our
enemies, I have no word of censure. They have reaped their reward.
To that noble but ever decreasing band of men under whose blue and
buckskin shirts there lives a soul as great and beats a heart as true as
ever human breast contained--to the cowboys, rangers, scouts, hunters
and trappers and cattle-men of the "GREAT WESTERN PLAINS," I extend the
hand of greeting acknowledging the FATHER-HOOD of GOD and the
BROTHERHOOD of men; and to my mother's Sainted name this book is
reverently dedicated.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Slavery Days; the Old Plantation; My Early Foraging; the Stolen
Demijohn; My First Drunk. 7