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Deep Trails in the Old West: A Frontier Memoir
Cowboy and drifter Frank Clifford lived a lot of lives—and raised a lot of hell—in the first quarter of his life. The number of times he changed his name—Clifford being just one of them—suggests that he often traveled just steps ahead of the law. During the 1870s and 1880s his restless spirit led him all over the Southwest, crossing the paths of many of the era’s most notorious characters, most notably Clay Allison and Billy the Kid.
More than just an entertaining and informative narrative of his Wild West adventures, Clifford’s memoir also paints a picture of how ranchers and ordinary folk lived, worked, and stayed alive during those tumultuous years. Written in 1940 and edited and annotated by Frederick Nolan, Deep Trails in the Old West is likely one of the last eyewitness histories of the old West ever to be discovered.
As Frank Clifford, the author rode with outlaw Clay Allison’s Colfax County vigilantes, traveled with Charlie Siringo, cowboyed on the Bell Ranch, contended with Apaches, and mined for gold in Hillsboro. In 1880 he was one of the Panhandle cowboys sent into New Mexico to recover cattle stolen by Billy the Kid and his compañeros—and in the process he got to know the Kid dangerously well.
In unveiling this work, Nolan faithfully preserves Clifford’s own words, providing helpful annotation without censoring either the author’s strong opinions or his racial biases. For all its roughness, Deep Trails in the Old West is a rich resource of frontier lore, customs, and manners, told by a man who saw the Old West at its wildest—and lived to tell the tale.
More than just an entertaining and informative narrative of his Wild West adventures, Clifford’s memoir also paints a picture of how ranchers and ordinary folk lived, worked, and stayed alive during those tumultuous years. Written in 1940 and edited and annotated by Frederick Nolan, Deep Trails in the Old West is likely one of the last eyewitness histories of the old West ever to be discovered.
As Frank Clifford, the author rode with outlaw Clay Allison’s Colfax County vigilantes, traveled with Charlie Siringo, cowboyed on the Bell Ranch, contended with Apaches, and mined for gold in Hillsboro. In 1880 he was one of the Panhandle cowboys sent into New Mexico to recover cattle stolen by Billy the Kid and his compañeros—and in the process he got to know the Kid dangerously well.
In unveiling this work, Nolan faithfully preserves Clifford’s own words, providing helpful annotation without censoring either the author’s strong opinions or his racial biases. For all its roughness, Deep Trails in the Old West is a rich resource of frontier lore, customs, and manners, told by a man who saw the Old West at its wildest—and lived to tell the tale.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 12, 2012
Born in 1860, John Menham Wightman came to Cimarron, New Mexico, at the age of eleven. Seventy years – and several name changes later – Frank Wallace, a retired councilman in Emporia, Kansas, left an account of tales that he’d never told his family: 20 years drifting across Texas and New Mexico’s high plains and parched mountains.
Frank never explained why he’d changed his name so many times, but as Frank Clifford, he was hired to ride with the Canadian River Cattle Association to break up Billy the Kid’s cattle-rustling gang. Fresh eyewitness accounts from Billy the Kid’s day are hard to come by, but Deep Trails in the Old West is one of them.
Clifford’s transcribed memoirs, edited and scrupulously annotated by Frederick Nolan, are the most entertaining Western yarns I’ve read since Mark Twain’s Roughing It. I highly recommend Deep Trails in the Old West to any reader who enjoys stories well told and wants to learn what the Wild West was really like from one who lived there.
Jo Ann Butler (previously published in Historical Novels Review)
joann@rebelpuritan.com
Frank never explained why he’d changed his name so many times, but as Frank Clifford, he was hired to ride with the Canadian River Cattle Association to break up Billy the Kid’s cattle-rustling gang. Fresh eyewitness accounts from Billy the Kid’s day are hard to come by, but Deep Trails in the Old West is one of them.
Clifford’s transcribed memoirs, edited and scrupulously annotated by Frederick Nolan, are the most entertaining Western yarns I’ve read since Mark Twain’s Roughing It. I highly recommend Deep Trails in the Old West to any reader who enjoys stories well told and wants to learn what the Wild West was really like from one who lived there.
Jo Ann Butler (previously published in Historical Novels Review)
joann@rebelpuritan.com
January 7, 2024
This memoir offers a detailed look into the everyday life of the the late 1800’s cowboy in the American west. Strangely the more mundane details are of interest while other more exciting details are prone to exaggeration, such as interactions with Billy the Kid. All in all if you are a fan of history in the old west you won’t want to pass on this rare first glimpse offered by a man who was there.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews