num_pages: 400
description: Author Emerson Hough traveled with lawman Pat Garrett and interviewed eyewitnesses when researching his account of a uniquely American criminal type—the frontier outlaw. Hough describes the circumstances that form outlaws, then provides vivid accounts of famous bandits and their pursuers. Chapters cover the career of John A. Murrell, a cunning criminal who masterminded a gang of hundreds of killers and thieves that ranged across the South before the Civil War; the life of sometimes lawman Wild Bill Hickock, including the story behind his nickname; a firsthand account of the killing of Billy the Kid; the history and methods of rustling cattle; the criminal tutelage of Jesse and Frank James and Cole Younger, all of whom rode with Confederate guerillas and participated in the bloodiest massacres in Midwestern history; and many other lesser known but equally sensational murders and robbers of the American borderlands.
language: English
title: The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
titlecomplete: The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
genres: Crime, History, American History, Westerns, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 119
publisher: Cooper Square Press