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Cowboy   /kˈaʊbˌɔɪ/   Listen
Cowboy

noun
1.
A hired hand who tends cattle and performs other duties on horseback.  Synonyms: cattleman, cowhand, cowherd, cowman, cowpoke, cowpuncher, puncher.
2.
A performer who gives exhibitions of riding and roping and bulldogging.  Synonym: rodeo rider.
3.
Someone who is reckless or irresponsible (especially in driving vehicles).



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"Cowboy" Quotes from Famous Books



... accompanying callings play a prominent part in rural life in Mexico. The hacendado, or estate owner, or ranchero, mounts his horse directly after early morning coffee, in order to make the round of his plantations. The vaquero, or cowboy of Mexico, is possibly the most expert horseman in the world, and the method of training the horse to the lightest touch of the rein, and the comfortable yet swift paso, or rapid march to which the animal is trained, are such as the foreign observer notes with interest. ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries, ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... alert, flashing eyes, that denoted a quick, nervous energy. In repose his face was serious; when he smiled, revealing fine strong teeth, it was prepossessing. He wore his hair rather long, and with his loose corduroy jacket, top boots, and cowboy hat, suggested the Western ranchman. The girls of Bismarck were all in love with him, and his mere presence doubled the business of the store, but the young man resisted all feminine blandishments. He ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... did. At midnight a cowboy came to my camp-fire. He had been thrown from his bronco and was making back to his outfit on foot. In approaching the fire his path lay close to my saddle, beneath which Scotch was lying. Tiny Scotch flew ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... gathering in India, cattle-grazing in Wyoming. He spoke of Alaskan totem-poles, of Indian sign language, of Aztec monoliths buried in the forest. He sang "Lather an' Shavin's," "La Golondrina," "The Cowboy's Lament," and, clicking his fingers castanet-wise, hummed little Spanish airs whose words he would ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... early in Gafsa, and afterwards there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to do. Cafes become tedious with their card-games, cowboy politics and persistent allusions to "la femme," that protean fetich which dominates and saturates the Gallic mind, oozing out, so to speak, at every pore of their social and national life. They never seem to grow out of the Ewig-weibliche stage. If only, like the Maltese, they would talk ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... delighted assent, caught the mane of her broncho, and swung herself into her saddle with the ease and grace of a cowboy. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... theirs, waiting for them to learn, to love, to use, to serve; as our own little boys plan to be "a big soldier," or "a cowboy," or whatever pleases their fancy; and our little girls plan for the kind of home they mean to have, or how many children; these planned, freely and gaily with much happy chattering, of what they would do for the ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... was not unkindly. She made allowances for her husband's state of mind. She was willing to permit even American expletives during the sinking-in process of her great idea, much as a broad-minded cowboy might listen indulgently to the squealing of a mustang during the branding process. Docility and obedience would be demanded of him later, but not till the first agony had abated. She spoke ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... tall, dark skinned, athletic, and roguish-looking even for the brand of Greek one meets with south of the Levant—dressed in khaki, with an American cowboy hat—his fingers nearly black with cigarette juice —his hands unusually horny for that climate—and his hair clipped so short that it showed the bumps of avarice and other things, said to reside below the hat-band to the rear. Yet a plausible, companionable-seeming ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... Crompond, Westchester county, to James Jackson, Esq., of Fishkill, in Dutchess county, informing him that Husson, a notorious cowboy and freebooter, had gone up to steal his horses, and was to have a hundred guineas if he got them. Dated ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... more decent set and a crimp in the Currycomb. It did not matter that legally the Currycomb possessed a clean bill of health. The community had decided that the Currycomb must be abolished. It was—cow, cayuse, and cowboy. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... Cowboy's Lament" and came to the passage, "Oh, take me to the churchyard and lay the sod o-o-over me," Mrs. Brewster used to say: "Gussie, Mr. Brewster'll be down in ten minutes. You can start ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... remains, along with the cowboy, the daring Air Force pilot, the self-made business tycoon and all the other romantic stereotypes of the first half of the century. She makes togetherness seem right, and God knows we have so many people ...
— Mother America • Sam McClatchie

... because of him insisting he must ride a kangaroo or something on a merry-go-round, and wanting Sour-dough to ride an ostrich with him, and then when we got him quieted down a little, nothing would do him but he's got to be a cowboy—you seen his clothes, didn't you? And of course I wanted to get back to Addie and the girls, but I seen Sour-dough here was in trouble, so I stayed right by him, and between us ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... Ploot (who turned out to be not a millionaire at all, but a gentleman thief) and a very exciting time for the Lady Lily on a ranche in Texas, whither she had followed Jack Crawley, who was to become famous throughout the States as "The Cowboy King." I forget about the Duke and Duchess, but a lover was to be found on the ranche for Fanny Starlight; and Red Indians were to carry off Webb, who was to be rescued by the Cowboy King; and so on. There were, in short, signs that Enid had not only read the feuilletons in the picture papers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various

... couple of weeks in Montana and Wyoming, whither he was drawn by a yearning of many years' standing to engage in the cattle business. He had received some tuition as a cowboy on the Llano Estacada, and the taste there acquired of the free, wild life, supplemented, doubtless, by his experience during the war, was held in restraint for a time only by ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... sense of public security to see, at Rome for instance, every third man you meet—an official, of course, of some kind—with a revolver strapped to his belt, as if we were still trembling on the verge of savagery in some cowboy settlement out West. Greek towns of about ten thousand inhabitants, like Argos or Megara, have about ten municipal guardians each, and peace reigns within their walls. How can ten men perform duties which, in Italy, would require ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... she—Mira, I mean? We know she's drawing the profits regularly from the 3-bar-Y. But that foreman of hers is as mute as a clam. . . . And now Bert, her best cowboy, has disappeared. Hm-m! What d'ye make ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... other than to put on a blue flannel shirt. The young Count made a more portentous display. When he rejoined the others after breakfast, he wore a soft light hat, the wide brim of which flapped most picturesquely. His boots were those of a Parisian equestrian, high-heeled like those of a cowboy, but of varnished black leather. His clothing was dark, and the belted coat ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... things, liked the same things. Now they didn't even agree about movies. Cathy actually didn't mind love in a picture. She even liked pictures in which the hero kissed a girl, and Jerry could hardly bear to see a cowboy kiss a horse. Jerry missed the Cathy he used to know. The way she was now ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... the plank to his satisfaction and studied his balance, now cast his eyes up to the little cupola on top of the silo. Then he began slowly swinging the loop of the rope over his head, after the fashion of a cowboy ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... you remind me mightily of Tim Doolan, the cowboy at Ballymacree," said Terence. "I found Tim, one bright morning, looking as unhappy as his twinkling eyes and cocked-up nose would let him. 'Tim, my ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... street Captain Foster espied an American cowboy in the near distance. Shouting, the captain attracted the attention of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... range-land was strong upon him. The deep breathing of three thousand sleeping cattle; the strong, animal odor; the black night which grew each moment blacker, and the rhythmic ebb and flow of the clear, untrained voice of a cowboy singing to his charge. If he could put it into words; if he could but picture the broody stillness, with frogs cr-ekk, er-ekking along the reedy creek-bank and a coyote yapping weirdly upon a distant hilltop! From the southwest ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... this section are the following: trot under saddle, one-mile track, one-mile military officer's race, one-mile mounted police race, gaited saddle race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing day of the Exposition there will be a grand parade of all first and second winners, not only in the horse display, but ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery hoss Way out into the big and boundless West; I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I come across, An' I'd pluck the bal'head eagle from his nest! With my pistols at my side I would roam the prarers wide, An' to scalp ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... troupe performed before an over-crowded house of the most appreciative audience in the world. A cinema also threw its ardent cowboy lovers and pig-tailed heroines upon a screen whose far distant days may have been spotless and white. Tubby awaited outside the "stage-door" for an hour to interview Tootsie (of the Troupe) after the first night and found "she" wore Army boots, ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... Frank's pack horses. He was a horse that would not have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank said, bothered Old Baldy but the operation of shoeing. We made the distance to the outpost by noon, and found Frank's friend a genial and obliging cowboy, who said we could have ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... impulsively, and clumsily offered him, in a breath, whisky, shuffleboard, or cowboy pool—sound Pretorian remedies for all human woes. These consolations he refused and took his leave. Midnight found me in the same chair, thinking less of Anitchkoff, whose case now lay clear, than of Mantovani and ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... the wilderness had come a painter. Genius, whose coronations alone are democratic, had woven a chaplet of chaparral for the brow of Lonny Briscoe. Art, whose divine expression flows impartially from the fingertips of a cowboy or a dilettante emperor, had chosen for a medium the Boy Artist of the San Saba. The outcome, seven feet by twelve of besmeared canvas, stood, gilt-framed, in the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... wanted to fight right then and there. I did not want to be guyed. I wanted sympathy, not guying. "Fresh fish" was the greeting all new arrivals received, and I being an apt scholar, soon learned to shout "fresh fish" as loud as a Texas cowboy. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... Cowboy," the instrument man said "I'm evacuating. Tell me when." He had already poised his finger over the switch that would pull the air from his compartments, which had been sealed off from the pilot's compartment ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett

... he had served his apprenticeship at the cattle business, and was an expert at the round-up, in branding, in cutting out, in herding, and all the arduous requirements of a cowboy's life. It was understood, therefore, that he was to be rated as a full hand among the eight men who, under his uncle, were to have charge of two thousand cattle about to start ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... be so bad I can't move him. But if you can find an' saddle horses for us we'll slip out the back door at dusk an' make our get-away. Do you think you can get us horses an' some food without tellin' anybody what for?" asked the cowboy. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... had the making of the laws. I'd put a bounty on all the darn fools that think they can write cowboy stories just because they rode past a roundup once, on a fast train," he growled, reaching for his tobacco sack. "Huh! I'd like to meet up with the yahoo that wrote that rank yarn! I'd ask him where he got his lack ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... was sleepin' sound, Es only a cowboy knows how to sleep; An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old Buffalo bull feel kind o' cheap. Wal, pard, I reckin' thar's no sech time For dwind'lin' a chap in his own conceit, Es when them mountains an' awful stars, Jest hark to the tramp ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... me f'um calf shepherd to cowboy, he sont three or four of us boys to drive de cows to a good place to graze 'cause de male beast was so mean and bad 'bout gittin' atter chillun, he thought if he sont enough of us dere wouldn't be no trouble. Dem days, dere ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... a house, and, wishing to have a smoke, he left Andres on the road, and went to the house to get a light. Meanwhile Andres, who was bound in the sack, was crying out that he did not wish to marry the daughter of the king, and that he was being forced against his will. At this instant a cowboy with his herd of cows passed by. He heard Andres, and said that he was willing to marry the king's daughter. Andres told him to unbind the sack, then. He did so, and Andres put the cowherd in his stead. Then Andres hurried ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... all this went through the mind of Bard as he lay watching the limp noose of the cowboy's lariat, and then ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... the two train robbers and the cowboy viligance committee went, in that direction last night! You fellows would better watch out, or you'll get mixed ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... be a cowboy on it!" decided Bert, as quickly as that. "I've always wanted to be a cowboy, and now I'm going to. When can I go on your ranch, Mother?" and jumping up eagerly he stood beside ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... thousand degrees on a thermometer in the same space: would it make the weather any hotter? I grant you a cautious business manager would not walk in among the gold-sellers and purchase ten billion dollars' worth of gold in a day; and for the same reason that a cautious cowboy wouldn't ride in among a bunch of cattle and flap a blanket. Not because there lurks inherent peril in so doing, but for that in the timid ignorance of the herd ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... my gait! 'T ain't much like Deming candy, is it? I saw the boss last night in Deming," he added, turning to Mrs. Williams. "You're his wife, ain't you? I thought so, soon as I saw you. He was kidding me about coming out here to be a cowboy, and I told him all right, if he wasn't running a blaze, I 'd go him on that. I was to have rode out with him in his buggy, but I was up pretty late last night with the boys, doing the town, and when I got up this morning ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... roughness of cowboy fun, the three lads stood their ground, never thinking the fellow would ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... represented. In a group representing the United States, President Wilson is one of the chief figures. I am told that the picture of General Pershing is a life-sized painting, which he was kind enough to sit for, to be used in this production. Here is also seen an American Indian, a cowboy, a merchant and an artisan. An American flag is borne aloft while four West Point cadets suggest training and leadership. Women relief workers of all kinds are seen. Then extending entirely around the room above and back of all these groups is a profile map of France from the Channel ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... exposed the plot. A young Spaniard had fallen hopelessly, madly in love with her. He was a good-looking, hard-eyed boy from the pampas,—a herder who was on his way to visit his mother in from Rio. He was a "gun-slinger" bearing close relationship to the type of cowboy that existed in the old days of the Far West but who is now extinct save for pictorial perpetuation on the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... interested. "Really! I should have said there would be the complete democracy in California if anywhere. Of course no Englishman of my generation expects to find San Franciscans in cowboy costume; but I must say I was astonished at the luxury and fashion not only at those Southern California hotels, where, to be sure, most of the guests are from your older Eastern states, but at that ball Lady Victoria took me to. It was magnificent in all its details, originality ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... the high bank of the river, the whole course lay in open view. It was a scene full of life and vividly picturesque. There were miners in dark clothes and peak caps; citizens in ordinary garb; ranch-men in wide cowboy hats and buckskin shirts and leggings, some with cartridge-belts and pistols; a few half-breeds and Indians in half-native, half-civilized dress; and scattering through the crowd, the lumbermen with gay ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... Roberts to see the departure of the first contingent of American volunteers from the Gare Saint-Lazare. These youths are a tall, stalwart lot, marching with a sort of cowboy swing. They were not in uniform, but wore flannel shirts, broad-brimmed felt hats, and khaki trousers. They carried a big American flag surmounted with a huge bouquet of roses, and alongside this a large French flag. They were loudly ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... over, When the pipes were filled and lit, And the cowboy ceased his stories Weak in moral, rank in wit, Billy plied him long with questions, Wording each with thought and care, Lest his zeal for information Should reveal his mission there. "Tell me who you've seen go by here, Just ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... appear in such a manner as not to be imposed on as a novice. So when he was presented to Boyton, he was gaily attired in a buckskin suit, with revolver and bowie knife trimmings, looking rather out of place with the scholarly spectacles that bridged his nose. He really outdid the most fanciful cowboy of the far western ranches. Such an outfit he imagined just the thing for a trip among the wild characters on the Upper Mississippi. The other member of the party was a broad nosed, Herculean negro whom Paul hired to pull the row boat he had purchased ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... Several cowboy broncos stood hitched to a railing and a little farther down were two buckboards, with horses that took my eye. These probably were the teams Colonel Sampson had spoken ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... Creek place. Word came now and then of Wayne Shandon, sometimes by infrequent and unsatisfactory short letters from him, more often in elaborately embroidered rumour from men making long trips across the country. He had gone to work for a cattle outfit, taking a dollar a day and doing an ordinary cowboy's work. Even before he was twenty-one, men called him Red Reckless. He had learned to gamble, and to gamble for big stakes. He played poker; he took his chance with the "bank"; but he loved the dice. They were quicker; a man could "make or break" at one throw. It was ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... these bullwhackers and his book is a true account of his adventures while driving frontier freighters. He tells one of the choice stories of America's making and in a way that makes the old West, with the Indian, the cowboy, and the outlaw, ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... because France is a republic. The French are lovable, and worthy of all the sympathy and affection we can give them. But Britain is still nominally a monarchy; and our patriot thinks of its people very much as the cowboy used to regard citizens of New York. They all lived on Fifth Avenue. For the cowboy, the residents of the dreary side streets simply did not exist. We have been wont to think of all the British as aristocrats, while they have returned the compliment by visualizing all Americans as plutocrats—despite ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... eyes and starting up, gazed about him in sheer surprise; for an instant, in that state of bewilderment that comes with sudden awakening, he almost believed himself in a Western ranch bunkhouse, and that some happy cowboy outside roared a grotesque ballad. He gazed at the interior of a rough shack built of pine boards, with bunks constructed in tiers on both sides. There were figures in them—Western cowboys, perhaps. Then it seemed, somehow, that the voice drifting from the outside was strangely familiar. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... to the "relay Marathon," which Frank and his chums had run against Blunt and his cowboy friends, to file in Gold Hill a location notice of ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... battles, and performed mighty deeds of valor, childish pranks had no interest. He cared now for nothing in the world but to read all day long, and half the night; to read anything and everything, from the hair-raising cowboy tales Davy Munn loaned him, to the ponderous histories from the minister's book-shelf. Through this selfsame book-shelf the minister had become one of Tim's closest friends, and might have made a pastoral visitation every day in the week and been welcome. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... campaign hat with upturned brim, nor the dotted blue handkerchief knotted behind the neck, nor the heavy gauntlets stitched with red, nor—this above all—the bear-skin "chaparejos," the hair trousers of the mountain cowboy, the pistol holster low on the thigh. But for the moment this holster was empty, and in his right hand, the hammer at full cock, the chamber loaded, the puncher flourished his teaser, an army Colt's, the lamplight dully reflected in the dark ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... A real Western cowboy with a pistol under his coat, a prospector turned multi-millionaire in a year, such a man—especially if he wears a sombrero and gives five-dollar tips to the bell-hops—is sure to break into the prints. But it was a strange coincidence, when ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... a stubborn battle with the vicious bronco. "Look out!" yells the guide. "Wall, ef thet don't beat the Dutch!" exclaims a cowboy. A fainting conqueror. Cowboys voice their admiration of the Overland girl, and Bud offers his services in the event ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... that cowboy band away, Full of revengeful wrath, And Kendall Evans rode ahead Upon a ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... A ranch and cowboy novel. Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... his cousin, "but I'll be 'gladder' if you will tell me where I can get some togs like yours. I declare, but I like that outfit," and he looked enviously at Banty's leather chaps, blue flannel shirt, scarlet silk neckerchief and cowboy hat. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... foolish like you done in Chicago last summer! You wouldn't listen to me then, would you? And that Denver business, too! Say, look at all the foolish things you done against all I could say to save you—like backing that cowboy plug against Battling Jensen!—Like taking that big hunk o' beef, Walstein, to San Antonio, where Kid O'Rourke put him out in the first! And everybody's laughing at you yet! Ah——" he exclaimed angrily, "somebody tell me why I don't ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... remind me of, kid. There was a fellow came to our circus last summer, and wanted to get an engagement as rider. He said he'd been a cowboy out in New Mexico, and had been employed to break horses. So we gave the fellow a trial. We brought out a wild mustang, and told him to show what he could do. The mustang let him get on, as was his custom, but after he was fairly on, he gave a jump, ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... lovely that Redding swung his hooded camera at her as swiftly as a cowboy could have covered her with ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... white comrades. Many of the engineers and foremen had dressed up that morning, and a few had fished out a white shirt. Judah and Strawbridge, of the Central, had little chips of straw hats that had been harvested in the summer of '65. Here and there you saw a sombrero, the wide hat of the cowboy, and the big, soft, shapeless head cover of the Mormon, with a little bunch of whiskers on his chin. General Dodge came from his arsenal car, that stood on an improvised spur, in a bright, new uniform. Of the special trains, ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... Goliath. In Athens I saw small boys using it to throw stones at an electric-light pole. The one the fisherman used was about eight feet long. To get the momentum he whirled it swiftly above his head as a cowboy swings a lariat, and then let one end fly loose, and the stone, escaping, smashed into the mass of ducks. If it stunned or killed a duck the human water-spaniel in the boat would row out and retrieve it. To duck hunters at home the sport would chiefly recommend itself ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... into picture, going at same speed as before. Man (not cowboy, but carrying gun in holster) recognizes him as he approaches. Draws gun, stands at side of road, and, as Steve comes close raises gun and calls on him to halt. Steve only bends low and gives the horse the spurs, dashing past at full gallop. Man raises ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... and song, and sunshine, and the burnt sacrifice of the over-ripe boot and the hoary overshoe. The cowboy and the new milch cow carol their roundelay. So does the veteran hen. The common egg of commerce begins to come forth into the market at a price where it can be secured with a step-ladder, and all ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... is related in this chapter. Pugsy's version was, however, brief and unadorned, as was the way with his narratives. Such things as first causes and piquant details he avoided, as tending to prolong the telling excessively, thus keeping him from perusal of his cowboy stories. The way Pugsy put it was as follows. He gave the thing out merely as an item of general interest, a bubble on the surface of the life of a great city. He did not know how nearly interested were his employers in any matter touching ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... I know what I'll do!" he exclaimed. "I'll get the clothes line for a lasso, and I'll pretend to be a Wild West cowboy. Then I can lasso the rooster and make an ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope

... at the Circle L the night before, Lawler had changed from his cowboy rigging to a black suit of civilian cut, with tight trousers that were stuffed into the tops of soft boots of dull leather. The coat was long, after the fashion of the period, cut square at the bottom, and the silk lapels matched the flowing tie ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Travelers at the close of the War of 1812 met droves of more than a thousand cattle and swine from the interior of Ohio going to Pennsylvania to fatten for the Philadelphia market.[16:2] The ranges of the Great Plains, with ranch and cowboy and nomadic life, are things of yesterday and of to-day. The experience of the Carolina cowpens guided the ranchers of Texas. One element favoring the rapid extension of the rancher's frontier is the fact that in a remote country ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... nothing to her; she was playing with him as, no doubt, she had played with many another susceptible youngster. Helen was sure she read that in the eyes which the young woman turned now and then upon the languishing young cowboy. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... little grey gelding swayed in rhythm with his panting; from his belly sweat dripped steadily into the dust and the reins had chafed his neck to a lather. Marianne flashed into indignation and that, of course, made her scrutinize the rider more narrowly. He was perfect of that type of cowboy which she detested most: handsome, lithe, childishly vain in his dress. About his sombrero ran a heavy width of gold-braid; his shirt was blue silk; his bandana was red; his boots were shop-made beauties, soft and flexible; and on ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a cool head, and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from cowboy to be a cowman. Then came the boom in cattle, and Fortune, stepping gingerly among the cactus thorns, came and emptied her cornucopia at the doorstep of ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... suit and ragged toppers, even before I got freckled and splashed with prairie-mud. I was standing up in the stirrups laughing at Francois, who'd had a bad slip and fallen in a puddle just back of our old corral, when her Ladyship came out. She must have taken me for a drunken cowboy who'd rolled into a sheep-dip, for my nose was red and my old Stetson sombrero was crooked on the back of my head and even my hair was caked with mud. She called to me, rather imperiously, so I went stampeding up to her, and let ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... was a Piece of Cloth which he wore round his waist. But, as ill-luck would have it, rats were plentiful in the wood, so he had to keep a cat. The cat required milk to feed it, so a cow had to be kept. The cow required tending, so a cowboy was employed. The boy required a house to live in, so a house was built for him. To look after the house, a maid had to be engaged. To provide company for the maid, a few more houses had to be built, and people invited to live in ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... a familiar voice, and, turning, he saw, advancing towards him, in the full glare of an electric light, three men, all young and evidently in high spirits. One, thin, brown, and wiry, was dressed as a cowboy of the Western plains. Another, who was a giant in stature, wore a golf suit of gray tweed; while the third, of boyish aspect, whom Ridge recognized as the son of a well-known New York millionaire, was clad in brown canvas much after his own style, though ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... they were eager to clear their tarnished reputation, and the possibility of harm coming to them did not seem to present itself. They had formed rather a poor opinion of Buffalo Bill's Indians, whose yell turned out to be very little more than short yelps, and who ran away directly a Cowboy showed his nose. Hadn't Clarence defeated them with ease already? What Clarence had done alone they surely could do together, and then they had an unbounded belief in the impregnable character ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... general direction of a front porch that flashed past on his right. Never slowing, Gary threw the next paper entirely across the street. He chuckled as it cleared a picket fence. "Bang, bang!" he blurted. His red shirt, with a picture of a mounted cowboy on the back, ballooned ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert

... as the tiger was gobbling the last morsel up, down the street galloped a cowboy on a swift horse. He stopped right in front of the ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... write some verses about that girl," suggested Sam to Songbird, in a whisper. "You could call it 'The Cowboy's Sweetheart,' or something ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... men who have been in cabinets do stick to one another even when they are enemies. They think themselves so mighty that they oughtn't to be 'andled like other men. But I'll let 'em know that I'll 'andle 'em. A Cabinet Minister or a cowboy is the same to Quintus Slide when he has got his pen ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... Thornton cottage playing with the children. As he got up awkwardly from the floor and raised his straw hat, Milly remarked that his sandy hair was thin. He was slight, about middle-aged, and seemed quite timid. Not at all the large westerner with bronzed face and flapping cowboy hat she had vaguely pictured to herself. Nevertheless, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... Some of the best of the William S. Hart productions show appreciation of this quality by the director, the photographer, and the public. Not only is the man but the horse allowed to be moving bronze, and not mere cowboy pasteboard. Many of the pictures of Charles Ray make the hero quite a bronze-looking sculpturesque ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... who had inspected the craft from the rocks was a tall young fellow, dressed in flannel shirt and trousers, the latter held in place by a cartridge-belt, such as is used by the American cowboy. To this was hung a heavy revolver. On his head was a broad-brimmed cork helmet, much soiled, and resembling in shape the Mexican sombrero. Beneath this head-gear was a mass of brown hair, which showed a non-acquaintance with barbers for, perhaps, months, and under ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... Little cowboy, what have you heard, Up on the lonely rath's green mound? Only the plaintive yellow-bird Singing in sultry fields around? Chary, chary, chary, chee-e! Only the grasshopper and the bee? "Tip-tap, rip-rap, Tick-a-tack-too! Scarlet leather sewn together, This ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the American lines through the avenue of palms that bordered the road, the soldiers stood in reverent silence, baring their heads as the band struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner." But as Hobson and his men swung onward cheers and a roar of welcome broke the silence, while a cowboy yell came from the Rough Riders. Breaking from all restraint, the men rushed in, eagerly grasping the hands of Hobson and his men. All the way to Siboney the cheers and excitement continued, and when Hobson set foot on ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... room, returning presently with a "cowboy" hat that must have been the joy and pride of the tourist who sacrificed it to the San Pasqual zephyr. She pinched it to a peak and set it jauntily on his auburn head, then stood off ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... The cowboy swung to the south and held a steady road gait. With an almost uncanny accuracy he recognized all signs that had to do with cattle. Though cows, half hidden in the brush, melted into the color of the hillside, he picked them out unerringly. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... been kidnapped. Two men in airplane carried him away into Old Mexico. Since getting your telegram few minutes ago realize it may have been your airplane. Wasn't there and didn't see it but description of machine given by cowboy on the range who saw it all tallies with description of ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... she began; then she stopped short and clung to the strong arm. A man in a wide-flapped hat and cowboy chaparejos, with a revolver on either hip, was crossing the stream on the ice-bridge to scramble up the embankment of the ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... recognised. I think the very cowboy in the farmyard—a broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes—even the cowboy knows that I am to be Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. Cotenoir is the Windsor Castle of this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... born in Indianner, it was his native home, And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam; And first he went to Texas, a cowboy for to be— ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... of them giving up to grim death before the voyage was ended. Too often one bit of bad luck follows another. This rule brought us in contact with one of these small officials at Montevideo, better adapted to home life; one of those knowing, perhaps, more than need a cowboy, but not enough for consul. This official, managing to get word to my crew that a change of master dissolved their contract, induced them to come on shore and claim pay for the whole voyage and passage home on a steamer besides, the same as though ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... and, Toby, what do I see on the bridge but a big Plymouth Rock rooster!" exclaimed Bandy-legs, excitedly, "so Johnny get your gun, or else your rope, and let's see what sort of a cowboy you ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... to spin yarns about himself and his doin's, and pretty soon it come out that he'd been a cowboy afore young Stumpton give up ranchin' and took to automobilin'. That cleared the sky line some, of course; I'd read consider'ble about cowboys in the ten-cent books my nephew fetched home when he was away to school. I see right off that Billings was ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... She could see the girls taking turns in galloping around the oval, while Martin, as ringmaster, waved his whip and urged them on. Martin now was bent with rheumatism, but in his far-off reckless youth he had been a cowboy, and when he taught the girls to ride, it was with a disregard of broken bones that dismayed even the adventurous gymnasium teacher. Patty was his star pupil; she could stick on Red Pepper's back with nothing but a blanket ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... I am pulling for the shore but I am not. I am steering my little craft right out in the billows It may be dashed to smithereens, and it may come safely home again, but in any case, I'll have the consolation of the Texas cowboy ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... out in one round, too!" The scene was a saloon in Montana. Six men were gathered round a table playing poker. The light was dim, the liquor was villainous, and the air was dense with tobacco smoke. It was a cowboy party, and one of the cowboys was Donald Morrison. He had adopted the free life of the Western prairies. He had learned to ride with the grace and shoot with the deadly skill ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... sidelight on the settlement of what later generally was known as Fort Valley has been thrown by Earl R. Forrest of Washington, Penn., in early days a cowboy for the Arizona Cattle Company. He writes that the building formed one side of a 100-foot square, with the stockade on the other three sides. In his day, the name of the ranch was changed to Fort Rickerson, in ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... Thumb him!" the audience cried, referring to the cowboy trick of running the thumbs along a certain place in the shoulder to stir the ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... at each other in silence for a time, then the cowboy said with unusual emphasis, "Boys, he's white! ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... that the quarter had been put there to test his honesty. I finally concluded to tell the bishop all about it, knowing that his experience with all kinds of human nature had been great in his travels about to his various missions, and his kindness and tact with miner, ranchman, and cowboy; he is now called by them lovingly "The Cowboy Bishop." He laughed heartily about Hang, and said, "I'll fix that," which he must have done to Hang's entire satisfaction, for he fairly danced around the bishop during the remainder ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... give him this little cut, the face of Peg Grant showed signs of anger. He knew very well that he was making wretched progress along the line of becoming an accomplished rider and cowboy. And the easy manner in which the other boys sat their saddles ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... Columbia, supported the Union Jack and the Stars and Strips together with a bunch of camellias as a delicate compliment to the school; Jess, in plaid and tam-o'-shanter, stood for her native Scotland; Peachy, with fringed leather leggings and cowboy's hat, was a ranch-girl; Joan in a somewhat similar costume represented "the bush" in Australia; Sheila in a white coat trimmed plentifully with cotton wool made a pretty Canada; Irene was an Irish colleen; Mary, with bunches ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... spectacle of an entire German regiment, without arms, marching off the battlefield under their own officers. The captured regiment was escorted to the rear by mounted American guards, who smilingly and leisurely rode their horses cowboy fashion as they herded their ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... knowledgeable in the lore of mule and ox, they can be depended upon to exact the most from animal transport with the least cruelty. Wonderful riders these; I have seen them sit bucking horses in a way that a Texas cowboy or ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... down at his victim. The other Mexicans stared. The cowboy jumped up from the tongue of the wagon, drew his weapon from the holster at his side, took deliberate aim, and fired twice. Then he turned and began to run toward Alfred on ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... 361 [Obs.] [Destruction of animals]; euthanasia, sacrifice, humane destruction. neatherd^, cowherd, shepherd; grazier, drover, cowkeeper^; trainer, breeder; apiarian^, apiarist; bull whacker [U.S.], cowboy, cow puncher [U.S.], farrier; horse leech, horse doctor; vaquero, veterinarian, vet, veterinary surgeon. cage &c (prison) 752; hencoop^, bird cage, cauf^; range, sheepfold, &c (inclosure) 232. V. tame, domesticate, acclimatize, breed, tend, break in, train; cage, bridle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... cowboy. She had distinctly seen the leathern chaps on his legs; the broad hat, the scarf at his throat. Doubt and fear assailed her. What if the man did not belong to the Double R? What if he were a road agent—an outlaw? Immediately she heard an ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... accomplished horseman, riding indeed like a cowboy, and therefore, out of a feeling of compassion for his companion, he chose what appeared to be the most mettlesome of the two proffered horses; but Dick, although a sailor, had also learned how to keep his seat upon a ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... devil, excepting when ducks were coming in. Ben McCullough was the only railroad man in north Texas, and George Green the only Republican in the State. Jake Zurn had not left Germany and Jim Hogg was a cowboy. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... did not propose being a target for a Spanish bullet. But, above all, he wanted that boat, and, like the cowboy when he wants a revolver, wanted ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... up, the valley widened somewhat; and finding here some grass for her pony to forage on, she stopped for the night. The flimsy saddle was removed from her horse and converted into a crude pillow, in true cowboy style. Marie was uneasy. This was the first night in all her adventures that she had been absolutely alone, separated from both friends and foes, with no house to shelter her weary head, with the cloudless canopy of the silent heavens arched above ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... said. "Potlatch Pyres and Potlatch Day—childhood's brightest memory. Ah, those smells from the fire! The incense of seared varnish; the piny smoke from building-blocks tossed into the flames; the thick wool stinks of dated shirts and cowboy-suits, gasoline-soaked and tossed into the Potlatch Pyre. My little brother, padded fat in his snowsuit, toddling up to the fire to toss in his dated sled, then scampering back from the sparks while Mom and Dad smiled at him from the porch, cuddling hot ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang

... of a pool of water and shook himself while centrifugal force was not acting, the water, instead of flying off in every direction, would merely drip down to the ground as if the dog were not shaking himself at all. A cowboy would find that he could no longer throw his lasso by whirling it around his head. A boy trying to spin his top would discover that the top would not stand on its point while spinning, any better than when ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... "Oh, the cowboy sings so mournful on the Rio! To the dark night herd, so mournful and so sad, And I'd like to be in the moonlight on the Rio, Wheah good men are good, and ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... gone, Louise proffered Overland tobacco and papers. Actual tears stood in the ex-cowboy's eyes. "Smoke! Me?" he exclaimed. "I was dyin' for it. I'd ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... that he remains so. He went out of existence with the blanket Indian and the buffalo. He is dead, and he must not be resurrected. He was a picturesque evil of those early days, but civilization has no use for him, and it has killed him, as the railroads and the barb-wire fence have killed the cowboy. He does not belong here; he does not fit in; he is not wanted. We want men who can breed good cattle, who can build manufactories and open banks; storekeepers who can undersell those of other cities; and professional men who know their business. We do not want ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... is to be thanked for having written so excellent a book. The cowboy story, as this author has told it, will be the cowboy's fitting eulogy. This volume will be consulted in years to come as an authority on past conditions of the far West. For fine literary work the author is to be highly complimented. Here, certainly, we have a choice ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... advent of the new preacher the slight illness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken the settlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded even the extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the "Inspired Cowboy," a common unlettered frontiersman, he was said to have developed wonderful powers of exhortatory eloquence among the Indians, and scarcely less savage border communities where he had lived, half outcast, half ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... galloping to and fro in and about the village. "I can't spare the time, or I would," is my slightly un-truthful answer to an invitation to stop over for the day and have some fun. Briefly told, this latter, with the cowboy, consists in getting hilariously drunk, and then turning his "pop" loose at anything that happens to strike his whiskey-bedevilled fancy as presenting a fitting target. Now a bicycle, above all things, would intrude itself upon the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... sail and making the atmosphere cool. Under this was his dining-table, near a very handsome buffet, both made by Grelet of the false ebony, for he was a good carpenter as he was a crack boatsman, farmer, cowboy, and hunter. Here we sat over pipe and cigarette after dinner, wine at our elbows, the garden before ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... all, or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear cut was it. There were other striking things about her—the cowboy Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver that hung in ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... I reckon you'll make a right smart of a cowboy yet. What's this?" he said, turning to Mose. "This ain't ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... not speak or stir. Amid the stubbly beard the great jaws closed, until it seemed the pipe-stem must be broken. His eyes narrowed, as when, before starting, he had questioned the cowboy Grannis; then of a sudden he rose and laid a detaining hand upon the worker's shoulder. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... says I, in a desultory kind of voice, 'that a Mexican told a cowboy named Jake over at Pidgin's store on the Nueces that he heard that Black Bill had been seen in Matamoras by a sheepman's ...
— Options • O. Henry

... been out of place on Fifth Avenue or Bond Street, women to whom even the French Poodle would have given his approval; men of the West in flannel shirts and cowboy hats; miners from the Creeks, gathered from all corners of the Earth; Eskimos in their furs with tiny babies strapped on their backs; rosy-cheeked children—all hurried to the point where the ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... he was aware that a tall, lanky cowboy in chaps, woollen shirt, and stiff, broad-brimmed hat was pounding his cayuse over the head with his ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... to her to-day, Like a cowboy cross the land. Snatch her from Belasco's hand And that prison ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... Down at the bunk houses the dogs began to yap and some full-throated cow-puncher sent forth a "Yee! Yee! Yee! Yip!" that acted as rising call for all the hands. As the three girls from so much farther east gathered at the low window to peer out, there sounded another cowboy salute and there dashed by with the drumming of hoofs a little party of mounted men who rode just as the cowboys ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr



Words linked to "Cowboy" :   horse wrangler, ranch hand, vaquero, adventurer, wrangler, buckaroo, performer, gaucho, buckeroo, performing artist, venturer, roper, cowgirl



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