Early Days in Texas

the long version

Gentlemen, reprobate, killer, lawman--Jim McIntire was all of these, and more. In the 1870s McIntire was a regular fixture in the life of such Texas towns as Fort Griffin, Jacksboro, Fort Belknap, and Mobeetie. The handsome young man soon built a quick-gun reputation that in the 1880s led him into city law enforcement in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and later branded him an outlaw. A near-death experience in 1901 prompted a nevertheless unrepentant McIntire to pen his life story. Rich with detail, his narrative chronicles a violent time on the nineteenth-century frontier, revealing attitudes of frontier folk toward bigotry, cruelty to humans and animals, law enforcement, buffalo hunting, saloons, gambling, and more. Notable frontier figures parade through his narrative, including legendary lawmen Pat Garrett, John W. Poe, and Wyatt Earp, and an assortment of outlaws and gunfighters, such as Sam Bass, Billy the Kid, Jim Courtright, and "Mysterious Dave" Mather. Robert K. DeArment's careful editing and extensive annotations correct McIntire's errors of fact, chronology, and omission, placing Early Days in Texas among the important firsthand accounts of life on the rough edge of the Texas and New Mexico frontier -- Back cover.