TX BIOS:  Jeff Amburgey
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   [Peck?]
   
   Folklore
   
   Ester County
   
   Dist. 18.
   
   241
   
   Page 1. Folkstuff Rangelore
   
   Josie Fay Peck --P. W.
   
   Dist 18 Wordage 460 ODESSA COWMAN RECALLS EARLY RANCH ROUNDUP
   
   Source: Jeff Amburgey, Approximagely 65 years of age.
   
   Interview: September, 1956.
   
   Place: Odessa, Texas. S-241
   
   Jeff Amburgey, who still lives in Odessa, has been in [?] roundups,
   but never such a one as he took part in forty or more years ago
   somewhere out in this western country.
   
   Two "Pinkertons" or cattle inspectors came to the roundup where he was
   employed as a cook, and wanted to work the herd. With them came a
   sheriff and a [DEL: deput :DEL] deputy, these officers coming along
   merely to prevent any trouble. The boss of the roundup told the
   "Pinkertons" that they could stand up on the hill and watch the
   roundup but they could not cut a single cow brute out for more [DEL:
   crical :DEL] critical inspection.
   
   For half a day, the working of cattle went on, and every time a cow
   was run out of the herd, the pursuing cowboy shot his pistol into the
   ground. Twenty cowboys were on the job and all during the morning the
   sound of pistol fire gave the [DEL: noi :DEL] noise of battle. The
   "pinkertons" and the officers stood on the hill, watching the game
   with field glasses and then went to town. During the morning's
   festivities, some cow hand who had taken a dislike to the cook's
   biscuits that morning, playfully shot the end of the chuck wagon out
   but Mr. Amburgey went ahead with the cooking of dinner.
   
   An old Kentuckian, Mr. Amburgey used to sit in front of his [?] in [?]
   and shoot sparrows out of the trees with a rifle. He likes to tell
   stories of the early days, of cowboys sleeping with guns in their
   hands and of one [?] who was the master brand burner of the century.
   
     NOTE: C12 - 2/11/41 - Texas
     
   00022
   
   For many years, [DEL: he :DEL] Amburgey was cook for the Long S Ranch
   of the Slaughters, a ranch that ran 90,000 head of cattle. Feeding the
   cowhands was no easy job. He rose at 2:30 in the mornings, often used
   a full sack of flour in making biscuits for a day's run, and used
   wooden pickle kegs for sourdough buckets which he filled three times
   daily. He cooked four water buckets full of beans every day, and a
   beef was eaten each second day. He went to bed at ten o'clock. On the
   ranch where he worked, a part of the Long S, the boys branded 23,000
   to 24,000 calves a year. He worked all the way from the Sterling City
   country up to the New Mexico country.
   
   In spite of all the fighting men on some of the ranches, he never saw
   a killing though once he heard a man tell another he'd cut his heart
   out , roast it on the fire and eat it--if he said another word. The
   man was quiet. He said that some of the early days cowboys were
   fugitives from justice, and one man from the outfit was taken back to
   be hanged.
   
   Amburgey now has a thirty-six section ranch in Ester and [Pinkler?]
   Counties, owning the original four sections of land on which he
   settled in 1893 as a homesteader. He lived there twenty-eight years,
   buying in that time twenty eight sections of land, buying an average
   of one section per year. He has gotten some oil production but his
   land has not been drilled yet.

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