A collection of twenty anecdotes about the Texas West, specifically tales from the corrals, livery stables and wagonyards by the old horse traders. The author is a semi-retired veterinarian.

Gelber's highly readable and lively prose makes clear how this unique economic ritual survived into the industrial twentieth century, in the process adding a colorful and interesting chapter to the history of the automobile.

In thirteen stories full of rope burns and brush scratches, the author of the classic Horse Tradin? tells of the days when he made a specialty of catching wild cows. ø Ben K. Green calls himself a ?stove-up old cowboy,? and readers of this book will learn soon enough where the broken bones came from. Green tells of his adventures with wild steers, sharing with readers the years he worked in thorny brush and canyon country delivering those animals that were too wily or too wild for the normal roundup. Finding them was hard, even dangerous, work. Few cowboys looked for such chores. Green declares, ?I got real good at it, but of course in those days I didn?t know any better.?

Presents fifteen tales of horse trading out on the range, recounting the dealings of old-timers and Western characters.

Plains folklorist Roger L. Welsch has edited a lively collection of stories by some master yarnspinners—those old-time traveling horse traders. Told to Federal Writers' Project fieldworkers in the 1930s, these stories cover the span of horse trading: human and equine trickery, orneriness, debility—and generosity.

From the same corral that produced the widely loved Horse Tradin’, Ben “Doc” Green has rounded up fifteen new yarns filled with the ornery yet irresistible “con” that has branded Doc’s books as classics of Western Americana. Some More Horse Tradin’ recounts the go-arounds of Doc and a whole slew of craggy old-timers and rangy characters, including a watermelon hauler “who has a bit of snuff that seeps out a little on his whiskers,” Professor Know-It-All, the “charitable” Mr. Undertaker, and the well-known public cowboy Will Rogers. See all of them matching their wiles and hear a lot of palaver, dealin’ and tradin’ for well-bred usin’-type mares, snorty-like range horses, and even used-to-be bad horses from the tumbleweeded plains of Texas to the mountain meadows of Yankee Vermont. Watch the Doc stretch a city ordinance with a frustrated lawman in “The Last Trail Drive Through Downtown Dallas” and admire the old-time knavery, skill, and salesmanship in such tales as “Gittin’ Even,” “Brethren Horse Traders,” “Mule Schoolin’,” and “Water Treatment and the Sore-Tailed Bronc.” So here you go—with Doc Green and his horse-tradin’ West in finest fettle. As he puts it himself, “These apples come from the same barrel as Horse Tradin’ but they ain’t none of them spotty.”

The trading, selling, and buying of personal transport has changed little over the past one hundred years. Whether horse trading in the early twentieth century or car buying today, haggling over prices has been the common practice of buyers and sellers alike. Horse Trading in the Age of Cars offers a fascinating study of the process of buying an automobile in a historical and gendered context. Steven M. Gelber convincingly demonstrates that the combative and frequently dishonest culture of the showroom floor is a historical artifact whose origins lie in the history of horse trading. Bartering and bargaining were the norm in this predominantly male transaction, with both buyers and sellers staking their reputations and pride on their ability to negotiate the better deal. Gelber comments on this point-of-sale behavior and what it reveals about American men. Gelber's highly readable and lively prose makes clear how this unique economic ritual survived into the industrial twentieth century, in the process adding a colorful and interesting chapter to the history of the automobile.

Here are the yarns of a true cowboy for those who have in their blood either a touch of larceny, an affection for the Old West, or better yet, both. These twenty tales add up to a true account of Ben K. Green’s experiences around the corrals, livery stables, and wagon yards of the West. Green was a veterinarian who took down his shingle and went into horse trading, in what he imagined would be retirement. No stranger to the saddle, Green claims to have “with these bloodshot eyes and gnarled hands measured over seventy thousand horses.” His tales range from tricks to make an old horse seem young (at least until the poor creature died from the side effects of the scam) to a recipe for making a dapple-gray mule from a bucket of paint and a chicken’s egg. So you want to go into the horse business? You can learn the knavery, skill, salesmanship, and pure con man hokum of horse trading here, in a book every westerner or horse fancier should have on hand.