Customer Reviews

Bob Fudge, Texas trail driver, Montana-Wyoming cowboy, 1862-1933

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Bob Fudge was an authentic cowboy. He helped trail cattle from Texas to Montana. He was a cowboy for a number of cattle ranches in Montana. Later, he had a ranch of his own in southeastern Montana. My father knew Bob Fudge and my sister remembers him. When I was a child, I remember overhearing several conversations about Bob Fudge. I have read about him in some accounts published as diaries or newspapers. All accounts of him describe a person who was gentle and generous. Apparently, he enjoyed telling of his adventures. Jim Russell wrote this book to record the stories that Bob Fudge told. Some are pretty exciting. However, everything in the book that I have been able to correlate with other sources is true.

Bob Fudge lived in the "real" Wild West and that is what the reader will find in this book. There are Indians. There are stampeding steers. The cowboys care for the cattle, ride on roundups, and drive the cattle to a railhead to be shipped. There is danger and lives lost. Wildfires, unbroken horses, freezing cold, and flooding rivers were all part of a cowboy's life. In winter a cowboy might be unemployed or living alone at some outpost on the ranch. It was in many ways a difficult life. Bob was working at twelve years of age and was breaking horses by the time he was fifteen. On the other hand, the people who populated the west were mostly good people; they helped one another as necessary and made good friends. Bob Fudge lived the cowboy's life, enjoyed it, and told about it.

We have read and reread Bob Fudge and feel like we have that "personal trail drive experience" with each reading. Bob Fudge may have been one of the most important characters in the history of cattle drives from Texas to Montana. As a ranching family, we appreciate the struggles and stories shared in this book. If you enjoy the cowboy life coupled with true history, pick up this book. We have given several copies as gifts over the years and our friends feel as we do. This book echoes the cowboy life and you feel the sense of the elements of nature and dust in your nose as you read the book.

I bought this book as a gift for my husband and we both enjoyed it immensely. My husband says, "If a person asks 'What is a cowboy'? I would tell them to read this book."

The author, Jim Russell, knew Bob Fudge personally. He worked with Fudge and was administrator of his estate after Fudge died. During their long winter evenings together Bob would share many of his life's experiences with Jim Russell. Jim told Fudge that he should write a book of his experiences. Fudge, being the modest man that he was, just chuckled at the suggestion. Thankfully, Jim took it upon himself to put Bob Fudge's life stories in writing for posterity.

What makes the stories all the more interesting for me peronally is that I live in an area Bob Fudge once traveled by horseback on many a long cattle drive. Broadus, Miles City, Malta, Circle, and Glendive, Montana are very familiar to me and were included in the wide loop of his travels. The lower Yellowstone River valley, the Milk River, the Big Missouri River, the Platte River and the Powder River are familiar as well. I look at these waterways in an entirely different light knowing that there were men on horses crossing them with large herds of cattle long before the first bridge was ever built in this part of the country.

Bob Fudge lived the life that we can only dream of today or watch in the movies. His life was as impressive as the big sky he traveled under. He had a love for the open range that shines through on the pages of this book. Bob Fudge told Jim Russell: "That was a big, fine range country then, and I will always remember my first two summers in Montana. I had loved that big, wild country. I can still feel the still, hushed caress of early day, just before the birds would start their orchestra. There is a stillness in an unsettled country such as that was which I have never heard expressed, and which no man has ever experienced in a noisy city, or with the surroundings of a busy household."

Bob Fudge certainly had his share of trials and tribulations, but for the most part he lived an adventure that few today will ever experience. Next time I make it over to Broadus, MT I will try to locate his final resting place and pay my respects to a man that got the job done... no matter what.