The primary subject of the writings of Charles Angelo Siringo, author, was the life of Charlie Siringo, Texas cowboy and cowboy detective. Because Charlie Siringo participated in events ranging from cattle drives up the Chisholm Trail to epic horseback pursuits of western outlaws to the filming of early western movies, Charles A. Siringo had a wealth of autobiographical material on which he could draw. Although Siringo's unpolished, straightforward writing style will prevent him from ever being numbered among the most literary of western writers, his A Texas Cow Boy (1885), the first full-length, published autobiography of a cowboy, assures his place in western American literary history. Siringo is also significant because A Texas Cow Boy and his later books on his experiences as cowboy and cowboy detective helped to shape the national mythology of the cowboy.

By his own account Siringo enjoyed "my first warm meal on the seventh...