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The Day The Cowboys Quit

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The Day the Cowboys Quit Big shot ranchers are stepping on the toes of the hard working cowboy. The Author, Elmer Kelton, tells a story of a strike and the suspenseful events afterwards in The Day the Cowboys Quit. An honorable true to himself cowboy, Hugh Hitchcock, makes the reader fall for his integrity which ultimately leads him out of a job. By telling the story through Hitch, Kelton is capable of giving the reader a point of view from the little people’s perspective. Based on a true event in the late 1800’s, Kelton uses his characters to bring insight to when the people are pitted up against the big monopolizing outfits, the emotions of workers from the effect of oppression, and a dynamic change in an era that no one expected. From the beginning of the novel there is tension over the branding of a cow, where the protagonist, Hugh Hitchcock, is the one to resolve the situation. This endures throughout the novel as Hitch repeatedly stands up for the rights of the cowboys from start to finish. Even though trouble arises, Hitch isn’t directly jumping on the strike bandwagon, but is understandably upset that the situation has intensified against the other ranchers in the Texas Panhandle. He states to Charlie Waide, “I wish it has never come to this.” Before the strike, Hitch is the right hand man to Charlie Waide, an influential rancher who at first resists the enforcement of the rules but later is pressured to. Hitch’s devotion to Waide is conflicted when Waide was pushed

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