Buck, was born on March 17, 1884, in a wagon yard owned by his father at Gainesville, When he was five, his family moved to Dallas.

After attending public schools in Dallas, Buck left home at the age of eighteen to take a job handling a trainload of cattle being sent to Chicago.

In "The Patsy" Buck tells the story of a young female elephant who had nothing but bad luck; in "Black Fury" of a leopard who escaped from his cage on shipboard; and in "Terrible Tusks" of a tremendous conflict, witnessed by his native assistant, between two bull elephants contending for the mastery of a herd of females.

"Animal Magic" describes native medicines: tigers' gall bladders, hairs from elephants' tails and leopards' shoulder bones.

"Enough legitimate action and suspense to make a dozen average jungle motion picture films" [4] Following the example of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's documentary Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), a film version of Bring 'Em Back Alive was made two years later, released by RKO Pictures.