An affectionate tribute to cowboys, in myth and reality, including descriptions of their dress, lingo (``cowboyspeak''), work, and play as well as sketchy accounts of famous lawmen, outlaws, authors, artists, and movie stars, all illustrated with sheaves of contemporary photos, advertisements, and other illustrations. Though Granfield's views are sometimes oversimple- -she claims, twice, that gambling was never allowed on cattle drives and writes ingenuously of the ``prairie nymphs'' who waited to greet cowboys in the saloons of Abilene and other cow towns--she does acknowledge the presence of women and African Americans in the old West and make some perceptive comments about western films and the growth of the cowboy mythos, both here and abroad. An entertaining, wide-ranging companion to Landau's Cowboys (1990) or Freedman's incomparable Cowboys of the Wild West (1985). Bibliography; index. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
