STAND TO HORSE

A novel of men in the Army, in the Southwest during the trying period of the Apache raids, is tersely written and packed with action as it describes Private Ritchie Peters' first months in Company K of the First Dragoons in Santa Fe. Quite simply, the plot is one of battles and bad men, based on research into the history of the period, but the characters are more closely examined for what they are worth than in the ordinary adventure. We get a look at their motives as well as their actions, the enemy becomes understandable and Ritchie and Herndon, the sergeant whom he had disliked at first, fully realize the tragic effects of the white man's relentless energies. But they know too that they now belong to the land and both look forward to a less warlike future.