COW BY THE TAIL

This is good ""true western"" material, as a man, now in his eighties, recalls the days of his boyhood and youth in the settling of the great southwest. Texas, Indian Territory, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado -- his wanderings took him all through that section, now as a cowboy, now as a prospector, eventually as owner and operator of a cattle ranch. Indians on the war path, rumors of easy money, establishing of the great cattle industry of that section are part and parcel of his story. Adventure is implicit in his story; the most revealing personal incident has to do with his romance with an Indian girl; life on the ranch -- on the trail -- forms the setting for a fast-paced story, factually and simply set forth in unaffected, colorful vernacular. One gets a thread of the courage, brawn and fortitude, shown through hardship, suffering, violence -- but the general tenor of the writing is philosophical without being nostalgic. Good Americans. And better written than most of its kind.