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1740. DUNLOP, Richard. Great Trails of the West. Nashville & New
York: Abingdon Press, [1971]. 320 pp., numerous text illustrations (mostly
photographic), maps, endpaper maps. Large 8vo, original cream linen. Fine in
near fine d.j.
First edition. Smith S182. Includes chapters on the
trails that cattle drives used (Chisholm, Oregon Trail, Applegate Road, Mullan
Road, etc.). $15.00
1741. DUNN, J. B. (Red) John. The Perilous Trails of Texas. Dallas:
Published for the Author by the Southwest Press, [1932]. ix [1] 163 pp., frontispiece
portrait, plates. 8vo, original green cloth lettered in red. Some light discoloration
to binding, occasional foxing or browning (particularly adjacent to plates),
overall very good, mostly unopened, in the scarce pictorial d.j.
First edition. CBC 3545. Dykes, Western High
Spots, p.118 (“Ranger Reading”). Guns 650: “Scarce....
Deals with lawlessness on the Mexican border.” Herd 732. Howes D578.
Rader 1241. Dunn (1851-1940) gives a spirited account of driving cattle from
Williamson County to Kansas, working in the packing houses at Rockport during
the Civil War, serving in the Texas Rangers with Chamberlain (1870) and Wallace
(1874), and the violent Mexican Raid of 1875. The author includes information
on King and Kenedy and a list of cattle trails. $250.00
1742. DUNN, J[acob] P[iatt], Jr. Massacres of the Mountains:
A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West.... New York: Harper & Brothers,
1886. [x] 784 pp., numerous engraved text illustrations (many full-page,
including Texas Rangers at the Battle of Glorieta, others from photographs,
including D. F. Barry’s portrait of Sitting Bull), maps and plans (including
engraved foldout map with reservations colored in pink: Map of the Indian
Reservations within the United States 1884, 18.4 x 28 cm). Thick 8vo,
original olive green pictorial cloth stamped in red, gold, and black. Light
wear, generally fine. Seldom found in collector’s condition.
First edition. Flake 3046. Graff 1181. Howes
D575: “Best single volume covering the subject.” Larned 3403: “Compiled
from the best sources, including many official records.” Luther, High
Spots of Custer 125. McCracken, 101, p. 26: “Covers most of
the major confrontations in the Indian Wars including Mountain Meadows, Sand
Creek, Little Big Horn and the Nez Percés campaign.” Munk (Alliot),
p. 69. Rader 1239. Saunders 2872. Smith 2648. Wallace, Arizona History XIV:2n. “Impressive...a
valued standard in its field ever since its initial publication. Its remarkable
accuracy, thoroughness of coverage, scope and the sound judgment displayed have
enabled it to retain its place as a cornerstone in the history of Indian-white
conflicts ever since its original appearance” (Thrapp IV, p. 152).
Dunn’s meticulous research and his attempt to separate
historical fact from sensational fiction shed light on the “Indian Wars” in
a manner seldom encountered in nineteenth-century literature on the subject.
Dunn’s book relates to ranching history because the underlying cause of
many of these violent encounters was Anglo acquisitiveness for Native American
pastures and minerals, both before and after reservations were established. The
book also contains documentation on Native American stock raising. Finally, we
find in Dunn’s thoughtful work a rich variety of rustlers and rustling
(frequently the trigger for Anglo military action).
Here is an example of the author’s discussion on matters
related to ranching and cattle issues: “At Nome Cult [California in 1858]
over 150 Indians were cruelly murdered by the whites, who had been allowed to
settle on their reservation. No charge of aggression, except cattle-stealing,
was given as an excuse, and this proved, on investigation, to be false. The real
cause was that the Indians drove away from the reservation the cattle of the
settlers, which had been roaming the reservation and consuming the acorns, on
which the Indians depended.... Armed parties went to the rancherias in the open
day and shot down the wretched ‘Diggers,’ without regard to age or
sex” (p. 138).
Another example comes from Chief Joseph of the Nez Percés: “`They
stole a great many horses from us, and we could not get them back because we
were Indians. The white men told lies for each other. They drove off a great
many of our cattle. Some white men branded our young cattle so they could claim
them.... On the reservation, twenty acres of land, and no more were allotted
to each head of a family, out of which he was to make his living. Stock-raising
on twenty acres is necessarily a limited business’” (pp. 636-42).
$300.00
Item 1742
1743. DUNNING, Harold Marion. Over Hill and Vale: In the Evening
Shadows of Colorado’s Longs Peak. Boulder: Johnson Publishing Company,
[1956-1962]. [8] 605 + [14] 406 pp., numerous text illustrations (mostly
photographic, some full-page). 2 vols. (of 3), 8vo, original blue cloth.
Fine in near fine jackets. Vol. I signed by author.
First edition. A third volume was published in 1971,
but each volume is considered complete in itself. See Wynar 1151. Dunning’s
work was favorably reviewed by LeRoy Hafen: “This fine book is more or
less a history of the northern Colorado region near Loveland, Estes Park, and
Fort Collins, with a vast amount of material concerning its people—past
and present.... This work came from the many articles [Dunning] wrote for the Weekly
Roundup paper under the title ‘Over Hill & Vale.’”
The first volume includes a section on “Rocky Mountain
Jim” (James Nugent), Griff Evans, and the Dunraven Ranch (including photos).
Nugent and Evans were prominently featured in Isabella’s Bird’s book, A
Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (see item 415 in Part I of this
Catalogue). At pp. 205-224 is a review of Isabella Bird’s book, with local
history filling in some details not found in the printed book. Between the grasshoppers,
blizzards, “fish that walk,” and a myriad of pioneers, much on ranching
is found: biographies and photos of old-time cattlemen such as Joel Estes (discovered
Estes Park); Louis Papa;, Frank C. Miller (top hand in Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West Show), etc. Dunning includes excellent material on mountaineering, such
as his own “Hints for Climbing Longs”; he climbed Longs Peak sixty
times and explored most all of the other mountains in the region.
The second volume has good coverage of various incidents and
people related to the cattle trade: how Lord Dunraven came to start his ranch;
a chapter on the Delatour Ranch; Crown Creek Ranch (owned by Lady Maude Whyte,
daughter of Dunraven); more on pioneer cattleman Louis Papa; etc. For mountaineering
enthusiasts, Dunning continues coverage of the subject, including several ascents
and details of a marriage ceremony on Long’s Peak. $150.00
1744. DUNNING, Harold Marion. Over Hill and Vale Vol. I.... Boulder: Johnson Publishing Company, [1956]. Another copy of Vol. I, variant binding and on thinner paper. 8vo, original maroon cloth. Very fine in near fine d.j. (price-clipped). $75.00
1745. DURATSCHEK, Sister Mary Claudia. Crusading along Sioux
Trails, a History of the Catholic Indian Missions of South Dakota. [Yankton,
South Dakota: Benedictine of the Sacred Heart, 1947]. xiii [1] 334 pp., portraits,
text illustrations (mostly vintage and documentary photographs, some full-page),
maps, decorated endpapers. 8vo, original terracotta cloth. Very fine in very
fine d.j.
First edition. In the chapter on Holy Rosary Mission,
the author explains how a hunting tribe became stock raisers. Red Cloud (photos)
objected to the 1865 act authorizing the Laramie-Bozeman Trail to furnish a direct
route from the Central States to the gold mines in Idaho and Montana. Red Cloud
protested that the Trail passed through the only remaining buffalo range of the
Sioux. In 1876 under duress the Black Hills Treaty was signed, and the Pine Ridge
Reservation was established (1878). “Majestic as the scenery was, it had
no practical value for the Indians.... As for wresting a living from the fantastically
weird country, that was impossible. Here and there the grass on patches of table
land and in the wide gullies furnished grazing for Indian ponies and, later on,
for the cattle.... Because 7,000 natives would have to depend largely upon grazing
for a livelihood, the original size of Pine Ridge Reservation was quite extensive,
[but] subsequent treaties have reduced it.” Contains details on tribal
use of peyote (photograph of ceremony). $50.00
1746. DURHAM, George. Taming the Nueces Strip: The Story of
McNelly’s Rangers...As Told to Clyde Wantland. Austin: University
of Texas Press, [1962]. xx, 178 pp., photographic plates, text illustrations,
map. 8vo, original tan cloth. Very fine in d.j.
First edition. Foreword by Walter Prescott Webb. Adams, Burs I:117. Basic
Texas Books 49: “One of the few accounts of the McNelly Rangers, told
by a member of the force [covering] his service in 1875-1876.” Guns 652: “Gives
one of the best accounts of the life and work of McNelly and his Rangers and
corrects some of the errors made by N. A. Jennings.”
McNelly’s Rangers, part of the Frontier Battalion of
Texas Rangers, spent time fighting Native Americans, trying to recover King Ranch
stolen stock, and chasing Anglo outlaws and rustlers and Juan Nepomuceno Cortinas
(1824-1894). The author tells how Cortinas initially licensed many of the cattle
rustlers who roamed the Nueces Strip. After the Mexican-American War, Mexican
rancher Cortinas, one time governor of Tamaulipas, was considered a rogue rustler
and murderer by the Rangers and stockmen of the Nueces Strip; or, alternatively,
a Robin Hood by disenfranchised borderlanders of Mexican descent.
Webb describes Captain McNelly as a frail tubercular man—“a
natural partisan fighter if ever there was one” and “equipped with
an iron will and totally unacquainted with fear.” Author Durham was the
youngest Ranger in McNelly’s band, and later spent many years working for
the King Ranch. $100.00
1747. DUSENBERRY, William H. The Mexican Mesta: The Administration
of Ranching in Colonial Mexico. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1963. ix [3] 253 pp., brands. 8vo, original yellow and orange cloth.
Fine in lightly worn d.j. Author’s signed presentation copy.
First edition. Griffin 2364: “Administrative
history of the stockmen’s association from its establishment in 1529 to
the end of the colonial period. Relation to slaughtering and meat supply, viceregal
interests, hacienda, and subsequent institutions. Appendices give the Mesta ordinances
of 1537 and brands of the early stockmen.” From the introduction: “The
Mexican Mesta was the first stockmen’s association in the New World. Despite
this fact, no adequate study of it has been made.” The descendants of the
livestock from the sixteenth-century stockmen of Mexico and their methods are
the legacy of today’s ranches in the Southwest and the Transmississippi
West. $50.00
Item 1747
1748. DUVAL, John C. Early Times in Texas [continuation
with caption title: The Young Explorers; or, Continuation of the Adventures
of Jack Dobell]. Austin: H. P. N. Gammel, 1892. 135 [1] 1-253 pp. 12mo,
original green cloth gilt, gilt-lettered on upper cover and spine. Paper browned
(“printed on the cheapest possible paper”—Basic Texas
Books), a few minor spots to binding, otherwise very fine and bright.
First edition. Basic Texas Books 51: “The
most literate of all 19th century Texas memoirs. Unlike the author’s other
writings, it is authentic history, with only a little exaggeration thrown in
here and there.” Dobie, p. 55: “A Texas classic. Of all personal
adventures of old-time Texas it is perhaps the best written and the most interesting.” Graff
1188n. Howes D603. Rader 1248. Raines, p. 74. Tate, Indians of Texas 2365: “Numerous
confrontations with Texas Indians (especially the feared Comanches), as told
in an engaging but not always accurate manner.”
We include this work because of material in The Young Explorers;
or, Continuation of the Adventures of Jack Dobell: Cayote Ranch sequence
(chapters 2 and 3) on early Texas ranch hospitality; encountering “a vast
drove of mustangs; hunting wild cattle (one of Dobie’s sources for The
Longhorns); “Where the Wild Cattle Originally Came From”; equestrian
match between Texas Rangers, Comanches, and rancheros (details on riding styles
and equipage). $350.00
1749. DUVALL, Laura S. Colorado in Verse and Picture, 1916-1928. [Denver:
Welch-Haffner Printing Co., 1928]. 206 pp., numerous photographic text illustrations.
8vo, original tan printed wrappers. Fine.
First edition. Wilcox, p. 42. Among the poems is one
entitled “The Rodeo.” The author records in verse her auto journeys
through Colorado in the 1920s. The most interesting feature of the book may be
the excellent documentary photos, including several of the author in her car
or wearing her long duster while standing in majestic scenery. The poems include “Pikes
Peak Auto Drive,” “The Highest Highway in the World,” “Auto
Trip West of the Pikes Peak,” “Auto Trip to Pikes Peak,” “The
Broadmoor-Cheyenne Mountain Highway,” “The Moffat Road,” “A
Scenic Circle Trip of Colorado,” and more. $50.00
1750. DYAL, Donald H. (ed.). A Vanished Landscape. College
Station: Friends of the Sterling C. Evans Library, 1986. [12] pp., text illustrations.
Oblong 12mo, original tan pictorial wrappers. Very fine.
First printing. Friends of the Sterling C. Evans Library
Keepsake 15. Ernest R. Duke’s “Autobiography of an Old Rod Sod Plow” relates
to the JA Ranch (owned by John Adair and Charles Goodnight). Duke recalls watching
the filming of an authentic Indian buffalo hunt on the ranch in 1916. $15.00
1751. DYER, John L. The Snow-Shoe Itinerant: An Autobiography
of the Rev. John L. Dyer, Familiarly known as “Father Dyer,” of
the Colorado Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church.... Cincinnati: Published
for the Author by Cranston & Stowe, 1890. 362 pp., plates (photographic
and after drawings by Mrs. Helen H. Chain), text illustrations. 12mo, original
brown cloth, spine gilt. Front hinge slightly loose, otherwise fine and bright,
exceptionally clean. Contemporary ink ownership signature on preliminary
leaf and one inner leaf.
First edition. Eberstadt, Modern Narratives of the
Plains and the Rockies 149. Graff 1193: “The author’s experiences
in the Rocky Mountains were fascinating.” Howes D622. Wilcox, p. 42: “One
of the best known, and last of the circuit riders of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.” Wynar 9078.
Reverend Dyer gives an eye-witness account of the harsh but
scenic paradise of Colorado during the 1860s and 1870s, with much on skiing and
mountaineering. The author was an unpretentious minister to a motley flock scattered
through a large area of this sparsely settled mountainous region. He sometimes
encountered outlaws and relates some scenes of mob violence.
In a section entitled “The Cattle Baron,” Dyer
tells how he bought eight cattle after his first year in Colorado. “But
it was known that Brother Dyer had some cattle. Soon I heard that he owned a
herd of cattle, and I found that if a preacher in our Church had anything ahead...it
was used to excuse the people for not paying his salary.” Among the ranches
visited by the author during his extensive wanderings through the Rocky Mountains
was the 1.7 million-acre baronial spread owned by Lucien Maxwell (Thrapp II,
p. 961), where the author conducted “the first Protestant service ever
held on the now famous Maxwell Land Grant.” $250.00
1752. DYKE, Charles L. The Story of Sioux County. Orange
City, Iowa: Charles L. Dyke, 1942. xvi, 567 [1] [64, section of photographic
portraits] [8, index] pp., photographic plates, map. Thick 8vo, original blue
cloth. Fine.
First edition. Dense local history, including sections
on “Cattle Herds” and “Cattle Rustlers.” Good social
history with many documentary photographs. $35.00
1753. DYKES, J. C. Billy the Kid: The Bibliography
of a Legend. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952. 186 pp.,
frontispiece plate by Charles Russell (Billy the Kid Kills Bill Morton
and Frank Baker to Avenge the Death of J. H. Tunstall, i.e., the Kid Shoots
Down Two Prisoners in Cold Blood). 8vo, original grey printed wrappers.
Slight age-toning to margins of wraps and fragile wraps a trifle worn, generally
fine.
First edition, limited edition (500 copies, of which
470 were bound in wrappers). University of New Mexico Publications in Language
and Literature 7. Campbell, p. 69: “It is far more than a bibliography.
The author’s annotations present a case history of William H. Bonney. The
437 items range in time from 1881 to the present, and include not only printed
material, both fact and fiction, but also records, folk songs, radio scripts,
films, verse, unpublished plays, and even advertisements.” Dobie, pp. 139-40.
Dobie & Dykes, 44 & 44 #76n: “Useful guide to the Lincoln
County War.” Dykes, Western High Spots, p. 1 (“Introduction—My
Sport”). Guns 655: “Each entry contains much information on
the content of the book listed, and the author points out many false and inaccurate
statements made by the various authors.” Yost & Renner, Russell XVI:94.
$150.00
1754. DYKES, Jeff C. Billy the Kid: The Bibliography
of a Legend. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952. 186 pp.,
frontispiece by Charles Russell. 8vo, original red pictorial cloth. Upper
corner bumped, otherwise very fine. Laid in is a photographic reproduction
of The Kid from a tintype (1881). Carl Hertzog’s copy, with his book
plate.
First edition, second printing, with corrections. Yost & Renner, Russell XVI:94.
Thrapp IV, pp. 152-53: “Jefferson Chenworth Dykes (1900-1989), writer,
bibliographer, born at Dallas, Texas...graduated from Texas A & M in 1921....
Meanwhile he had become a book collector, eventually accumulating some 16,000
volumes; book appraiser (he appraised the J. Frank Dobie collection for the University
of Texas); book reviewer and bibliographer. He wrote Billy the Kid: The Bibliography
of a Legend (1952), which Ramon Adams judged...`the first complete list of
materials on this young outlaw...’ Dykes was working on a revised edition
at his death.” Jeff was also one of the great bookdealers, especially for
Cow Country books. $125.00
Item 1754
1755. DYKES, Jeff C. Billy the Kid: The Bibliography of a Legend. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952. 8vo, original red pictorial cloth. Very fine. Another copy. $100.00
1756. DYKES, Jeff C. Fifty Great Western Illustrators: A Bibliographic
Checklist. [Flagstaff]: Northland Press, [1975]. xiv, 457 [1] pp., numerous
text illustrations (many full-page). 4to, original blue pictorial cloth stamped
in silver. Light shelf wear, otherwise fine in lightly chipped d.j. From
the library of Carl Hertzog, with his bookplate.
First edition. See Dykes, Western High Spots, p.
49 (“High Spots of Western Illustrating” #200). A massive and essential
bibliographical tool, listing appearances in print of Dykes’ favorite Western
artists, marred only by the lack of an index. Artists include Lorence F. Bjorklund,
Edward Borein, José Cisneros, Maynard Dixon, W. Herbert Dunton, Will James,
Tom Lea, Alfred Jacob Miller, Frederic Remington, Ross Santee, E. Boyd Smith,
N. C. Wyeth, and many others. $100.00
1757. DYKES, Jeff C. Law on a Wild Frontier: Four Sheriffs
of Lincoln County. Washington: Potomac Corral
of the Westerners, 1969. iv, 25 [2] pp., text illustrations (photographic
portraits, Russell, Remington), map. 8vo, original yellow pictorial boards
with Russell buffalo head. Fine. Author’s signed presentation copy
to Dudley R. Dobie: “Our printer took off for Christmas a mite early
and his press boy didn’t bother with proofs—so this is sorter
a hand corrected!” With Jeff’s ink corrections in text.
First edition, limited edition (#193 of 250 copies,
signed by author). The Great Western Series 5. Dykes explores the lives of four
sheriffs of Lincoln County: William Brady, Pat Garrett, John Poe, and George
Curry. Though the book is ostensibly about these men, the overarching theme is
Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War. $80.00
1758. DYKES, Jeff C. Law on a Wild Frontier: Four Sheriffs
of Lincoln County. Washington: Potomac Corral
of the Westerners, 1969. iv, 25 [2] pp., text illustrations (photographic
portraits, Russell, Remington), map. 8vo, original yellow pictorial wrappers.
Fine, signed by author.
First trade edition. $25.00
Dykes Tells How to Collect Range Books
1759. DYKES, Jeff C. Western High Spots: Reading and Collecting
Guides. N.p.: Northland Press, [1977]. xiii [3] 192 pp., text illustrations
by Bugbee, Elwell and Rawsom plus some photographic illustrations (some full-page).
8vo, original blue cloth. Fine in lightly worn d.j. Carl Hertzog’s
copy with his bookplate.
First edition. This work is a compiled collection of
Dykes’ best articles on collecting and books, including: “Western
Movement—Its Literature,” “My Ten Most Outstanding Books on
the West,” “Remington Rarities,” “Russell Rarities,” “Dobie
Rarities,” etc.
From the chapter entitled “A Range Man’s Library”: “There
should be a balance in a range man’s library. There should be books about
range country, biographies and autobiographies of cowboys and cowmen, histories
of their associations, accounts of the trails and trail drivers, ranch histories,
studies of the range wars, books about cows, sheep and range horses, and the
literature of the range including the novels, ballads and art. These are books
that a range man should read and reread for pleasure and for an understanding
and essential background of his profession.” $75.00
1760. DYKSTRA, Robert R. The Cattle Towns. New York: Knopf,
1968. [12] 386, x [2] pp., photographic plates, maps. 8vo, original brown cloth.
Very fine in fine d.j.
First edition. Adams, Burs II:60. Guns 656: “The
author treats the Kansas cowtowns from a different angle.... He concentrates
on their growth, economic condition, and decline rather than upon the lawlessness
so often emphasized.” Reese, Six Score 35: “A social history
of the Kansas cattle towns written almost entirely from primary sources. Few
books have dealt seriously with the realities of life in the cattle trading centers
of Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, and Dodge City, and none as well or as completely
as this.” $50.00
1761. EAGLETON, N. Ethie. On the Last Frontier: A History
of Upton County, Texas. El Paso: Texas Western Press, University of Texas
at El Paso, 1971. xi [3] 125 [2] pp., photographic plates. 8vo, original
green pictorial cloth. Very fine in d.j.
First edition. This book was designed by Haywood Antone,
Hertzog’s successor at the Press, and Hertzog’s strong influence
is evident. County and local histories run the gamut of relevance to ranching
history from marginal (such as scattered biographies of ranchers) to central
and significant. The present county history is central to ranching history in
Texas. Over half the book relates to ranching, and a good deal of the remainder
segues into the era of oil and gas production, with the gushing forth of McCamey’s
legendary wildcat well in 1926.
Upton County (established 1887) in southwestern Texas was
part of the open range until the 1890s, when sheep men crossed the Pecos River
to compete with cattlemen for the range. The author notes: “The population
of Upton County in 1900 numbered forty-eight, mostly cowboys and ranch hands” (p.
11). In the 1880s Dr. G. W. Elliott dug the first well in the County, built the
first house, and placed a thousand head of Stocker cattle on the range (the good
doctor also patented a saddlebag for rural physicians). In the 1890s cattleman
Henry Mayer Halff, a pioneer in irrigation and breeding, operated on the open
range and had holdings in Upton County. The Halff operation included the Quien
Sabe Ranch & Stock Company, the JM Ranch, and the Circle Dot outfit (see Handbook
of Texas Online: Henry Mayer Halff and Quien Sabe Ranch).
This book is excellent for women’s history, relating
that Mrs. Rachel Hart Halff accompanied her husband up the trail many times.
Also, we learn that among the earliest settlers in the 1880s were three families
who formed a caravan, with three men riding herd on more than seven hundred cattle
while the three women drove the wagons. $75.00
1762. EARLE, J. P. History of Clay County and Northwest Texas. Austin:
The Brick Row Book Shop, 1963. [6] 64 [3] pp., plates and text illustrations
(mostly photographic). 8vo, original pale green printed wrappers, stapled (as
issued). Fine.
Limited edition (300 copies); facsimile of the rare
first edition (Henrietta, Texas, 1897). CBC 953n. Guns 658n. Herd 737n.
Howes E7n. Vandale 56n. Clay County (established 1857) is ranching country through
and through. Cattle are a constant element of the background in this history,
which also has information on Cynthia Ann Parker and Frank and Jesse James.
Col. H. A. Whaley (1826-1898), the first permanent settler,
arrived in Clay County in 1869, and being the only Anglo in the region, he was
surrounded by hostile Apache and Comanche (includes material on Ranald Mackenzie’s
campaigns). “Most every light of the moon the Indians would make raids,
kill and scalp a few settlers and drive off a quantity of stock” (p. 4).
Whaley constructed a stockade and hired about a dozen men to help him tend the
livestock, cultivate crops, and provide protection against hostiles who frequented
the area. Whaley’s principal buyer was the recently established Fort Sill
in Indian Territory. The author gives accounts of early stockmen: Babe Cobb,
Jimmie Roberts, Allen Parmer (married to James’ brothers sister), John
S. Babb (includes Comanche captivity of Mrs. Babb, Bianca Babb, and Sarah Luster),
et al. $50.00
1763. EASTON, Robert & Mackenzie Brown. Lord of Beasts:
The Saga of Buffalo Jones. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, [1961].
xiii [3] 287 [1] pp., text illustrations by Mac Schweitzer. 8vo, original
beige decorative cloth. Very fine in lightly worn and price-clipped d.j.
First edition. Foreword by Jack Schaefer. This work
is a biography of Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones (1844-1919), a larger-than-life
buffalo butcher-cum-conservationist, adventurer, big game hunter, town-founder,
and Yellowstone game warden. Jones slaughtered thousands of buffalo in the core
buffalo-hunting period, but later became a staunch conservationist. In the 1880s,
Jones established a “cattalo ranch” (hybrid buffalo-cattle) on the
Arkansas River and worked to increase his herd and experiment with breeding.
Jones made a run in the Cherokee Strip in 1899 and was the
first non-Sooner to reach Perry. He tells a great story about a female Sooner: “[She
and two men] sneaked in right before the gun, came dashing up out of a ravine....
Having fresh horses they had advantage of all others. The lady rode a jet-black
charger, and was one of the most reckless horsewomen I ever saw, and would have
done credit to the ‘Rough Riders.’ I whipped my horses severely,
but could not pass her. It was humiliating to go into Perry with a lady leading” (p.
81). $35.00
Item 1763
1764. EATON, Frank. Pistol Pete: Veteran of the Old West. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1952. x, 278 pp., photographic plates. 8vo, original green cloth.
Occasional slight foxing, else fine in fine d.j.
First edition. Campbell, p. 71. Guns 659: “The
writer tells of having a horse race with Belle Starr and losing his Winchester
to her.” Herd 738: “One of the wildest tales on record of
a man’s experiences in the cattle country.” Eaton (1860-1958) began
riding the range in Indian Territory when fifteen years old and at age seventeen
shot his first rustler (who happened to have murdered Eaton’s father several
years before). Eaton rode for Hanging Judge Parker; worked for the Owens Cattle
Company, Charles Goodnight, the Texas Panhandle Stock Association, and other
cattlemen’s associations; trailed herds from Texas to Kansas in the 1880s;
met Quanah Parker, Charlie Siringo, Belle Starr, Pat Garrett, Jesse James, and
many other notables.
One of the interesting aspects of this work is Eaton’s
good coverage of Native American ranchers and cowboys in Indian Territory (Captain
Sixkiller, Charlie Journeycake, Osage Brown, et al.). Eaton tells how his good
pal Rolla Goodnight (Charles Goodnight’s son) was warned by his father
that he was too reckless and would die with his boots on. According to Eaton,
Rolla always removed his boots when danger arose, hoping to make his father a
liar. This entertaining book might need to be taken with two or three cups of
salt. $75.00
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