This large book, in size (over a thousand pages) and in spirit, is a compilation of first-hand accounts of cowboys on the trail driving cattle. At annual Old Trail Drivers' conventions held in Texas during the nineteen-teens, vice-president George W. Saunders would try to "round up all of the old boys and girls and get their history in print so that the coming generations may read of the hardships and dangers they encountered and the splendid achievements of his comrades of the days gone by." Soon sketches and letters began trickling back until enough were gathered to publish them in a book. The book was a big success and a second volume was planned. Saunders bade out of editing the new volume and J. Marvin Hunter took over. Eventually both books were combined into one.
There are hundreds of sketches and accounts included here, all of them from the pens of the men who rode the range and the women who were right there with them. Their quality and length vary, of course, with some being only a paragraph or two long while others go on for many pages. Some have written what amounts to almost complete family histories, while others write of only a single incident.
With so many people writing reminiscences of basically the same experiences, certain commonalities are detected: the weather was on everyone's mind often, so was the coming of barbed-wire; nothing seemed harder than getting cattle to cross a river. Indians and the threat of Indians were everywhere; stampedes were a big concern. George W. Brock of Lockhart, TX, wrote a 7-page sketch with the fetching title "When Lightning Set the Grass on Fire," though this potentially exciting event is told in one sentence: "The lightning would strike the ground and set the grass on fire, then the rain would put it out." That's it. The rest of the account is all about Mr. Brock's countless adventures with cattle and horses, each one usually reduced to one sentence. So it goes. Some even submitted poetry.
There is a certain amount of "You had to be there" feeling about many of these sketches, but part of that is that there are just so many of them here. No one should (or probably could) read this book straight through; like eating chocolate truffles it's best to pick and choose in relatively small doses. But taken that way they can be quite enjoyable. The simplicity and robustness of the writing, so wonderfully nonacademic, can be downright refreshing. An interesting and charming book for anyone with a flair for those cowboy "days gone by."