Cowboys North and South

Book Synopsis: "What I've written in this book," says Will James in the preface of his rough-and-ready account of the Wild West, "is without the help of the dictionary or any course in story writing. I didn't want to dilute what I had to say with a lot of imported words that I couldn't have handled. Good English is all right, but when I want to say something, I believe in hitting straight to the point without fishing for decorated language." He goes on, "I was born and raised in the cow country, I am a cowboy, and what's put down in these pages is not material that I've hunted up, it's what I've lived, seen, and gone through before I ever had any idea that my writing and sketches would ever appear before the public. For years, I've felt the confidence that I could ride and scratch any horse I ever saw. That was a great feeling while it lasted, but too many rough ones gradually shook that confidence out of me. There came a time when I was told that after six months' rest, I could maybe ride gentle stock without much danger. I had ridden for the biggest cow and horse outfits from Mexico to Canada; wherever I went, I was on a horse, even in the army. When I was put in the discard to ride only gentle horses, that's when I tried my hand at drawing and writing of the things I've lived as they really are. It did me a lot of good to see that my work was accepted by the publishers, not so much for what it brought me as for the chance it gave me to show the readers that a cowboy is just as human as any human ever was and how he's been misrepresented by authors who hunted up material by going through the country on a Pullman, afraid to mix in the dust and get the true facts."

"But it's just as well they didn't, for the cowboy's life can't be learned in a day or even a year. It's a life you've got to be raised in to understand, and I've had it proved that in my work even though it may be rough, all the folks of the cow countries are backing me in what I say, and I hear the same holler as I used to when riding the side-winding bucker, "stay a long time cowboy."

About the Author: William James was a Canadian-American artist and writer of the American West. He's known for writing Smoky the Cowhorse, for which he won the 1927 Newbery Medal, and numerous "cowboy" stories for adults and children alike. His artwork followed "in the tradition of Charles Russell" and much of it was used to illustrate his books. He was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.