In the Company of Cowboys

Fans of Louis L'Amour may want to saddle up with another talented Western writer after reading Howard E. Greager's collection of flavorful and informative cowboy lore In the Company of Cowboys. Like TV's "Death Valley Days," all these sagas are true-to-life episodes from the days of the untamed frontier and provide unforgettable history lessons about that rough-and-tumble time period and place. Greager's gift is to imbue these well-documented case studies with the bracing tone of good fiction. All the colorful characters of Disappointment Valley are here -- from the cattle rustler to the tenderfoot. Rather than register as cliches, these rawhide prototypes are fleshed out so thoroughly by the author, you can practically smell the campfire vittles and hear the thundering hooves of stampeding herds. The most astonishing aspect of Greager's loving remembrances is his portrait of a West that was still pretty wild even in the early part of the twentieth century. - Jacket flap.