or meanings and harder struggles for human
truths by writers who strive in "the craft so long to lerne." For
three-quarters of a century the output of fiction on the cowboy has been
tremendous, and it shows little diminution. Mass production inundating
the masses of readers has made it difficult for serious fictionists
writing about range people to get a hearing.

The code of the West was concentrated into the code of the range--and
not all of it by any means depended upon the six-shooter. No one can
comprehend this code without knowing something about the code of the Old
South, whence the Texas cowboy came.

Mexican goats make the best eating in Mexico and mohair has made
good money for many ranchers of the Southwest. Goats, goat herders,
goatskins, and wine in goatskins figure in the literature of Spain as
prominently as six-shooters in Blazing Frontier fiction--and far more
pleasantly. Read George Borrow's _The Bible in Spain_, one of the
most delectable of travel books. Beyond a few notices of Mexican goat
herders, there is on the subject of goats next to nothing readable in
American writings. Where there is no competition, supremacy is small
distinction; so I should offend no taste by saying that "The Man of
Goats" in my own _Tongues of the Monte_ is about the best there is so
far as goats go.

Although sheep are among the most salient facts of range life, they
have, as compared with cattle and horses, been a dim item in the range
tradition. Yet, of less than a dozen books on sheep and sheepmen, more
than half of them are better written than hundreds of books concerning
cowboy life. Mary Austin's _The Flock_ is subtle and beautiful;
Archer B. Gilfillan's _Sheep_ is literature in addition to having much
information; Hughie Call's _Golden Fleece_ is delightful; Winifred
Kupper's _The Golden Hoof_ and _Texas Sheepman_ have charm--a rare
quality in most books on cows and cow people. Among furnishings in the
cabin of Robert Maudslay, "the Texas Sheepman," were a set of Sir Walter
Scott's works, Shakespeare, and a file of the _Illustrated London News_.
"A man who read Shakespeare and the _Illustrated London News_ had little
to contribute to

Come a ti yi yoopee
Ti yi ya!"

O. Henry's ranch experiences in Texas were largely confined to a sheep
ranch. The setting of his "Last of the Troubadours" is a sheep ranch. I
nominate it as the best range story in American fiction.

"Cowboy Songs" and "Horses" are s