_To_

MR. THEODORE ROOSEVELT

WHO WHILE PRESIDENT WAS NOT TOO BUSY TO
TURN ASIDE--CHEERFULLY AND EFFECTIVELY--AND
AID WORKERS IN THE FIELD OF AMERICAN
BALLADRY, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED

Cheyenne
Aug 28th 1910

Dear Mr. Lomax,

You have done a work emphatically worth doing and one which should
appeal to the people of all our country, but particularly to the
people of the west and southwest. Your subject is not only
exceedingly interesting to the student of literature, but also to
the student of the general history of the west. There is something
very curious in the reproduction here on this new continent of
essentially the conditions of ballad-growth which obtained in
mediaeval England; including, by the way, sympathy for the outlaw,
Jesse James taking the place of Robin Hood. Under modern conditions
however, the native ballad is speedily killed by competition with the
music hall songs; the cowboys becoming ashamed to sing the crude
homespun ballads in view of what Owen Writes calls the "ill-smelling
saloon cleverness" of the far less interesting compositions
of the music-hall singers. It is therefore a work of real importance
to preserve permanently this unwritten ballad literature of the back
country and the frontier.
With all good wishes,
I am
very truly yours
Theodore Roosevelt

CONTENTS
PAGE

ARAPHOE, OR BUCKSKIN JOE 390

ARIZONA BOYS AND GIRLS, THE 211

BILL PETERS, THE STAGE DRIVER 100

BILLY THE KID 344

BILLY VENERO 299

BOB STANFORD 265

BONNIE BLACK BESS 194

BOOZER, THE 304

BOSTON BURGLAR, THE 147

BRIGHAM YOUNG, I 399

BRIGHAM YOUNG