"The desire to convey authentic and credible portrayals of the western cattle range and its people in its formative years guided Steve Zimmer in choosing to collect and illuminate real, remembered experiences of times and places in the West that was. If the aim is an authentic depiction of cowboys, cowgirls, and early western cattle ranching, how better to find it than by consulting the testimonies and recollections of people who were there and took part in the great western migration, or who just lived lives on horseback, caring for animals, fixing fence, taking in wide and beautiful spaces and knowing the satisfaction of hard work well done? This is what may be said of those whose writings are related in this collection. The stories the writers tell are from their own experience, or as told to them by contemporaries." (From the Foreword by David L. Caffey, author of Frank Springer and New Mexico and The Santa Fe Ring)