All in the Day's Riding by James, Will (Joseph Ernest Dufault) - 1945

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Very Good+. 1945. Reprint. Hardcover. B&W Illustrations; The book is in Very Good+ condition and is lacking a dust jacket. The book and its contents are in mostly clean, bright condition. There is a spot of color loss / rubbing to the front cover of the book along with a bit of light rubbing to the spine ends. The text pages are clean and bright. There is some cracking between the half title page and the title page. "Since I been using my rope arm and hand on writing and drawing instead of making a loop and a throw I've experienced a lot of pleasures that I wouldn't of if I'd still be making my living in the saddle. Like for instance, in my stories, I can go over the trails that if I wasn't writing I would never think of again." "During the next several years, he drifted and worked at several jobs. He was arrested in Carson City, Nevada for cattle rustling and took care of the prison's horses during his 15-month sentence. According to cowboy and folksinger Ian Tyson, James traveled to San Francisco to sell sketches and began working as a stuntman in western movies there. Soon he was in the U. S. Army, serving from 1918-1919. He was a horse wrangler for the First Annual Nevada Round-Up in Reno in July 1919. He met and married Alice Conradt, sister of Fred Conradt, his rodeo business partner, while in Reno, Nevada, in 1920. He sold his first writing, Bucking Horse Riders, in 1922. The sale of several short stories and books followed, enabling him and his wife to buy a small ranch in Washoe Valley, Nevada, where he wrote his most famous book, Smoky the Cowhorse. It was published in 1926 and won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 1927. Several film adaptations were made of the book, with James narrating the 1933 film. His fictionalized autobiography, Lone Cowboy, was written in 1930 and was a bestselling Book-of-the-Month Club selection. He wrote his last book, The American Cowboy, in 1942, shortly before his death and the last line he wrote was "The cowboy will never die." In all, he wrote and illustrated 23 books, 5 of which were made into feature films." .