Cattle Country of Peter French by French, Giles - 1964

Binfords & Mort, 1964. First Edition. hardcover. Very Good/Missing. 8x5x0. Binfords & Mort, 1964. Hardcover, 167 pp. State First Edition. Very good/ NO dust jacket. Red illustrated cloth covered boards have light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers. Binding tight. Previous owner's name in ink on page opposite half-title page. Otherwise pages are lightly aged but unmarked. Not Ex-library. No remainder marks. Missing dust jacket. Black and white illustrations. Nice detailed map end-papers. [From Introduction] This book is about Cattleman Peter French and his contemporaries who developed the great stock ranches in Southeastern Oregon in the late nineteenth century. It has been compiled from the records, with an attempt to discard the extravagant yarns that have been told and written about these men of the Old West. They were not heroes or demons; they qualified for neither role. The popular depiction of them is a distorted one. The way they actually lived, the work they did, the equipment they used - all this should be a part of our history, not just of our romantic dreams. A rider on a cow ranch was a working man. He was hired for his skills. The life he led was hard and sometimes dramatic, but in his day it was no more touched with glamor than pitching hay - which he sometimes did. Those riders were people, not gods on horseback, and they faced the same personal problems as their grandsons, who now daily head for shop or office. French himself was a person with strong and very definite character traits - some of them laudable, some merely human. He ruled a domain as large as some states while he was developing his vast cattle empire in the blitzes valley. To this work and to the Glenns, he gave his live. Although of the same name as my own, Peter French was not a relative. He was of the southern branch of the family; the writer came from Vermont. The reason for this book about him is that it seemed time to portray him as a man, how he met his problems, the forces that brought him down. . .