J. Frank Dobie's history of the "mustang"-from the Spanish mestena, an animal belonging to (but strayed from) the Mesta, a medieval association of Spanish farmers-tells of its impact on the Spanish, English, and Native cultures of the West. J. Frank Dobie (1888-1964) was for many years secretary-editor of the Texas Folklore Society, taught at universities in Texas and Oklahoma as well as in England, Germany, and Austria, and wrote seventeen books on Texas and southwestern life, including The Voice of the Coyote, available in a Bison Books edition. Dayton O. Hyde is a rancher, conservationist,...

An inspiring, often amusing account of an Oregon rancher who dedicates himself to saving a struggling species.

Yamsi, a six-thousand-acre working cattle ranch at the headwaters of the Williamson River in Oregon's Klamath Basin, is the setting for Dayton Hyde's lively meditation on what it means to be a rancher in the West in the late twentieth century. In Yamsi, Hyde records a year on the ranch as the seasons change and the ranch work changes with them. Informed by a sense of responsibility toward those who lived and worked on the land before him - including the Klamath Indians who first called the land home - and those who might one day follow, Hyde struggles to run a family-owned cattle business in...