FOLLOWING THE CIVIL War, conditions in Texas were chaotic. Many communities lived through this period in relative peace and quiet, but elsewhere there were bitter feuds between factions or families, raids over the border, attacks by Comanches and lawless acts by individuals. To keep the peace, Texas reactivated the Rangers, an organization active during and to some extent before the war with Mexico.
The Rangers, working in concert or alone, fought Indians, bandits, horse and cattle thieves, highwaymen, bank robbers, and lawbreakers of every kind. Mostly young, each Ranger was required to furnish his own horse, rifle, and a pair of pistols. There was no Ranger uniform as such. In many cases local officers, if they existed at all, were partisan. In such cases the Ranger had to act with judgment and discrimination, and to use force when and if it became essential.
Basically the Rangers were divided into two groups, the Frontier Battalion under Major John B. Jones, and the Special Force, under the command of Captain L. H. McNelly. This latter group consisted usually of about thirty men, and within a very few years the Rangers became noted for swift and dynamic action, bringing peace to a wide and hitherto lawless area.
Chick Bowdrie, who appears in all of the stories in this collection, is a fictional character, growing up, as did many young men of the time, working hard during his boyhood years, familiar with firearms, horses and cattle, and aware of the possibility of attacks by Indians or outlaws. Comanche raids were frequent, sometimes striking as far east as the Gulf Coast. The skill with weapons that belonged to many such boys and men was the natural result of the necessity of hunting meat for the table, defending the herds against wild animals and simply protecting their homes and themselves.
Boys of twelve and thirteen years old often rode many miles alone on one mission or another, growing up accustomed to doing the work of men and accepting the responsibilities of adults.
The citizens of Texas were of many nationalities. A fact not generally understood is that there were Mexicans defending the Alamo as well as attacking it, and many Texans of Spanish ancestry elected to join in the fight for independence. Colonies from Switzerland, Germany, and France were settled in Texas and in some areas were a major part of the population. It was not at all unusual for children growing up in the vicinities of Castroville, D’Hanis, or Fredericksburg to have a smattering of German or French as well as their own language, for the children they played with and the men they worked with were often of those nationalities.
These stories were written long ago and appeared first in what were referred to as “pulp” magazines due to the fact that they were published on paper made from wood pulp.
The magazines referred to as the pulps published a wide variety of stories in many categories such as western, mystery, science fiction, love, air, sports, horror, etc. In their pages a number of American writers learned their trade. Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and many others had stories in pulp magazines under their own names or pseudonyms. It was a valuable training ground, for one had to know how to tell a story, and the story had to move.
Some of these magazines acquired a special status, such as Adventure, Blue Book, Amazing Stories, and Black Mask. Adventure was in many respects a unique case, for the magazine maintained a department in which adventurers could communicate with one another, exchange advice or information, or locate long-lost companions. Often much offbeat historical or anthropological information appeared in those columns. There is nothing quite like it today.
Often it is asked whether I have written anything other than stories of the West. As a matter of fact, I have written detective, mystery, sports, air, and adventure stories. I have never written science fiction but always had it in mind. A number of my first stories were of adventures in what is now Indonesia, stories taking place in Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, Java, Sumatra, etc. Some of these non-Western stories appear in the book Yondering.
The art of storytelling has always been circumscribed by patterns imposed by various publications and their attempts to appeal to public taste or what they assumed to be so. All of us, in all periods of time, have had to write stories editors thought would appeal to a specific group of readers, and all sorts of nonsense has been written by those who comment on such things.
As I have said elsewhere, we have no idea what Edgar Allan Poe might have written had he lived in any other period. At that time the stories in demand were those of haunted houses, ghosts, the weird and the strange. Many such stories were written of which we have little or no record. Poe’s have lasted because of their quality. Had he lived in any other time, his stories might have been completely different. He was without doubt one of the most innovative and successful of American editors. His misfortune was to appear at a time when his profession not only did not pay well, but when European writers were preferred.
The profession of literature has many facets, not the least of which is the necessity to make a living.