Frank Carlson Library

Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes we experience the pleasures and perils of ranching there at the dawn of the century. Auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes, and windstorms provide authentic color. So do adventures, wonderfully told, that prepare Ralph to take his father's place. The first volume of Moody's little Britches series, this time-tested favorite...

Ralph Moody, just turned twenty, had only a dime in his pocket when he was put off a freight in western Nebraska. It was the Fourth of July in 1919. Three months later he owned eight teams of horses and rigs to go with them. Everyone who worked with him shared in the prosperity - the widow whose wheat crop was saved and the group of misfits who formed a first-rate harvesting crew. But sometimes fickle Mother Nature and frail human nature made sure...

Explains how cattle ranching evolved from its historical Spanish roots to the cattle-boom era of the 1880s, when cattle drives, cow towns, cattle trails, and the open range played a pivotal role in forming the culture of the West.