Gripping Reading!

In amongst a box of old papers up in the attic of our erstwhile Connecticut house, I came across a scrapbook filled with wonderful crayon drawings and a cowboy story written by my father in the 1930's -- I assume he was about 12 years old when he created it.  

These are the illustrations from the first two chapters of Jim McGandy On The Rio Grande by Ned Murphy:

Chapter I
As Jim McGandy was leaning up against the fence post listening to the water rushing away down the Rio Grande, he thought he was very lucky to have a ranch down near the river.  He had 5000 head of cattle on the range all branded with "Bar X".  Jim had 20 hands on the ranch, and 200 wild horses, of which 15 were broken.  The hands were breaking in 5 broncos for the spring roundup.  Jim had to go to bed and get a lot of sleep, because he had to break wild horses in the morning, which is hard, hard work.

Chapter II
The next day they went to Twin City to get supplies for the roundup.  When they got back from Twin City they had a talk about which canyon they would go in first.  The hands went away and got their things ready to start.  The hands took 25 cans of baked beans, 20 of peas, 30 cans of condensed milk, 10 sides of bacon, 5 bags of flour, and 15 bags of coffee and 5 bags of sugar.  After they listed it all up, there were 110 articles.  Then they saddled up and went to the boss to get their rifles and 10 rounds of cartridges.

Clearly a candidate for a Pulitzer Prize, if ever there was one!

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