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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A rousing high adventure, January 5, 2011
Zane Grey pulled out all the stops on this tale of chasing wild mustangs, buffalo hunts, cougar hunts, and wild musk-ox. Follow the tale of a rag-tag band of plainsmen led by Col. Jones. A feisty, tough old man who will stop at nothing so he can rope (yes I said rope) a wild cougar and bring it back home. They are a breed of men whose resilience and spirit are the stuff of pioneers and mountain men. The kind of indomitable spirit that won the west, and is the subject of much of America's folklore. Along the way they endure seventy degree below zero blizzards, desert dust storms, starving Indians, and a harsh, yet pristine wilderness of incredible beauty. Zane Grey s depiction of panoramic landscapes such as the Grand Canyon is picturesque. One can almost smell the forest's and sense the loneliness of the wilderness. A great read that was hard to put down. Now for my next task which won't be easy. Picking out the next Zane Grey novel to get lost in.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mountain Lions in Arizona, c.1908, September 1, 2002
This book is an outstanding true account of a trip made by Zane Grey and a plainsman, Buffalo Jones - one of the last. Jones was a famous sportsmen in North America at the turn of the 20th century and Grey a famous author of adventure stories. Unlike many of Grey's fictional novels of the old west, this is an account of a trip made to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon about 1908, for the purpose of tracking and capturing mountain lions. In those days, the North Rim was famous for the number and size of cougars - one mentioned in the book was 10' long, tip of tail to nape of neck, and weighed 300 pounds. The story is riveting with many details of the Arizona high desert and Grand Canyon areas of that era and gives a wonderful account of the Ponderosa Pine forest now known as the Kaibab National Forest. The details given about the behavior of the mountain lion are well worth finding a copy of this classic work. Grey includes a chapter (XV) entitled "Jones on Cougars", in which he relates the wisdom of this plainsman on the species - gained through a long life in the wilderness including a sojourn as a game warden in the Yellowstone National Park, where he captured numerous cougars alive and killed seventy-two. Although modern views of the mountain lion seem to consider this animal more like an oversized, undomesticated sort of house cat, after reading this book you will definitely treat them with appropriate dignity and caution.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I was looking for, October 16, 2011
I was looking for some good westerns and thought this would be a good choice since Zane Grey is a well known and renounded author of westerns. I have read many a tale of the old west and the plains and this one was dull and dragging for me. Could not wait to get threw I never quit a book until finished...but did put this one on "fast forward" with it and dropped it off my kindle as I have no interest in spending time with it again. For a better accounting of Plainsman stories try the autobiograhpy of Col William Cody. While we know he had a gift for embellishing the truth, at least it is an interesting story to read.
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