The Gringos

by B.M. Bower

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Westerns

195 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan, née Muzzy, best known by her pseudonym B. M. Bower, was an American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West. Her works, featuring cowboys and cows of the Flying R Ranch in Montana, reflected "an interest in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as main characters (even in romantic plots), the occasional appearance of eastern types for the sake of contrast, a sense of western geography as simultaneously harsh and grand, and a good deal of factual attention to such matters as cattle branding and bronc busting.

Born Bertha Muzzy in Otter Tail County, MN and living her early years in Big Sandy, Montana, she was married three times: to Clayton Bower, in 1890; to Bertrand William Sinclair,(also a Western author) in 1912; and to Robert Elsworth Cowan, in 1921. Bower's 1912 novel Lonesome Land was praised in The Bookman magazine for its characterization. She wrote 57 Western novels, several of which were turned into films.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this 1913 Bower offering, the scene is changed from her usual Montana to California in 1849, after the area had been ceded to the United States but before it was made a state. Spanish dons still had large haciendas, but the gold rush had begun and of course that changed life considerably for all who chose to make this area their home.

After reading ten earlier books and being impressed with the way Bower recreates ranch life in Montana, I wondered how she would do with California, with its much different heritage. But thanks partly to "the assistance I have received from George W. Lee, a "Forty-niner" who has furnished me with data, material, and color which have been invaluable in the writing of this story" (from an author's note) and also thanks to her own talent, Bower was able to bring Old California to vivid life, and wrote an exciting, dramatic story that touched on many of the conflicts of the day. Some of these conflicts do not seem to have been resolved even now....but that is a rant for another time and place.

We have two cowboys who have gone to the gold fields and had the good fortune to make a bundle from their mine. Dade Hunter is the quieter, steady one; Jack Allen is the firebrand who is always getting into trouble. They decide to spend the winter in a very young and raw San Francisco. Jack loves the gambling life there, but Dade gets tired of it all pretty quickly and rides out exploring, ending up in Palo Alto, where he makes friends with Don Andres, the Spanish owner of a large hacienda. He returns and tries to get Jack to go out to the ranch also, but he refuses. He will soon wish he had not been so stubborn!

There was of course a girl involved (there is always romance in a Bower story): Teresa, the
seventeen year old daughter of the Don, spoiled since birth and used to having her own way in everything. She played flirting games, caused more trouble than she was worth, and was responsible for many of the bad feelings between all the men of the story.

But rivalry over a silly girl was not the only issue the men faced. Don Andres was waiting (in vain?) for the American government to acknowledge his right of title to the land grant given to him by the King of Spain. The Spaniards mostly do not trust the Americans, the 'Gringos' mostly do not trust the Spaniards or their Mexican peons. The gold fever is bringing more and more people into the area, not all of them with the same open minded wisdom as our man Dade. There is a sense throughout the book of a seething turmoil about to break out into the open. I think Bower caught the feel of the era, and portrayed the times with much respect for both sides.

I was....not shocked, but surprised at the final chapter, which tied off loose ends and showed what happened to various other characters besides our Dade and Jack. There was a grim sadness to parts of it that was unusual for this author.

I have just one complaint, which I have not had to make about any other Bower work. I mentioned that she recreates Montana ranch life with great skill. That included writing about the landscape in such a way that it became visible. She does the same here, but for some reason she let herself get too flowery and purple-poetic, and most of these sections felt as though she was trying too hard. When she quit that and got into the action, dialogue, and basic descriptions the story flowed along rapidly and my eyes quit rolling. I might have gone to five stars if it had not been for such lapses,
because otherwise this was (to me) an amazing story.

[Paul Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending of this story brought my rating of it up by a full point. What looked like a story of very simple, macho type guys with no restraint over their stupidity turned into a little smarter story, even though the hero would be seen as less of a hero by today's action movie standards...or by fans of old, traditional westerns where guys were killed at the slightest offense.

Then I learned the author was female and I understood the slightly different take on events. She was also involved in some of the early western movies, which makes me want to take a peek at some of them.

Remember these:

"Even the Digger Indians, squatting in the sun beside his door and gazing stolidly at the town and the bay beyond, would sell their souls - for which the gray-gowned padres prayed ineffectively in the chapel at Dolores - their wives or their other, dearer possessions for a very little bottle of the stuff that was fast undoing the civilizing work of the Mission. The padres had come long before the hunting cry was raised, and they had labored earnestly; but their prayers and their preaching were like reeds beneath the tread of elephants, when gold came down from the mountains, and whisky came in through the Golden Gate."

"He liked Jack, and the soul of him was bitter with the bitterness that is the portion of maturity, when it must stand by and see youth learn by the pangs of experience that fire will burn most agonizingly if you hold your hand in the blaze."

"...and though her mouth drooped slightly with the same wistfulness, a little smile lurked there also, as though her life had been spent largely in longing for the unattainable, and in laughing at herself because she knew the futility of the longing."

"Senor Hunter's eyes were brown -and she had looked into brown eyes all her life. But the blue! The blue eyes that could so quickly change lighter or darker that they bewildered one; and could smile, or light flames that could wither the soul of one."

"...I don't like the idea of shooting first and finding out afterwards what it was all about, the way so many fellows have got in the habit of doing. Tuns are all right in their place. And when you get away out where the law doesn't reach, and you have to look out for yourself, they come in might handy. but like every other kind of power, most men don't know when and how to use the gun argument, and they make more trouble than they settle, half the time."

"At least his last moments were lighted with hope. He made one grand, final dash, tripped in a noose that had somehow dropped neatly in the way of his front feet, and went down with a crash and a bellow of dismay. Some one ran lightly in - he did not see that it was the vaquero he had been pursuing all this time - and drove a dagger into the brain just back of the horns. Thus that particular gust of rage was wiped out of existence forever."

"They would fight, those two, and fight to kill. Since the world was first peopled, men had fought as they would fight - for lobe; for the possession of a pretty thing - warm, capricious, endearing, with possibly a heart and a soul beneath; possibly. And love - what was love, after all?"

"To give a clear picture of the preparations for that fiesta, one should be able to draw with strokes as swift as the horses that galloped up and down the valley at the behest of riders whose minds titillated with whatever phase of the fiesta appealed to them most; and paint with colors as vivid as were the dreams of the women, from the peonas in the huts to the senoritas and senoras murmuring behind the shelter of their vines."

"...and they immediately began calling and looking for Chico, who was at that stage of puppyhood that insists upon getting in front of one and then falling down and lying, paws in the air, waiting to be picked up and petted."

[Linette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty cool story! I liked that it took place in California and had to do a lot with Mexicans and Spanish hospitality and land ownership. Different than the whole walk into a saloon and shoot up the place story. It wasn't as romantic of a story as it was advertised. That can be a good thing!

[Hanna-col · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started out liking the book but the main female character of the story ended up completely ruining it for me.

[Mikkel Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story.

It was a story about Americans mixing with the Spanish Dons on the old land grants. The respect they gained for each other and each others skills and ways, made a good story. Best part was when Jack dumped spoiled Therisita.

skills and ways