Riding straight out of the pages of Western history, W.J.L. Sullivan arrives, hat firmly planted on his head, to tell in his own plain way about his time as a sergeant of the Texas Rangers.

The years were 1889 to 1901, and there was lawlessness enough on the frontiers of Texas to occupy any able-bodied man with a horse, a six-shooter, and a hard-headed sense of decency and order. Rounding up cattle poachers, hanging loquacious murderers, leaping into border skirmishes, watching the odd culprit wriggle free through the "slick scheme" of an attorney, wrestling a buffalo and losing a horse in the process: Sullivan relates the events of his career with all the earnest candor, modest wit, and occasional homespun moralizing of a man with a story that has to be told. In his straight-spoken words we see the Texas rangers of yesterday, riding out under the legendary Captain Bill McDonald, whose famous adage, "One riot, one ranger, " suggests the wild spirit and irrepressible toughness that Sullivan so amply documents. Compulsively readable, as eventful and dramatic as any novel, his book lets us watch history unfold in all its colorful, gritty detail against the raw frontier of nineteenth-century Texas.

Lieutenant James William Abert (1820-97) of the United States Army Topographical Engineers received orders in 1845 to explore the Canadian River region of the southern plains -- an area covering present-day Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Although this land was still in Mexican territory, the United States had gradually abandoned most of the diplomatic niceties regarding its boundaries with Mexico by that time.

Abert set out from Bent's Fort to conduct a detailed reconnaissance. He possessed a great eye for detail, providing in his journal graphic descriptions of the birds, plants, and animals he encountered as well as clear depictions of the countryside. Moreover, Abert observed in great detail the Kiowas and Comanches who often approached his expedition to see if he and his men were the much hated "Texans" with whom they were at war. His firsthand account of the Kiowas and Comanches contains valuable information not previously available.

The 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition marked the beginning of Anglo-American exploration of the American West. Abert's account of his four-month journey by mule train is invaluable as one of the concluding records of that period.

In his introduction John Miller Morris, author of the award-winning El Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, 1536-1860, assesses this neglected work and places it with the reports of other adventurers such as Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long.