This is a novel book. Owen Wister’s The Virginian and Florence Finch Kelly’s With Hoops of Steel were the first of the modern cow-boy novels. Twenty-five years have passed since Mrs. Kelly’s enthralling story first appeared—September, 1900. Most of the novels published then and since, are dead and forgotten. Not so With Hoops of Steel. It was in continuous demand from its first friendly welcome by the critics until the World War turned public attention to Europe. Even so its vitality persisted, justified this new edition, and seems to warrant the belief that the present generation will find its story interest as vivid and as exciting as did the past, and its value even greater, for it presents an authentic portrait of the old southwestern cattlemen and a fascinating picture of a phase of national development now passed into history.
