This book discusses what actually made a "cowboy," as well as describing cowboy weaponry, clothing, saddles and equipment; the "cowboy character"; and a cowboy's work. Rollins also describes the history of ranching in the United States, the raising of horses and cattle, livestock rustling, and more.
The cowboy has long been romanticized. We seem to feel that the "good" cowboy must be a heroic figure who always has a likeable but bumbling sidekick, and who, against all odds, saves the fair maiden, the bank, the stagecoach payroll, and the entire town, simultaneously, with snap shots of almost unbelievable accuracy from his must-be-hundred-shot revolver, all the while riding his horse wearing his white, ten-gallon hat, strumming his guitar and singing, "Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie," in a memorable baritone.