Arizona republican., 1914-03-31
STORY OF OLD FRONTIER

CThe Vanguard" by Edgar Beech CT Bronson; George H. Doran Co.,. $1.25 net)
 There are just three men who can chronicle the red roaring days of the Old Frontier, when gold flashed from creeks in the High Serras and the sOmbreros of dOns. One of these three men is Edgar Beecher Bronson. newspaper, rancher and big game hunter. Twice has he told of the far west, in "Reminiscences of . Ranchman," and in The Red blooded." Now he has chronicled them again, in "Tthe Vanguard, the reallife story of a professional kill CT of bad men.
 For fourteen years MT. Bronson was a ranchman, driving his steers near Cheyenne When he sold out, he owned 22,000 steers and he knew every foot of country from Yuma to the river Platte. But when he first went west to become a cOwpuncher, under a fighting foreman. no man cared ride alone, for the Sioux and Dakotas prOwled ceaselessly through the coulees, and road agents held up one stage in ten.
 But MT. Bronson is not just a rancher. He is a man of the world. He was night city editor of the New York Tribune when he was a youngster; he covered the suit of Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher, which was so dramatic and notorious that he had to turn in nineteen col Jmns of big news each day. But al ways he was a lover of outdoors, and while still a reporter he was assis- tant pilot in a balloon trip that last ed for twenty-siX hours and was the worlds record in endurance for thirty years to come. So when his health threatened to break down. he went west, far west. But he did not forget his skill as a teller of stories with nervous intensity.
 Mr Bronson has hunted every sort of big game in Central Africa, and has been the guest of titled English commissioners. He spent two years in exploring Brazil and Peru, and crossed the Andes with native car riers only. For ten years he was a New York business man. who occa- slonally hiked off to the Canadian wilds for big game hunting. Edgar Beecher Bronson is indeed a man of the world, but always he is akin to the grim heroic men of the prairie schooners.
 MT. Bronson's new book, "The Van guard follows carefully, though in his own vivid style the actual incl dents in the life of Corporal Stock ing. the famous mine guard and coach guard who in quick hot fights wiped out a score of Western bad men, and was an outlaw for forty years. because of justified killings. It is based on notes made by Stock ing himself, filled out from MT. BrOnson's own experiences.
 To follow the thread of the story would be to make a catalog of all the wild deeds and nervy men who made the days of the old Frontier as romantic as the Crusades. The men who fought with Kit Carson: the gamblers and vaqueros and pros rectors. Lively roping fiestas. ending up in a fight between bull and a grizzly. A miners camp in the high and silent Sierras. where eagles wheel about peaks shining and aloof. Frontier towns with yellow lamp light glaring on adobe walls
 There is in "The Vanguard" a chapter of western history that had never really been told-the share that California troops took in the civil war; their struggle with the Navajos and Apaches who tried to take advantage of the war and loot the settlements. Week long scouts there were, through desert and ar royo; sWirling dust clouds in which rode Indians bumped low over their horses ntcks and flashing them with the riata: wild nights of revef when officers had to cope with tough com ranies of eX-bandits filled up with bad Whiskey.
 The war over. Corporal Stocking went back to his free rowing; guard ing the DeadWoOd coach, trapping in
  Canada, facing bad men in the streets of Arizona towns where he served as deputy sheriff till times got peaceful and therefore dull. cap taining the Letter mine guard at LeadYille, and at last settling down in a rose-covered cabin near Los An eeles, for a belated but lovely sunset romance with the girl he had known back in his boyhood days among the lumber camps of Michigan. It is a riot of color and thrill and | movement-but it is not a movie melOdrama. For MT. Bronson, think CT and man of the world as well as riding ranchman, has seen the visior of all the big things that these pro- fessional trouble -quellers meant fol the coming civilization. They were 1 indeed a vanguard of happy homes and their tale is an epic of thf American crusade.
 Corporal Stocking was a man, . real man. and as such he stride. forth from the pages of 'The Van guard