The Texican (Illustrated)

This early cowboy western is a rollicking political satire, the likes of which a reader would find difficult to duplicate in a western novel today. The Texican of the title is a freelance cattle rustler, Pecos Dalhart, who fetches up in Arizona, where he gets involved in a feud between two rival cattlemen, Ike Crittendon and John Upton.

Plot and character. Crittendon hires Pecos to alter the brands on any of Upton's cattle he finds on the range. Meanwhile, the local sheriff, Boone Morgan, is alert to any signs of cattle theft, and when Crittendon falsely accuses Pecos of stealing a cow, he gets hauled in to the county jail, to await trial.

Pecos, as Dane Coolidge describes him, was "born a Democrat and taught to love whiskey and hate Mexicans." However, he has begun reading an anti-capitalist newspaper, The Voice of Reason, which has opened his eyes to the corrupt law enforcement system used by the rich to oppress the poor. Sheriff Morgan soon learns he has incarcerated an outspoken advocate of revolution.