You have done a work emphatically worth doing and one which should appeal to the people of all our country, but particularly to the people of the west and southwest. Your subject is not only exceedingly interesting to the student of literature, but also to the student of the general history of the west. There is something very curious in the reproduction here on this new continent of essentially the conditions of ballad-growth which obtained in mediaeval England; including, by the way, sympathy for the outlaw, Jesse James taking the place of Robin Hood. Under modern conditions however, the native ballad is speedily killed by competition with the music hall songs; the cowboys becoming ashamed to sing the crude homespun ballads in view of what Owen Writes calls the "ill-smelling saloon cleverness" of the far less interesting compositions of the music-hall singers. It is therefore a work of real importance to preserve permanently this unwritten ballad literature of the back country and the frontier. With all good wishes, I am very truly yours Theodore Roosevelt CONTENTS PAGE ARAPHOE, OR BUCKSKIN JOE 390 ARIZONA BOYS AND GIRLS, THE 211 BILL PETERS, THE STAGE DRIVER 100 BILLY THE KID 344 BILLY VENERO 299 BOB STANFORD 265 BONNIE BLACK BESS 194 BOOZER, THE 304 BOSTON BURGLAR, THE 147 BRIGHAM YOUNG, I 399 BRIGHAM YOUNG, II 401 BRONC PEELER'S SONG 377 BUCKING BRONCHO 367 BUENA VISTA BATTLEFIELD 34 BUFFALO HUNTERS 185 BUFFALO SKINNERS, THE 158 BULL WHACKER, THE 69 BY MARKENTURA'S FLOWERY MARGE 224 CALIFORNIA JOE 139 CALIFORNIA STAGE COMPANY 411 CALIFORNIA TRAIL 375 CAMP FIRE HAS GONE OUT, THE 322 CHARLIE RUTLAGE 267 CHOPO 371 COLE YOUNGER 106 CONVICT, THE 290 COW CAMP ON THE RANGE, A 358 COWBOY, THE 96 COWBOY AT CHURCH, THE 246