6,000 miles of fence : life on the XIT Ranch of Texas

The fabulous XIT Ranch has been celebrated in song, story, and serious history. This book of reminiscences of old XIT cowmen puts on record the everyday life of the individuals who made the ranch run. Their forthright, yet picturesque, discussion of ranching hardships and dangers dissipates Hollywood and TV glamorizing. They relate in honest cowboy language what actually happened inside the XIT's 6,000 miles of fence. Cordia Sloan Duke, wife of an XIT division manager, Robert L. Duke, many years ago realized that only those who had experienced ranch life could depict it with deep understanding. As the young wife of a rising young ranch hand, she kept in her apron pocket a notebook and pencil, recording all manner of interesting details as they caught her attention. This diary was the nucleus for the present book. Conceiving of an account of life on the XIT as presented by XIT cowboys, Mrs. Duke set about drawing from reticent, sometimes reluctant, ranch hands the impressions of the XIT (occasionally written down by their more literate wives or daughters) which they had retained through the years. Cordia Sloan Duke and Joe B. Frantz have organized the reminiscences around key aspects of ranch life, retaining the language of the cow hands. In 1907 Cordelia Jane Sloan married Robert L. Duke, a ranch hand who had risen to division manager for the 3,000,000-acre XIT Ranch of Texas, the world's largest. An eager observer, she early began the habit of keeping a diary. As time passed, she had the foresight to realize that the sweaty, tired, hungry cowhands with whom she visited were part of a unique phase of American life. What she particularly perceived was that these men would be glamorized and the memory of their work distorted by writers who could sense a pay vein when they saw one