"Gathering Strays is a collection of vignettes about Kansas, Great Plains, and Western life--historical and contemporary. Jim Hoy has gathered short essays into sections: Cattle Towns, Outlaws, The Cowboy, and several others. He introduces us to folks we've not met--such as failed train robber Elmer McCurdy, whose arsenic-embalmed body went on tour and made money for the undertaker, Joseph Johnson of Pawhuska, KS--and those with whom we're more familiar, such as Jesse James and Buffalo Bill. He tells us about the origin of the cowboy and about Black cowboys and Mexican Vaqueros. He recounts stories about rodeo and cattle drives. And throughout, his style, easy to read yet authoritative, describes the people, places, and events that make the region distinctive and celebrated"--