Harry Ransom CenterThe University of Texas at Austin

The Longhorns

Frank Dobie had just sent me carbon copies of several chapters from his new book The Longhorns. . . . I already had the good news that his publishers in Boston would let me illustrate the book. . . . I had spent a good deal of time that spring studying and diagramming the anatomy of cow brutes, attending the local rodeo to freshen my eye with the way a bull jumped and a steer ran, visiting the local stockyards to look sharp at cattle shipments from Chihuahua; some of the corrientes showed the rangy frame, the motley colors, the well-grown horns of the old Texas type. . . . Horned cattle seemed to flow from the point of a brush that fall of 1940. On the 7th (of October). . . . uncorked a bottle of India ink, touched a No. 00 sable brush to a smooth sheet of paper and began a chapter head drawing for Chapter 1, The Longhorns.

- Tom Lea, A Picture Gallery.