For a few weeks every fall, at ranches scattered throughout the great American West, cowboys come together to ride the open range. This gathering of man and beast is called Roundup.

In addition to the work, Roundup is a time of reunion with old friends and making the acquaintance of new ones. Following in this rich tradition, the book ROUNDUP brings together a company of rugged Western individuals, men and women who have devoted their lives to working with horses. Freighters, stage drivers, homesteaders, farmers, ranchers, buckaroos, rodeo riders, horse loggers and wanderers - they all share a common love for horses.

'After the accident I was blind as a bat so I began using my hands to see a horse. Tell a lot just by feel. Tell if he has wire cuts, a capped hock, pigeon-mouth, fistulous withers.... I'm good enough I can actually tell the color of a horse and be right 95 times out of 100. Colors have a different texture, feel, hairs are distinctive. The only one that gives me fits is a paint. Depends on where you touch a paint what color it happens to be.

Give me a couple minutes and I can tell more about a particular horse than most folks would probably care to know. It wasn't a gift I was born with. It took me a while to develop it. But I enjoy eating - so I learned. I would have to say, over the long haul, that my blindness hasn't affected me all that much. Got no complaints. In this here life I've pretty much done exactly what I wanted to do.'

SOFTBOUND