Salvation Gap and other western classics

"Owen Wister invented the Western novel with The Virginian, and that work and this collection of stories prove that, although many have gone after him, no one has ever topped him in skill and enduring appeal. Wister saw the story of the West as a collision of centuries, with the Stone Age, the Middle Ages, and the modern world coming together to form a new place and a new people. Wister said of this collection, "These stories are about Indians and soldiers and events west of the Missouri. They belong to the past ... but you will find some of those ancient surviving centuries in them if you take my view.""--BOOK JACKET.