Way of a Gaucho

Argentina is the last quarter of the nineteenth century with its spacious pampas and towering mountains provides the setting for this big, colorful, romantic novel of the passing of an era and a way of life. In the old days a gaucho followed his caudillo and asked no questions, protected his honor, lived like a Christian and if need be killed as one. He was skilled with knife and lasso, bolas and horses. Now a flood of settlers was fencing off the pampa and plowing up the land. The old simple way of life was going. But in this time of change one gaucho became a living legend from the north of Argentina to the tip of Patagonia. Around the camp fires they told how Poncho Colorado, christened Goyo, championed the poor and terrorized the gringos with his picturesque band of daring outlaws. How he stormed Buenos Aires with General Roca and won the love of Manuela de Quemon, golden-haired daughter of an aristocratic family. How he lived with Chulcan, the Indian chief, and through the treachery of a renegade priest lost his beloved Manuela. How in despair he became the swaggering bandit Valverde, hero of the riff raff of Chile and charged with every unsolved killing along the frontier. And finally how he was found again by Manuela and lived long years in honor. The dominant theme throughout the book is the battle for personal freedom against the encroachments of civilization.…