MARY AUSTIN seems to be settling down as primarily an
expositor. Her novels are no longer read, but the simple tales
in _One-Smoke Stories_ (her last book, 1934) and in some
nonfiction collections, notably _Lost Borders_ and _The
Flock_, do not recede with time.
While the Southwest can hardly claim Willa Cather, of
Nebraska, her _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ (1927), which
is made out of New Mexican life, is not only the best-known
novel concerned with the Southwest but one of the finest of
America.
Despite the fact that it is not on the literary map, Will
Levington Comfort's _Apache_ (1931) remains for me the most
moving and incisive piece of writing on Indians of the
Southwest that I have found.
If a teller of folk tales and plotless narratives belongs in
this chapter, then J. Frank Dobie should be mentioned for the
folk tales in _Coronado's Children, Apache Gold and Yaqui
Silver_, and _Tongues of the Monte_, also for some of his
animal tales in _The Voice of the Coyote_, outlaw and maverick
narratives in _The Longhorns_, and "The Pacing White Steed of
the Prairies" and other horse stories in _The Mustangs_.
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