Andrew García is known because of his colorful adventures as a Western pioneer, which he relates in his memoir, Tough Trip through Paradise, 1878-1879 (1967). In his later years, perhaps motivated by his reading of Western adventure stories and his desire to present what he believed to be a truer view of life on the frontier, he recorded his memories of his eventful youth. According to García, the novelist "always manages to cover up the trail on the Indians or villains who are pursuing the hero with the red-headed maiden in his arms on horseback. I never had such luck. They could always find my trail dead easy and run the hell out of me. . . . I am sorry to have to dispell [sic] the beautiful hallucination and tell, in most cases, that is B.S. In the many years that I have lived I have...