John Milton Oskison was one of the first major Native American writers to grapple with the issues of being a highly educated mixed-blood trying to defend a tribal heritage while at the same time writing as a serious journalist, editor, and contributor to the country's leading periodicals and major newspapers in some of the nation's largest cities. This struggle is readily apparent in his fiction, especially his short stories, and in his articles concerned with non-Indian issues, and it deserves critical assessment. In light of the current interest in authors from diverse ethnic backgrounds, readers and critics are looking for early Native American authors who pioneered genres and influenced publishers to become more interested in Native American materials. Readers and critics who have mentioned Oskison's stories in their analyses have tended to claim him as a Native American author but to dismiss his work as sentimental and, ironically...