Author Description

Ed Lemmon managed the largest fenced pasture in the world (865,000 acres—an area larger than Rhode Island), bossed the single biggest roundup in history, held the record for the largest number of cattle (nine hundred) cut out, roped, and brought to the branding fire in a single day, and handled more cattle (more than a million head) than any other man. Lemmon covered virtually every foot of range in western South Dakota and parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska on horseback and knew every important brand in the West. His recollections read like a who's who of the good old–bad old days: cattle kings and saddle tramps, stock detectives and cattle rustlers, stage-drivers and stage robbers, ranch wives and "scarlet poppies"—Ed Lemmon knew them all or had "heard tell."