As in The Virginian, Wister's primary concern in The Jimmy-John Boss and Other Stories is to preserve the frontier experience, to give literary form to the fast-fading life of the West. Unlike The Virginian, however, this diverse collection of short stories lacks stylistic and thematic unity. These startlingly varied vignettes range from the comically trivial to the tragically serious. Of the eight stories in the volume, all except "The Jimmy-John Boss" and "Hank's Woman" can be, dealt with in a sentence. "A Kinsman of Red Cloud" is a tale of the struggle between an army wagon master and a criminal halfbreed; "Sharon's Choice" is a humorous account of a children's speech contest; "Napoleon Shave-Tail" is a character sketch of a neophyte cavalry lieutenant; "Twenty Minutes for Refreshments" is a fatuous story about the judging of a baby contest; "The Promised Land" is an ugly portrait of...