Though some scoundrels and cheaters are here, the narrative emphasizes--for a change--the good men of the West, men whose lives had wide influence over the lives of others. It speaks of an era when a man's word was more binding than a written contract and when personal integrity and industry were held in higher esteem than shrewdness. Mr. Timmons' characters bear no taint of the western types that many movie-goers and TV addicts have come to believe...