The Phantom Herd

"The Phantom Herd" by B. M. Bower is a novel written during the early 20th century. The story revolves around Luck Lindsay, a motion picture director, as he grapples with the changing landscape of the American West in the context of filmmaking. With the loss of real cowboys and Native Americans to the pressures of modernity, Luck is on a quest to capture the authenticity of Western life for his films, while also managing the challenges posed by the film industry and its push for economic efficiency. The opening of the book introduces Luck Lindsay as he returns a group of actor-Indians to their reservation after filming. He is depicted as a man committed to realism in his film projects and feeling a sense of loss over the departure of his native collaborators. Luck's discontent stems from the economic constraints imposed by the Acme Film Company, which prefers to hire generic actors rather than genuine cowboys and Indians. This initial setting establishes Luck's character as someone fighting against the tide of commercialization while yearning to create meaningful Westerns that reflect a bygone era. His journey will take him through various towns, confronting changes in the landscape and a longing to find authentic storytelling amidst a shifting cultural backdrop. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan, née Muzzy, best known by her pseudonym B. M. Bower, was an American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West. Her works, featuring cowboys and cows of the Flying U Ranch in Montana, reflected "an interest in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as main characters, the occasional appearance of eastern types for the sake of contrast, a sense of western geography as simultaneously harsh and grand, and a good deal of factual attention to such matters as cattle branding and bronc busting." She was married three times: to Clayton Bower in 1890, to Bertrand William Sinclair in 1905, and to Robert Elsworth Cowan in 1921. However, she chose to publish under the name Bower.