Border Boss: Captain John R. Hughes, Texas Ranger. By Jack
Martin.

San Antonio: The Naylor Co., 1942. Pp. 252. Illustrations by Frank
Anthony Stanush. $2.50.

With the publication of Border Boss, the author, Jack Martin,
has added another essential volume to the recorded history and
lore of the Texas Rangers, that courageous, renowned organi-
zation for law and order which has the respect of and an un-
usual imaginative appeal for all people throughout the world.
Border Boss can be put on the popular reading list of all types
and ages of readers, as it is biography, adventure, romance,
and history enacted upon the large, colorful stage of Texas,
written in an aggressive, smooth flow of language packed with
western action.

This book is another one of those amazing true stories which
will be found to be stranger than fiction. It is rich in incidents
and deeds that have become a part of the history of Texas.
Jack Martin has accurately and sympathetically written the
biography of Captain John R. Hughes, a man long prominently
associated with law enforcement in Texas, a man who has
looked and lived as the world has popularly pictured a typical
Texas Ranger. When they have seen him striding down the
streets of Austin or picturesquely leading a parade in El Paso,
people have often remarked that they wished to know Captain
Hughes well enough to ask him about stories they have heard
about him and so many of his activities that seem humanly
impossible. Captain Hughes has lived along heroic proportions
in any man's language.

The title of this book, Border Boss, is one that Captain Hughes
won for himself after a bloody struggle with some of the most
fiendish, bloodthirsty outlaws along the Rio Grande. Cap-
tain Hughes saw to it that this title had a very definite
meaning for a long period of years on this turbulent boundary
line.

While Border Boss is primarily the biography of one of many
great Texas Rangers with reminiscences relating to certain of
his contemporaries, the book is a serious contribution to Texas
history and is an excellent supplement to such a book as Dr.
Walter Prescott Webb's The Texas Rangers: A Century of
Frontier Defense. It portrays an accurate picture of the world-
famous Texas Ranger organization with its interworkings, and
of what its members accomplished in stamping out crime to
smooth the path for frontier development. It introduces many
sidelights which will be valuable in understanding the history
of Texas during the period from 1887 to 1915.

The drawings of Frank Anthony Stanush add concretely to
the attractiveness of this volume and aid the imagination for
details.

Austin, Texas,

Joseph Dixon Matlock,

How to cite:
"Border Boss", Volume 46, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v046/n2/review_DIVL2550.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 19:23:35 CST 2009]