The Phantom Herd

Flying U #6

by B.M. Bower

Luck Lindsay had convoyed his thirty-five actor-Indians to their reservation at Pine Ridge, and had turned them over to the agent in good condition and a fine humor and nice new hair hatbands and other fixings; while their pockets were heavy with dollars that you may be sure would not he spent very wisely.

Genres: Westerns

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

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 R Ranch in Montana, reflected "an interest in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as main characters (even in romantic plots), 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.

Born Bertha Muzzy in Otter Tail County, MN and living her early years in Big Sandy, Montana, she was married three times: to Clayton Bower, in 1890; to Bertrand William Sinclair,(also a Western author) in 1912; and to Robert Elsworth Cowan, in 1921. Bower's 1912 novel Lonesome Land was praised in The Bookman magazine for its characterization. She wrote 57 Western novels, several of which were turned into films.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading The Heritage of the Sioux last month, I wanted to follow up quickly with this book, because it really should have been read first. Sigh. If only I had known. Or better still, if only I had closed the other one and switched to this one when I did know. All I can say is that I will be careful with the rest of my Bower list: it looks like each of the remaining titles are stand alones, but I'll double check before actually starting any.

Meanwhile, back at The Phantom Herd, our film director Luck Lindsay wants to make a real western picture, using real cowboys (yep, our Happy Family gang) and real locations. Can he do it?

This was a better story than Heritage, and it was nice to see the background for so many of the relationships in the other book, as well as interesting to learn a bit about movie making in the silent film era. But I hope that this will be the last of Bower's books about the movie industry. She is much more entertaining when she writes about ranch life, horses and 'The West' as it used to be.

So I am looking forward to the other eleven Bower titles on my list, but I am also hoping she has got the stardust out of her eyes in The Lookout Man. I'll find out soon enough.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
A truly unusual tale. Luck Lindsay, film director, sets out to make a film that is actually realistic of what the West was like, instead of being a sensationalism thereof. The Happy Family boys and some of their friends are his actors. There are many difficulties along the way, some of which bid fair to be insurmountable.

This contains lots of details about how vintage films were made. I found that part lengthy, even while it was interesting. This would be of interest to anyone who loves film history.

[Larry Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Luck Lindsay is a movie creator and director, specializing in "westerns". This is in olden times when movies were silent. But, he got sick of the formulaic shoot-em-up movies that Hollywood was turning out and wanted to produce something that represented the "real" west of olden times, i.e. real cowboys chasing real cows in difficult situations, but still succeeding.

Luck meets an old timer at a train station and is directed to a slice of Montana (I think it was) where he finds some "real" cowboys. They mostly ranch for themselves but are part of a group known as the Happy Family. Luck carts them off to Hollywood to do a spot of acting, but when his producer insists that Luck film some bit of rot written by someone else, he quits, but not until he's had the first of "someone else's" odious scripts turned into somewhat of a comedy.

Anyway, Luck and the Happy Family head off to New Mexico to set up on their own. They pool their resources to buy some equipment. Luck outlines a script. They shoot rather a number of scenes, but desperately need one where the cowboys are rounding up steers in a blizzard. But, they botch the camera work on the blizzard that comes in winter as blizzards are wont. Now, to wait for another. But spring looms and they're running out of money. What to do? Well, read the book and figure it out.

Would that GoodReads allowed half stars, this would most definitely be ***+ rather than a mere 3*s.

[David Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a meta work: a Western novel that explores what a Western ought to be. Bower runs with this theme at a time when Zane Gray and other pulpy writers in print and on screen had a firm reign over the Western myth —black hats and white hats; crooning maidens and high noon showdowns. Bower didn’t go for those tropes. In The Phantom Herd, Bower’s protagonist sets out to tell an authentic story of the real West using a narrative that centers on the new-fangled medium of the motion picture.

Clearly Bower did her homework on film production, but ultimately the story is far too literal —the characters make and release a movie. The End. While her theme was prophetic, in the sense that she was cautioning an American public to consider the simple, honest folk who gave the West it’s true identity, in lieu of the melodramatic horse opera’s of her day, she fails to explore that theme with much depth or insight.

Nice to have the action play out in my hometown of Albuquerque. Bower does a great job describing certain scenes, and capturing the beauty of the Southwest.

A worthy read for those interested in authentic early Westerns without melodrama. Just don’t expect this to be “the Virginian”...

[Robert Lyster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great western tale

I found the telling of the early movies and the western connection fascinating. I have read other books in this series and all were good but this was the best so far.

[Dennis R Thummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good read!

Seemed a little bit dragy because it contained so much descriptive material, but I enjoyed the script and had an ending in line with my expectations.

[Josephine Mcbryde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phantom herd

It took me a while to read this one but believe me it was totally worth it. I loved it

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novels about the early days of western movies are few and far between. B. M. Bower more than makes up for that in this story of a Hollywood filmmaker, much like William S. Hart. In Bower’s novel, director Luck Lindsay wants to make a film about the real West of the open range days, not the shoot-em-up “bunk” currently being released to the public...

More at my blog.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely written! Shows a few signs of its time, though. Coupla words made me jump.