Sam Bass and Gang.

Sam Bass and Gang. By Rick Miller. (Austin, Tex.: State House Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 412. Paper, $21.95, ISBN 1-880510-66-9; cloth, $34.95, ISBN 1-880510-65-0.)

When I was growing up in Denton, Texas, in the 1940s, the legend of Sam Bass still had a lively existence. Bass was one of the most famous outlaws associated with Texas, and he usually was portrayed as a Robin Hood-type bandit who stole from the rapacious corporations, railroads, and stage lines and shared the proceeds with the poor. Everyone in town seemed to have a story about where Bass had hid his loot, and it was a poor scoutmaster, indeed, who couldn't regale the troop with an almost endless supply of tales of the outlaw's adventures. If Rick Miller's Sam Bass and Gang had been available then, most of these stories would have lost their zest.

The Bass that emerges from Miller's work is more of an inept young punk than the dashing hero of romantic legend. Bass was not even the leader during the most successful of his robberies, the Union Pacific holdup in Big Springs, Nebraska. Most of his other efforts netted only a few hundred dollars. The only parts of the legend that seem to hold much truth is that Bass was popular in parts of Denton County and that he was often helped in evading law officers. Not that evading the law seems to have been difficult: Miller's account of various sheriffs, marshals, and Texas Rangers working at cross purposes is almost humorous. Bass's career ended because an informer worked his way into the gang and warned the Rangers of its plans. The fatal wound came while Bass was casing a bank in Round Rock, Texas, not while he was actually attempting the heist.

As indicated by the book's title, Miller concentrates on Bass's known activities and on the men who rode with him. There are simply not enough reliable sources to support, and Miller did not attempt, a full-scale biography. The author has done a good job, however, in accumulating the sources. He draws upon newspapers, memoirs, official records, and a wide variety of secondary accounts. Miller's caution in using the more dubious of these is commendable. He makes clear what can be accepted as fact and what is probably myth or faulty memory. My only complaint about Sam Bass and Gang is the lack of social context. It would be useful to know why so many people were willing to accord Bass a hero's status in spite of his obvious criminality. But the book is otherwise a solidly written and researched account of one of Texas's most famous outlaws.

MICHAEL D. PIERCE Tarleton State University