"A story of Bonfils and Tammen" is the subtitle for "Timber Line"; that should serve to introduce it effectively to any American reader, for the name of Bonfils, if not that of Tammen, has been blatted to the four corners with almost the virulence which the man himself would have employed in scorching a commercial enemy. Bonfils and his "Denver Post" have been held up in magazines and less full-blooded papers as the dual climax of bawdy journalism; they have been ridiculed as cranks and denounced as blackmailers their saga has been amplified and coloured even beyond its own rich Western blood-hue. And I refer to the Post anthropomorphically with reason; Bonfils dubbed it "The Big Brother," and such it remains.

Though the volume is thus introduced by the name of Bonfils, the general feeling for that name is not duplicated between these boards. Gene Fowler portrays Bonfils, Tammen, and the Post with an amazing cynical sympathy which is one of the chief charms of the story; in consequence, he approaches the truth about the trio more nearly than anyone has to date, and at least as nearly as anyone ever will. He does not fail to show Bonfils in his worst lights: he reveals him as a crack-pot miser, who hides behind the ticket booth at his circus so that he will not have to admit his own daughter free; he shows the reader a stupid man, a crooked man, a bully, and a sorry figure. But the other side of the picture is between the covers: Bon blazes out his courage as he takes bullets from the gun of an enraged invader of the offices of the Post; the strange man's one apparent show of feeling is developed subtly and delicately, superbly, too. But it is not because both sides are given that I say the book is close to truth; it is because Bonfils is shown as a man, who got what he was after, and not as a problem in ethics; readers will see my meaning inevitably.

The study of Bonfils, for which I consider the book most remarkable, is by no means the greatest part of it. The large, childish Tammon is given as much space, and every line about him is worth reading. There is no more amusing tale than that of Tammen and his struggles to breed a baby elephant for his circus, the Sells-Floto; and the final fate of the last, stuffed, baby pachyderm, which Tammen kept in a case in the Post offices, is told with fine pathos. The remarkable paper which the partners built comes in likewise for a good share of the author's effort. Here in relation of the almost unbelievable productions of the Bonfils-Tammen journalism, are rare gems.

The qualities of the book are not even so far exhausted, moreover; all through there is an undercurrent of anecdote which goes far towards expressing the West, and which is interesting for itself. Though Eastern readers may have difficulty in believing everything they see on these pages, the truth of practically all can be substantiated. Finally, Gene Fowler is a writer as high above the usual biography hack as his Timber Line is above the East Boston mud flats; whatever your interests, whatever your previous knowledge of the characters, "Timber Line" will satisfy you. S. H. W.