"Mr. Dobie brings together all his findings in a single book of solid scholarship, documented to the hilt, and inspired by his unflagging enthusiasm for the wild free creatures of the West. The Mustangs will probably remain the standard work on the subject."—New York Times
"This is a magnificent book, so packed with lore and legend that one is not conscious of the fact that it is history, too. Frank Dobie tells the story of the mustangs . . . The story too of the men, and the way of life the mustang brought into being."—New York Herald Tribune
| I | The progenitor of the mustang | 3 |
| II | The guarded atom bomb of the Spaniards | 21 |
| III | Indian horses and horsemanship | 42 |
| IV | The Comanche moon | 63 |
| V | Indian horse-stealing and mustanging | 73 |
| VI | Mestenas | 93 |
| VII | Wild and free | 110 |
| VIII | The stallion and his mares | 127 |
| IX | The legend of the pacing white mustang | 143 |
| X | Death and liberty | 171 |
| XI | Captive mustangs : ordinary and extraordinary | 192 |
| XII | Mustanger ways | 215 |
| XIII | As the mustangers told it | 235 |
| XIV | Under the saddle | 271 |
| XV | The coyote dun and other cow horses | 296 |
| XVI | Only their dust | 315 |
Overview
J. Frank Dobie’s history of the “mustang”—from the Spanish mesteña, an animal belonging to (but strayed from) the Mesta, a medieval association of Spanish farmers—tells of its impact on the Spanish, English, and Native cultures of the West.