Nevada writers of the purple sage -- The Tonopah ladies -- Reno : myth, mystique, or madness? -- Idah Meacham Strobridge : the second Mary Austin? -- Walter Van Tilburg Clark's brave bird, 'Hook' -- The Nevada scene through Edward Abbey's eyes -- Other Western writers of the purple sage -- Introduction to a lady's life in the Rocky Mountains -- A Montana maturity -- Introduction to This land is bright -- Shane's pale ghost -- Company for a lonesome dove -- Stegner and stewardship -- The purple sage -- Environmental journalism -- Western literature and natural resources -- Kingdom, phylum, class, order : twentieth-century American nature writer -- Raising the bar -- Afterword from words for the wild -- Ghosts from Earthtones