What was Robert E. Lee doing in the days leading up to the Civil War? Lee was not intimately involved in the controversy brewing in his homeland. Rather, he was out in Texas fighting Indians. His exploits in this period are little known, but the history of this period in Lee's life was put together by Carl Rister, Robert E. Lee in Texas. Lee was recalled to Washington by General Winfield Scott to lead Union forces on the brink of the Civil War, but he declined the offer to join the Confederates instead. Item 143. $42.50

Here is an obscure collection of western stories: Wild Cow Tales, by Ben K. Green. That's "tales," not "tails." This 1969 first edition has a tipped in leaf saying it was published for Sami S. Svendsen, whose many occupations included being a counselor "in Animal Casings and Glands." A noble profession. Item 68. $50.

Item 129 asks the question we have all been wanting to know: Do Abominable Snowmen of America Exist? I could have answered this question with a single word, but somehow author Roger Patterson manages to fill 169 pages of speculation. Baade describes this book as "almost as elusive as the creature." It was published in 1966, but Patterson did not rise to his celebrity status in Bigfoot lore until the following year, when he and a friend filmed a sighting of the creature near Bluff Creek, California. It is either the best film ever made of Bigfoot, or one of the worst filmings of a man in a monkey suit. Some believe the movements of the creature, seen from a distance in Patterson's film, could not have been replicated by a man in a suit. Others believe the man who made the suits for the movie "Planet of the Apes" was in on a hoax. Patterson died a few years later, so he can't be asked about possible inconsistencies, though his partner still denies it was a fabrication, but indicates that perhaps he was duped by Patterson. It should be noted that Bluff Creek coincidentally was also the place where Bigfoot prints had been found a decade earlier, footprints later admitted to have been created as a hoax. $75.

Gene W. Baade Books On The West may be reached at 425-271-6481 or bookwest@eskimo.com.