The Little Tigress

Book excerpt: Reporter, author, artist, and screenwriter Wallace Smith (1888–1937) served as the Washington correspondent for the Chicago American for over a decade, and originated the paper's Joe Blow comic panel feature. Reputed to have been one of the most colorful characters to have worked for the Hearst newspapers, he switched back and forth between cartooning and reporting, covering subjects as diverse as the criminal trials of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Pancho Villa's Mexican campaigns. Smith's experiences as an eyewitness to the armed struggles of the Mexican Revolution during the 1910s and '20s inspired these remarkable stories. They begin with the title tale of a soldadera, one of the many women who abandoned their conventional roles to fight in the revolution. Populated by soldiers, bandits, and peasants, these tales of love, treachery, courage, and adventure are illustrated by the author's atmospheric drawings from his field sketchbook.