THE NEGRO COWBOYS by Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones. 278 pages. Dodd, Mead. $5.
Most were ropers, others horsebreakers, wranglers, cooks, and trail bosses. Some became law enforcers, ranch owners or, like Cheyenne's B. M. Ford, hotel proprietors. Several were celebrated mountain men, notably Jim Beckwith, a trapper whose exploits rivaled Kit Carson's. Others became swindlers like Dodge City's Ben Hodges, or outlaws like Texas' Cherokee Bill, who murdered for profit, seduced for fun, and was hanged a month before his 20th birthday, telling the crowd gathered around the gallows: "I came...