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We may summarize the qualities of her poetry of Western chevalerie, as in her Old Spookses’ Pass, under four distinctions. It is noted for dramatic (not melodramatic) force, rugged but characteristic humor, graphic character-drawing, and power of conveying to us the sense of the war of the elements which is felt by the wild creatures, such as cattle herds, who become the ‘playthings’ of those elements. The extraordinary fact is that, though all these qualities were, on her part, sheer imaginative invention, yet they are truer to the facts than if they had been written by an actual eye-witness. In short, Miss Crawford, as a poet of Western chevalerie, stands out as gifted with sheer and intense imaginative power and as an authentic imaginative creator.

Nevertheless, her art is all authentic realism, totally free from crass and hectic melodrama. Moreover, Miss Crawford achieved, not solely because she had imagination and a true sense of realistic values, but also because she saw that style in poetry was the only antiseptic for picaresque realism and hectic melodrama. She had genius, not merely a tale to tell.