Bertha Muzzy Bower/ Mrs. Sinclair/ Mrs. Cowan (1871- 1940) was an author of western fiction. She was one of the first women to make a career of crafting western stories. In 1888 she became a teacher in Grand Falls, Montana and she was married at the age of nineteen. Around 1900 she started to write short stories, but her novel Chip of the Flying U (1904) was her first commercial success and is still said to be her most representative work. Between 1906 and until her death she wrote a total of sixty-eight novels, which are all based in the American west. Among her works are: The Happy Family (1907), The Range Dwellers (1907), The Long Shadow (1909), The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories (1909), Good Indian (1912), The Gringos (1913), Flying U Ranch (1914), Jean of the Lazy A (1915), The Phantom Herd (1916), The Lookout Man (1917), Skyrider (1918), Rim o' the World (1919), The Quirt (1920), Cow- Country (1921), The Trail of the White Mule (1922), The Parrowan Bonanza (1923), The Voice at Johnnywater (1923), The Bellehelen Mine (1924) and The Eagle's Wing (1924).