To contemporary city dwellers, the story of Lafe and Emma Cox seems to belong to another world. The Coxes ran guest ranches in the Idaho wilderness for half a century. Now a book, their life story is a tribute to hard physical labor and self reliance in a time and place that demanded them. Remnants of their lifestyle remain on a few remote ranches. But it's fading even there, making their mountain memoirs all the more valuable.

"They knew how to work - damn, they knew how to work!" said Cort Conley, author of "Idaho Loners" and other books about backwoods Idaho characters. "It makes you humble when you see what they accomplished and how they went about it."

Emma Cox is the author of "Idaho Mountains, Our Home." She dismisses her and her husband's way of life as "just what we had to do. We got real tired, but it didn't hurt us. Hard work never hurt anybody."

Lafe Cox grew up on ranches in Gem County and the mountains around Yellow Pine. He was riding a horse at 2 1/2, helped drive 60 head of horse from Gem County to Bear Valley at age 5.

He attended a one-room school at Yellow Pine, riding a horse or driving a dogsled 10 miles each way. In winter the students made life-sized ice sculptures, forerunners of those seen today at McCall's winter carnival.

Emma Petersen grew up in Emmett. Lafe skied 55 miles to Cascade and drove the rest of the way to Emmett to date her in high school. One night he asked whether she thought she could live his kind of life. She said she could, married him at 19 and spent five days in a dogsled getting to her new home. She was attacked the first day there by a coyote, which she dispatched with a .38 special.

"I have to admit I was scared," she said 58 years later. "But I made a vow never to show my fear, and I got accustomed to that kind of life.

A life of labor. As co-owner of the Cox Dude Ranch, Emma kept the books and cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner on a wood range for up to 24 guests. She baked 10 loaves of bread, 120 dinner rolls, a cake and six pies every day. In her spare time, she made soap, drove a 40 mile mail route and served on the Yellow Pine School Board.

Lafe was the ranch's outfitter and guide. Some of his clients returned annually for nearly 30 years. He drove mail, worked in a mine, milked cows, hauled lumber, cut and packed 100-pound blocks of ice for refrigeration, tended the stock and, with Emma, served on the School Board. Somehow they found time to raise two daughters.

They delivered babies, cared for sick neighbors, rescued injured travelers.

"When you are totally isolated," Emma wrote, "you don't worry about anything happening to you. You just do the things you need to do."

Eventually the pace became too much. They sold the ranch and retired in 1992, but continue to live nearby.

You can meet them this weekend. They'll be signing books at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Book Shop, 906 W. Main St.

Emma will tell you that the old ways haven't entirely died.

"People were tougher physically then, but now they have to be mentally tough," she said. "Education is better, technology is better and there's more art and culture than ever. People still work hard. It's just a different kind of work."