Russell provided three illustrations in color for B. M. Bower’s novel Chip, of the Flying U, first published in 1906. The stories of Chip, Weary, Happy Jack, Denver, and the other cowboys of the fictitious Flying U ranch, along with those of a heroine named “Little Doctor,” became great favorites with many readers. Bertha M. Bower was married to Bertrand W. “Bill” Sinclair, a former cowboy and also a writer of stories, and both of them were close friends of Charles and Nancy Russell. In Bower’s book, the character of Chip was a cowboy artist, and many readers assumed she had modeled the character from Russell. She, however, always maintained that the character was drawn from her husband, whose background was similar to that of Russell. For reasons now unknown, Russell’s nickname for Bill Sinclair was “Fiddleback.”