This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In Stormy River County, a rough Western town where poker runs late, cattle outfits feud, and gossip travels faster than a horse at full gallop, Sheriff Pat Lynch is already weary before the real trouble begins. His deputy Oscar Johnson, black-suited, red-tied, and hopelessly accident-prone, has just come back from wrecking the sheriff's buggy on a disastrous outing with Annie Hall, setting the stage for the story's dry humor and frontier banter. But the comic morning turns grim when Buck Dennig, once a drifting gambler and now a trusted foreman of the prosperous Tolman-Dennig outfit, is found murdered by the corral with his skull crushed. As suspicion falls on Tex Blanco after a quarrel with Buck, Sheriff Pat, the prosecutor, and ranch boss Cleve Tolman struggle to separate rumor from proof. Then a new clue complicates everything: Buck had withdrawn ten thousand dollars before he died, hinting at robbery as well as revenge. Into this charged atmosphere arrive the mysterious strangers Hashknife and Sleepy, while Marion Evans, a schoolteacher with a quiet presence and possible ties to the case, becomes another figure of interest. With rivalries, hidden motives, and uneasy loyalties everywhere, the town's easy humor gives way to a tense frontier mystery.

À propos de l'auteur

Tuttle, W. C.

W. C. Tuttle, born Wilbur C. Tuttle in the late nineteenth century, came of age during a period when the American West was still being mythologized in newspapers, magazines, and popular fiction. He built his career as a writer of lively Western stories, especially during the early twentieth century, and became widely admired for his ability to mix action, humor, and sharp characterization. Over time, he produced a substantial body of work that helped define the entertaining, fast-moving style of the magazine Western, often focusing on cowboys, drifters, small-town schemers, and the comic absurdities of frontier life. His fiction stands out for its warm wit, brisk pacing, and affection for ordinary people trying to make their way in a rough and changing world. Beneath the adventure and comedy, Tuttle often explored themes of loyalty, resilience, good-natured deception, and the tension between individual freedom and social order, concerns that still feel fresh today in stories about identity, community, and survival. His legacy lies in helping shape the popular Western as a genre that could be both exciting and funny, not merely heroic or grim, and in showing that frontier tales could reveal as much about human nature as about guns and horseback chases. Readers who enjoy classic Western fiction, regional Americana, or stories with a playful, human touch will find Tuttle especially rewarding.