Author Description

A classic Western thriller by the author of "Out Where the West Begins" "Needless to say, the West has always appealed strongly to me. I have tried for years to get as far as possible from beaten trails, and have camped with cowboys, sheep herders and forest rangers. 'Mystery Ranch' is the result of several visits to Indian reservations. I was casting about for a theme for a novel of Western life, and it occurred to me to write a story with Indian reservation life as a background. Stories often suggest themselves to me through certain material things. For instance, a story may shape itself out of the mere suggestion of a saddle, a spur, or a lariat. In this case, I happened to have in mind a certain cattle brand of which I had known on the Crow reservation. A 'squaw man' there in early days ran what was known as the 'Greek letter brand' on his livestock. This indicated that he was a man of education. Yet here he was on an Indian reservation, married to an Indian woman, and so reticent about his affairs that no one knew the history of his early life. "Here, then, was a character to afford plenty of mystery. A story began to shape itself, with this 'squaw man' of mystery in the background. In working out the details of the story, the Greek letter brand kept asserting itself. Why not utilize it on the solution of the mystery - a murder which occurs just outside the reservation line and which, owning to certain features connected with it, is generally held to be an 'Indian job.' In this way I began to fill the plot, detail by detail, trying to maintain the atmosphere of mystery about the 'squaw man' until the final chapter. The heroine - related to the man of mystery - was brought on from a California school, finding herself deeply involved in the tragedy and compelled to fight at cross purposes with the young Indian agent, who believes in the innocence of his red wards, yet is unable to fix the responsibility for the crime until the very last. "