The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack
Charles Alden Seltzer
Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
The MEGAPACK™ Ebook Series
SQUARE DEAL SANDERSON
THE RANCHMAN
THE RANGE BOSS
“FIREBRAND” TREVISON
THE TRAIL HORDE
‘DRAG’ HARLAN
THE COMING OF THE LAW
THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY
THE TWO-GUN MAN
THE BOSS OF THE LAZY Y
SEVEN-UP’S CHRISTMAS
COPYRIGHT INFO
The Charles Alden Seltzer Western MEGAPACK™ is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press, LLC. Cover art copyright © Masopias / Fotolia. All rights reserved.
* * * *
The MEGAPACK™ ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
Charles Alden Seltzer (1875–1942) was a prolific author of western novels, had writing credits for more than a dozen film titles, and authored numerous stories published in magazines, most prominently in Argosy.
Seltzer was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, the son of Lucien B. Seltzer and Oceania Hart of Columbus, Ohio. Before becoming a successful writer, he was variously a newsboy, telegraph messenger, painter, carpenter and manager of the circulation of a newspaper, building inspector, editor of a small newspaper, and an appraiser.
He married Ella Seltzer, and they had three sons and two daughters. His son Louis, later editor of the Cleveland Press, recalled that the family was quite poor when his father was struggling to break into the writing profession (he wrote two hundred stories before receiving an acceptance). During this time, Seltzer’s wife brought him wrapping paper from the butcher to write on.
In addition to Argosy, Seltzer’s work also appeared in Adventure, Short Stories, Blue Book, Giant Western, The Outing Magazine, Western Story Magazine, and the US edition of Pearson’s Magazine.
Seltzer wrote his westerns from the experience of five years living in New Mexico. Towards the end of his life, he was also elected mayor of his home-town, North Olmsted, Ohio.
Enjoy the ten novels and one short story collected here!
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
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OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY
The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany MEGAPACK™”)
The Wildside Book of Fantasy
The Wildside Book of Science Fiction
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To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
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SQUARE DEAL SANDERSON
Originally published in 1922.
CHAPTER I
THE NORTH RAID
An hour before, Deal Sanderson had opened his eyes. He had been comfortably wrapped in his blanket; his head had been resting on a saddle seat. His sleep over, he had discovered that the saddle seat felt hard to his cheek. In changing his position he had awakened. His face toward the east, he had seen a gray streak widening on the horizon—a herald of the dawn.
Sanderson found what seemed to be a softer spot on the saddle, snuggled himself in the blanket, and went to sleep again. Of course he had not neglected to take one sweeping glance around the camp while awake, and that one glance had convinced him that the camp was in order.
The fire had long since gone out—there was a heap of white ashes to mark the spot where it had been. His big brown horse—Streak—unencumbered by rope or leather, was industriously cropping the dew-laden blades of some bunch-grass within a dozen yards of him; and the mighty desolation of the place was a
s complete as it had seemed when he had pitched his camp the night before.
Sanderson reveled in the luxury of complete idleness. He grinned at the widening streak of dawn as he closed his eyes. There would be no vitriolic-voiced cook to bawl commands at him this morning. And no sour-faced range boss to issue curt orders.
In an hour or so—perhaps in two hours—Sanderson would crawl out of his blanket, get his own breakfast, and ride northeastward. He was a free agent now, and would be until he rode in to the Double A to assume his new duties.
Judging by the light, Sanderson had slept a full hour when he again awakened. He stretched, yawned, and grinned at the brown horse.
“You’re still a-goin’ it, Streak, eh?” he said, aloud. “I’d say you’ve got a medium appetite. There’s times when I envy you quite considerable.”
Reluctantly Sanderson sat up and looked around. He had pitched his camp at the edge of a thicket of alder and aspen near a narrow stream of water in a big arroyo. Fifty feet from the camp rose the sloping north wall of the arroyo, with some dwarf spruce trees fringing its edge. Sanderson had taken a look at the section of country visible from the arroyo edge before pitching his camp. There were featureless sand hills and a wide stretch of desert.
Sanderson started to get to his feet. Then he sat down again, stiffening slowly, his right hand slipping quickly to the butt of the pistol at his right hip. His chin went forward, his lips straightened, and his eyes gleamed with cold alertness.
A horseman had appeared from somewhere in the vast space beyond the arroyo edge. Sanderson saw the outlines of animal and rider as they appeared for an instant, partly screened from him by the trees and undergrowth on the arroyo edge. Then horse and rider vanished, going northward, away from the arroyo, silently, swiftly.
Schooled to caution by his long experience in a section of country where violence and sudden death were not even noteworthy incidents of life, and where a man’s safety depended entirely upon his own vigilance and wisdom, Sanderson got up carefully, making no noise, slipped around the thicket of alder, crouched behind a convenient rock, huge and jagged, and waited.
Perhaps the incident was closed. The rider might be innocent of any evil intentions; he might by this time be riding straight away from the arroyo. That was for Sanderson to determine.
The rider of the horse—a black one—had seemed to be riding stealthily, leaning forward over the black horse’s mane as though desirous of concealing his movements as much as possible. From whom?
It had seemed that he feared Sanderson would see him; that he had misjudged his distance from the gully—thinking he was far enough away to escape observation, and yet not quite certain, crouching in the saddle to be on the safe side in case he was nearer than he had thought.
