The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (Annotated) E-Book

Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Herausgeber: Muhammad Humza
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County by the most well-known author of the Tarzan series.  All of the words have been rewritten in a unique way to grab your interest. The best western fictional novel.

Leseprobe

Edgar Rice Burroughs Biography

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was an American adventure writer whose Tarzan stories created a folk hero known around the world. His novels sold more than 100 million copies in 56 languages, making him one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, to George Tyler and Mary Evaline (Zeiger) Burroughs. His father was successful in business, and worked as a distiller and a battery manufacturer. Burroughs was educated at private schools in Chicago and in the state of Michigan. After his graduation from the Michigan Military Academy, he joined the U.S. Cavalry for a tour of duty in Arizona in 1896. He was not suited to this life and, thanks to his father's wealth and position, he left the military the following year. He briefly owned a stationary store in Idaho before moving back to Chicago and a position with the American Battery Company. Burroughs married Emma Centennia Hulbert on January 1, 1900; the couple would have three children: Joan, Hulbert, and John Coleman. A few years after the marriage, Burroughs again tried to seek his fortune in the West, holding various jobs in Idaho and Utah. By 1906, he was back in Chicago and working for Sears, Roebuck and Company. After several attempts to start his own business, Burroughs turned to writing as a career.

Many reviewers and biographers have often described Burroughs as a failed pencil-sharpener salesman who just wanted to support his wife and children when he began writing. Others note that it was the company that had failed, not Burroughs, and that he had succeeded in numerous jobs. In any case, Burroughs began his writing career with a Martian tale, best known by its hardback title: A Princess of Mars. The story was written in 1911, and published under the pseudonym Normal Bean (to let readers know he was not crazy and had a "normal bean") in All-Story magazine in 1912. The tale was not published in hardback until 1917. Astronomer Percival Lowell's theories of the canals of Mars were at the height of their popularity in 1911, and fired Burroughs' imagination. There were eleven books in the Mars series, the last of which, John Carter of Mars, was published fourteen years after the author's death.

The main character of the Mars series is John Carter, a gentleman from Virginia. In the first story, he falls into a cave only to wake up on the planet Mars-a sort of death that brings him to a new life. An adventurous man throughout the series, he saves women from villains, rescues the planet, and shows the various colored Martians that they need each other to survive. One year after the publication of A Princess of Mars in book form, Burroughs released The Gods of Mars. Additional installments of the John Carter saga appeared on a regular basis, including The Warlords of Mars (1919), Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920), The Chessmen of Mars (1922), The Master Mind of Mars (1928), and A Fighting Man of Mars (1931). John Hollow, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, praised the first three novels of the series as "a particularly fine instance of science fiction's attempt to cope with what Burroughs himself called 'the stern and unalterable cosmic laws,' the certainty that both individuals and whole races grow old and die."

Best Known for His Tarzan Books

The appearance of Burroughs' second published story, Tarzan of the Apes, in All-Story magazine in 1912, and the publication of the novel in hardcover form in 1914, made him a best-selling author. Thereafter, he devoted himself exclusively to writing. Although Burroughs wrote almost all types of popular fiction, he is perhaps most famous for the Tarzan series. The lead character, Tarzan, is the son of an English noble who is adopted by a female ape in the African jungle. He learns English, grows into manhood, meets and falls in love with Jane, the daughter of an American scientist, and recovers his title-all in the first two of 26 stories.

Tarzan of the Apes captured the public's imagination and the series proved to be a success. Only a few fictional heroes, such as Robin Hood and Superman, are as famous as Tarzan. People might not remember the author, but most everyone, including small children, recognize the name of the main character, often responding with a Tarzan-like yell. The Tarzan stories have been translated into more than 56 languages, and reportedly more than 25,000,000 copies of the Tarzan books have been sold worldwide. Burroughs' novels were so financially rewarding that he was able to open his own publishing house, named after himself and called Burroughs. Beginning with the 1931 release, Tarzan the Invincible, he published his own works.

The character of Tarzan has been the subject of comic strips, radio serials, three television series, and at least 40 movies, including a Disney animated film and a 1998 spoof, George of the Jungle. Tarzan of the Apes was first made into a silent film in 1918, with Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. More than a dozen actors have since starred in the role, the most popular having been Johnny Weissmuller, a former Olympic swimming champion. Most of the actors in Tarzan films were in fine physical shape, but they still faced risks. In the 1920 serial, The Son of Tarzan, Hawaiian actor Kamuela Searle was seriously injured by an elephant and a stand-in had to be used to complete the film; Searle later died of his injuries.

Not Without Controversy

Burroughs and his Tarzan character have not been without controversy. Burroughs, who himself has been accused of racism in his portrayal of Africa, disliked how films usually made Tarzan a grunting savage. He portrayed Tarzan in his novels as an erudite and wealthy heir to the House of Greystoke, equally at home in the jungle or polite society. Novels such as The Return of Tarzan (1915), The Beasts of Tarzan (1916), Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1918), and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1923) continued this tradition. The last volume in the series, Tarzan and the Castaways, was released in 1965. As George P. Elliott noted in the Hudson Review, Burroughs' "prejudices are so gross that no one bothers to analyze them out or to attack them.... They were clear-eyed, well-thewed prejudices arrayed only in a loin cloth; you can take them or leave them, unless your big prejudice happens to be anti-prejudice. What matters is the story, which tastes good."

Burroughs' Tarzan series received other criticism. Although a favorite with readers, the Tarzan books have been dismissed by literary critics as cheap pulp fiction. Brian Attebury, writing in The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin, commented: "Burroughs was neither more nor less than a good storyteller, with as much power-and finesse-as a bulldozer." Details of the Tarzan books have come under scrutiny, and even anthropologists have taken Burroughs to task, insisting that he was wrong in writing that great apes raised Tarzan. They insisted that the young Tarzan could not possibly have learned to swing through the trees so gracefully with a chimpanzee as his tutor. For him to have achieved such agility his instructor must have been an orangutan. Burroughs fans argue, however, that the apes in the Tarzan series were neither chimpanzees nor orangutans but a man-like invention of the author. Burroughs himself claimed that he never tried to do more than entertain his readers, and was honest about his need for money. "I had a wife and two babies," he once explained.

Burroughs envisioned his Tarzan stories as wholesome family entertainment. Not all portrayals of Tarzan have had the family in mind, however, and Burroughs' descendants, who still run the company bearing his name from Tarzana, California (an estate near Hollywood, California, Burroughs bought in 1919 and later named), have found it necessary to go to court. In 1996, for example, the family filed a law suit against the makers of "Jungle Heat," alleging that the interactive CD-ROM was "the antithesis to the good, wholesome and attractive images of Tarzan," as noted in the Los Angeles Times. There have been countless imitations of Tarzan, such as a jungle man called Tongo on the television series Gilligan's Island, and a Listerine commercial in which a Tarzan-like character swings on a vine barefoot while in a tuxedo. But many of these imitations are either protected by the legal safeguards for satire, or use material in the public domain-fair game after the expiration of copyright protection, which is limited in time. But Burroughs not only copyrighted the books, he covered the character of Tarzan with a trademark-which does not expire. In 1923, the author founded the family corporation, establishing the trademark to forever control products that used the name or likeness of Tarzan, from movies to comic books and T-shirts.

Later Career and Other Novels

Later in his career, Burroughs began corresponding with scientists to learn all that was known about the planet Venus. Provided with these ideas, he started a new series. Beginning with the publication of Pirates of Venus in 1934, Burroughs published four more volumes in this set, including Lost on Venus (1935), Carson of Venus (1939), and Escape from Venus (1946). His last book in the series, The Wizard of Venus, was released in 1970. As the first book in the Venus series was getting published, Burroughs divorced his wife of 34 years; he married his second wife, Florence Dearholt, in 1935.

Burroughs also wrote four western adventure stories, all carefully researched and based on his experience as a cowboy on his older brothers' ranch in Idaho as a young man and as a cavalry soldier in Arizona. Some critics consider these the best of his writing, particularly the sympathetic treatment of Geronimo and his renegade Apaches. Among the novels written in this genre include Apache Devil (1933) and The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (1940).

Burroughs continued to write novels for the rest of his life, ultimately publishing some 68 titles in all. During World War II, he served as a journalist with the United Press and, at age 66, was the oldest war correspondent covering the South Pacific theater. Burroughs died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950. A number of his novels were published posthumously. Even after his death, Burroughs remained a popular author, and he sold millions of books in paperback.

The University of Louisville Library owns the largest institutional archive of Burroughs' works. The collection contains more than 67,000 items ranging in scope from the author's earliest school books to promotional materials from the 1990s. The library's collection of Tarzan memorabilia includes film stills and posters featuring 19 Tarzan actors. It also includes the best and most celebrated book artists, including J. Allen St. John, who illustrated a total of 33 first editions of Burroughs. Other artists featured in the collection include Frank Frazetta, whose works adorned the first paperback Burroughs books of the 1960s, and John Coleman Burroughs, the author's son, who illustrated eleven first editions of his father's stories. The collection also includes items from Burroughs' personal life and affairs, samples of his books, pulp editions, letters, merchandising goods and many photographs taken over the last 100 years.

Table of Contents

Title

About

Chapter 1 - THE LINE FENCE

Chapter 2 - WHO KILLED GUNDERSTROM?

Chapter 3 - BRUCE MARVEL

Chapter 4 - KAY WHITE

Chapter 5 - THE LION HUNT

Chapter 6 - HI BRYAM

Chapter 7 - THE BUR

Chapter 8 - FOURFLUSHERS, ALL

Chapter 9 - THE SORREL COLT

Chapter 10 - BLAINE IS JEALOUS

Chapter 11 - "THAT WOULD BE EDDIE"

Chapter 12 - "GOODBYE, KAY"

Chapter 13 - MARVEL BUYS AN OUTFIT

Chapter 14 - KIDNAPED

Chapter 15 - ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS

Chapter 16 - AT BRYAM'S CABIN

Chapter 17 - TORN PLAYING CARDS

Chapter 18 - ON THE TRAIL

Chapter 19 - "STICK 'EM UPI"

Chapter 20 - WATER!

Chapter 21 - "HE IS BUCK MASON"

Chapter 22 - "YOU'RE UNDER ARREST"

Chapter 23 - THE BRASS HEART

.

Chapter

1

THE LINE FENCE

A LONE RIDER DREW REIN before a gate consisting of three poles cut from straight pine saplings. He leaned from the saddle and dropped one end of each of the two upper bars to the ground, stepped his horse over the remaining bar and, stooping again, replaced the others. Then he rode slowly along a dirt road that showed .little signs of travel.

As he rode he seemed but an animated part of the surrounding landscape, so perfectly did he harmonize from the crown of his Stetson to the light shod hoofs of his pony.

Everything that he wore seemed a part of him, as he seemed a part of his horse. His well worn chaps, his cartridge belt and holster, his shirt and bandana, like the leather of his horse trappings, were toned and mellowed by age and usage; yet they carried the same suggestion of strength and freshness and efficiency as did his bronzed face and his clear, gray eyes.

His mount moved at an easy, shuffling gait that some horsemen might call a rack, but which the young man would have described as a pace.

The horse was that homeliest of all horse colors, a blue roan, the only point of distinction in his appearance being a circular white spot, about the size of a saucer, that encircled his right eye, a marking which could not be said to greatly enhance his beauty, though it had served another and excellent purpose in suggesting his name -Bull's Eye.

At first glance the young man might have been found as little remarkable as his horse. In New Mexico there are probably thousands of other young men who look very much like him. His one personal adornment, in which he took a quiet, secret pride, was a flowing, brown mustache with drooping ends, which accomplished little more than to collect alkali dust and hide an otherwise strong and handsome mouth, while the low drawn brim of his Stetson almost accomplished the same result for the man's finest features - a pair of unusually arresting gray eyes.

The road wound through low rolling hills covered with stunted cedars, beyond which rose a range of mountains, whose sides were clothed with pine, the dark green of which was broken occasionally by irregular patches of quaking aspens, the whole mellowed and softened and mysterized by an enveloping purple haze.

The road, whose parallel twin paths suggested wheels of traffic, but in whose dust appeared only the spoor of hoofed animals, wound around the shoulder of a hill and debouched into a small valley, in the center of which stood a dilapidated log house.

"This here," said the young man to his pony, "is where we were headed fer. I hope the old man's in," and as though to assure him of the fulfillment of his wish, the door of the cabin opened and a large, droop-shouldered, gray haired man emerged.

"Ev'nen, Ole," said the rider.

"Ev'nen," said the older man, rather shortly, as the other stopped his horse and swung from the saddle. "What you doin' here?"

"I come to see you about that line fence, Ole," said the young man.

"Gol durned if you aint as bad as your pa," said the older man. "I aint heared nuthin' else but that durned line fence fer the last twenty years."

"You and the old man fit over that fence for eighteen years up to the very day he died, but I'll be doggoned if I want to scrap about it."

"Then what you doin' up here about it?" demanded the other.

"I aint up here to scrap with you, Ole. I just come up to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"You aint doin' nuthin' with that land. You aint never done nuthin' with it. You can't get water on to it. I can and there's about a hundred acres of it that lies right for alfalfa and joins right on to the patch I put in last year."

"Well what you goin' to do about it? It's my land. You sure can't put alfalfa on my land."

"It aint your land, Ole, and you know it. You put your line fence in the wrong place. Maybe you did it accidental at first, but you know well enough that you aint got no title to that land."

"Well I got it fenced and I have had it fenced for twenty years. That's title enough for me," growled Gunderstrom.

"Now listen, Ole; I said I didn't come up here figurin' on quarrelin' with you and I aint a goin' to. I'm just tellin' you, I'm goin' to move that fence and put in alfalfa."

Olaf Gunderstrom's voice trembled with suppressed anger as he replied. "If ye lay a hand on that fence of mine, Buck Mason, I'll kill you."

"Now don't make me quarrel with you, Ole," said the young man, "cause I don't want to do nuthin' like that. I'm gonna move the fence, and I'm gonna say here that if anybody gets shot, it aint me. Now let's don't chaw any more fat over that. What do you hear from Olga?"

"None of your durn business," snapped Gunderstrom.

Mason grinned. "Well, Olga and I grew up together as kids," he reminded the older man, "and I'm just naturally interested in her."

"Well, I'll thank you to mind your own business, Buck Mason," said Gunderstrom surlily. "My girl aint fer no low down cowman. Me and her maw was nuthin' but trash. We seen it once when we went to Frisco and I aint never been nowhere since, but I made up my mind that my girl was gonna be able to herd with the best of 'em. That's why I sent her East to school - to keep her away from trash like you and the rest of the slab-sided longhorns that range in Comanche County.

"My girl aint gonna know the dirt and sweat and greasy pots in no cowman's kitchen. She aint gonna have no swells high hattin' her. She's goin' to be in a position to do the high hattin' herself. God and her mother give her the looks; the schools back in the states can give her the education, and I can give her the money; so she can herd with the best of 'em. My girl's gonna marry a swell; so you needn't waste your time asking no more questions about her. You aint never goin' to see her again, and if you do she won't even know you."

"Come, come, Ole," said Mason, "don't get so excited. I wasn't aimin' on bitin' Olga. She was a good kid; and we used to have a lot of fun together; and, say, if Olga marries a duke she wouldn't never high hat none of her old friends."

"She won't never get a chance while I'm alive," said Gunderstrom. "She aint never comin' back here."

"That's your business and hers," said Mason. "It aint none o'mine." He swung easily into the saddle. "I'll be moseyin' along, Ole. So long!"

"Listen," cried the older man as Mason wheeled his horse to move away. "Remember what I said about that line fence. If you lay a hand on it I'll kill you."

Buck Mason reined in his pony and turned in his saddle. "I hope there aint nobody goin' to be killed, Ole," he said quietly; "but if there is it aint goin' to be me. Come on, Bull's Eye, it's a long way back to town."

But Buck Mason did not ride to town. Instead he stopped at his own lonely ranch house, cooked his supper and afterward sat beneath an oil lamp and read.

The book that he was reading he had taken from a cupboard, the door of which was secured by a padlock, for the sad truth was that Mason was ashamed of his library and of his reading He would have hated to have had any of hi; cronies discover his weakness, for the things than he read were not of the cow country. They included a correspondence course in English, a number of the classics which the course had recommended, magazines devoted to golf, polo, yachting, and a voluminous book on etiquette; but perhaps the thing that caused him the greatest mental perturbation in anticipation of its discovery by his candid, joke-loving friends was a file of the magazine Vogue.

No one knew that Buck Mason pored over these books and magazines whenever he had a leisure moment; in fact, no one suspected that he possessed them; and he would have died rather than to have explained why he did so.

He had led rather a lonely life, even before his father had died two years previously; but perhaps the greatest blow he had ever suffered had been the departure of Olga Gunderstrom for the East, nearly six years before.

She was sixteen then, and he eighteen. They had never spoken of love; perhaps neither one of them had thought of love; but she was the only girl that he had ever known well. When she had gone and he had commenced to realize how much he missed her, and then gradually to understand the barrier that her education was destined to raise between them, he began to believe that he loved her and that life without her would be a drab and monotonous waste.

Perhaps it was because he was a little bashful with women and guessed that he would never be well enough acquainted with any other girl to ask her to be his wife. He knew that he and Olga would get along well together. He knew that he would always be happy with her, and he thought that this belief constituted love; so he determined to fit himself as best he might to appear well in the society that he believed her superior education destined her to enter, that she might not ever have cause to be ashamed of him.

It was a pathetic little weakness. He did not think of it as pathetic but only as a weakness, and he was very much ashamed of it. Like most quiet men, he had a horror of ridicule; and so he always kept his books and his magazines locked in his cupboard, nor ever took one out unless he was alone, except that when he took one of those long, lonely trips, which were sometimes made necessary in pursuance of his office as deputy sheriff of Comanche County, he would carry one of his books along with him; but never the book of etiquette or a copy of Vogue, each of which he considered a reflection upon his manhood.

In another lonely cabin, several miles away, Olaf Gunderstrom had cooked his own frugal meal, washed his dishes and gone to bed.

He was an eccentric old man, and he had permitted his eccentricities to become more and more marked after the death of his wife and the departure of his daughter for the East.

Possibly the wealthiest man in the county, he lived in the meanest of cabins, notwithstanding the fact that he had a comfortable, if not luxurious home in the county seat; and always he lived alone. His ranch and cow hands had their headquarters on another one of his ranches, several miles from Gunderstrom's shack. He rode there every day, and sometimes he ate dinner with them; but he always returned to his lonely cabin for his supper.

His only pleasures in life were directing his business, computing his profits and dreaming of the future of his daughter; and, before he fell asleep this night, his mind thus occupied with his daughter, he was reminded of the visit of Buck Mason in the afternoon.

"Always a askin' about Olga," he soliloquized grumblingly. "Never see that fellah that he aint askin' me about Olga. Guess he thinks I can't see right through him like a ladder. He'd like to marry Ole Gunderstrom's daughter. That's what he'd like to do and get his paws on all my land and cattle; but he aint aggona get Olga, and he aint even goin' to get that quarter section. I've had a fence around that for- more'n twenty years now; and I guess if that don't give me no title, nuthin' else does. Buck Mason! Huh!" he snorted in disgust, and with Mason still in his thoughts he fell asleep.

Chapter

2

WHO KILLED GUNDERSTROM?

THE NIGHT WORE ON, its silence broken once by the hoot of an owl and again by the distant yapping of a coyote; and Olaf Gunderstrom slept.

Toward midnight subdued sounds floated up from the twin trails that wound in from the highway - the mellowed creaking of old leather, mingled with the breathing of horses - and then darker shadows moved beneath the moonless sky, slowly taking form and shape until they became distinguishable as five horsemen.

In silence they rode to the shack and dismounted where a long tie rail paralleled the front of the building. They moved very softly, making no noise in dismounting, nor speaking any words. They tied their horses to the tie rail and approached the door of the cabin. To the mystery of their silent approach there was added a sinister note by the handkerchiefs . tied across their faces just below their eyes. Men come not thus at night in friendliness or well meaning.

Gently the leader pushed open the door, which was as innocent of bar and lock as are most cabin doors behind which no woman dwells.

Silently the five entered the single room of the cabin. The leader approached the wooden cot, roughly built against one of the cabin walls, where Gunderstrom lay asleep. It was dark within the cabin, but not so dark but that one familiar with the interior could locate the cot and the form of the sleeper. In the hand of the man crossing the room so stealthily was a long-barreled Colt.

The silent intruder could see the cot and the outlines of the blur that was the sleeper upon it; but he did not see one of Gunderstrom's boots that lay directly in his path, and he stepped partially upon it and half stumbled and as he did so, Gunderstrom awoke and sat up. "Buck Mason!" he exclaimed. "What do you want here?" and at the same time he reached for the gun that lay always beside him.

There was a flash in the dark, the silence was split by the report of a pistol and Olaf Gunderstrom slumped back upon his blanket, a bullet in his brain.

For a few moments the killer stood above his prey, seeking perhaps to assure himself that his work has been well done. He did not move, nor did his companions, nor did the dead man upon the cot. Presently the killer leaned low and placed his ear upon the breast of Gunderstrom. When he straightened up he turned back toward the doorway.

"We'd better be on our way," he said, and as the five men filed out of the cabin and mounted their horses, no other words were spoken. As silently as they had come they disappeared along the twin trails that led down to the highway.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. The sheriff of Comanche County sat in his office. He had read his mail and was now immersed in a newspaper.

An old man, leaning in the doorway, spit dexterously across the wooden porch into the dust of the road and shifted his quid. He, too, was reading a newspaper.

"Seems mighty strange to me," he said, "that nobody aint caught these fellers yet."

"There don't nobody know who they be," said the sheriff.

"I see by the papers," said the old man, "that they think they got a line on 'em."

"They aint got nuthin' on 'em," snapped the sheriff. "They don't even know that it's the same gang."

"No, that's right," assented the old man, "but it sure does look suspicious. Robbin' and murderin' and rustlin' breakin' out all of a sudden in towns here where we aint had none o' it for years. Why say, in the last year there's been more Hell goin' on around in this neck of the woods and over into Arizony than I've saw all put together for ten year before."

At this juncture the telephone bell rang and the sheriff rose and walked to the instrument, where it hung against the wall.

"Hello," he said as he put the receiver to his ear, and then, "The hell you say!" He listened for a moment longer. "Don't touch nuthin' leave everything as it is. I'll notify the Coroner and then I'll be out as soon as I can."

He hung up the receiver and as he turned away from the instrument Buck Mason entered the office. "Mornin', sheriff!" he said.

"Good morning, Buck!" returned the sheriff.

"Who's killed now?" demanded old man Cage, who, having heard half the conversation and scenting excitement, had abandoned his post in the doorway and entered the room.

Buck Mason looked inquiringly at the sheriff. "Somebody killed?" he asked.

The sheriff nodded. "Tom Kidder just called me up from the Circle G home ranch. He says they found old man Gunderstrom shot to death in his shack over on Spring Creek."

"Gunderstrom?" he exclaimed. "Why I see -," he hesitated. "Do they know who done it?" The sheriff shook his head. "Perhaps I better get right over there," continued Mason.