Rare and First Edition Books from Buckingham Books

Dealer in Rare and First-Edition Books:  Western Americana; Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction

An Unpublished Novella Of Rustlers Versus Newcomer Cattle Ranchers In Colorado DON CAMERON SHAFER

An Unpublished Novella Of Rustlers Versus Newcomer Cattle Ranchers In Colorado

DON CAMERON SHAFER

Other works by DON CAMERON SHAFER

Publication: Written By Don Cameron Shafer, n d ca 1930, "The Maples," Schoharie, New York

An unpublished cattle rustling western centering on two down-on-their-luck newcomers to the cattle business who attempt to reclaim their livestock after it is seized one night by mysterious rustlers. 4to (11" x 9"), red paper covers. 75 pp. of typescript. Manuscript corrections in green and black pen; parts of a few pp. of text cut and pasted. Note reading "First serial rights offered" on the title-page. Seven alternative titles listed, including "Masked Riders," "False Trails End," "Blind Trails," "Dust in the Eyes," "Sheep's Clothing," "Fool's Errands," and "Gun Trails." Set near Buffalo Creek in Colorado, Shafer's novella features protagonists Hubert Enders and Chester White, who are cutting their teeth as cattle ranchers. The tale opens with rustlers making off with Enders and White's cattle, but not before they shoot and kill one of the thieves. Other local cattlemen also lose stock, apparently to the same rustlers. In the aftermath, the protagonists meet a Deputy U.S. Marshall who tells them he's "seen a lot o' dead rustlers. My job is to catch 'em alive. After they're dead th' U.S.A. hasn't any interest in 'em any more. From then on its up to his Satanic Majesty." Enders and White turn their energies to hunting down the rustlers. Amidst a drought and financial straits, the men in time discover where their stock is being held and plan an attack on the rustlers. In the final showdown, the pair recover their cattle, and are led to the dwelling of their fellow rancher-neighbor, Sir Harry, who .. it turns out .. is not in fact an Englishman (an assumed identity), but actually the chief rustler. In the final scene, the Deputy U.S. Marshall remarks that Sir Harry is "a bad actor but a good one." Novelist Don Cameron Shafer (1881–1975) also wrote Smokefires in Schoharie (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1938), a historical novel set in the early eighteenth century in a settlement of the Schoharie Valley, New York. The work centers on an Indian raid on a small village in the Catskill foothills, and is noteworthy for its treatment of Native Americans, early Palatine settlers, and Revolutionary era Loyalists ... all seen through the eyes of one of the author's ancestors. Other works to Shafer's credit include Service Audacious, or, Where Shrewdness Won (NY, 1912), Barent Creighton: A Romance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920), and Harper's Every-day Electricity: how to make and use familiar electrical apparatus, etc. (NY, 1914). Cover fore-edges lightly creased else a very good copy.

Inventory Number: 47107

$750.00