I’ve read a lot of Zane Grey’s books, and loved them all. This one is no exception, although it was a bit different than his other westerns. The only gun play that occurred here was described second hand by one of the characters. Don’t get me wrong--there wasn’t a thing wrong with it, just different. Grey was a master writer of gunfights and any other action or setting he chose to describe. Riders of the Purple Sage, his most famous novel, is a prime example of Zane’s magic with words. His main character in this fine novel carries a gun from time to time, but he never uses it. Nothing wrong with that either, it just seemed to me a little strange.
Grey didn’t care much for the “western” label put upon his work, preferring the term “romance”. He said that he wrote romances that just happened to be set in the old west. This book fits more into that frame of reference than any of his others that I have read. There are four “romances” simultaneously taking place here. Two involve cowboys who are sweet on the only two female characters. The other romances are a man’s love for the west, and the friendship that evolves between three of the cowboys.
Grey could overwrite at times, but unlike most authors who do the same, Grey’s indulgence is a pleasure to read. I almost wish he'd written more. I was sorry when this one came to an end. Top-notch western romance from a master.
( )

A ( )

Ernest Selby decides to go under cover in order to investigates some strange circumstances on his newly inherited property and lands a job on his own ranch, posing as a tenderfoot cowboy under a different name and courts Annie, the daughter of the crooked foreman.