The Meddler

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In Stormy River County, a rough Western town where poker runs late, cattle outfits feud, and gossip travels faster than a horse at full gallop, Sheriff Pat Lynch is already weary before the real trouble begins. His deputy Oscar Johnson, black-suited, red-tied, and hopelessly accident-prone, has just come back from wrecking the sheriff's buggy on a disastrous outing with Annie Hall, setting the stage for the story's dry humor and frontier banter. But the comic morning turns grim when Buck Dennig, once a drifting gambler and now a trusted foreman of the prosperous Tolman-Dennig outfit, is found murdered by the corral with his skull crushed. As suspicion falls on Tex Blanco after a quarrel with Buck, Sheriff Pat, the prosecutor, and ranch boss Cleve Tolman struggle to separate rumor from proof. Then a new clue complicates everything: Buck had withdrawn ten thousand dollars before he died, hinting at robbery as well as revenge. Into this charged atmosphere arrive the mysterious strangers Hashknife and Sleepy, while Marion Evans, a schoolteacher with a quiet presence and possible ties to the case, becomes another figure of interest. With rivalries, hidden motives, and uneasy loyalties everywhere, the town's easy humor gives way to a tense frontier mystery.