Tramps of the range

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"Tramps of the Range" by W. C. Tuttle is a Western novel written in the early 20th century. Set around the cow town of Moon Flats, it throws paroled cowboy Shell Romaine, Sheriff Pat Haley, rancher Cal Severn, and drifting partners Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens into a tangle of robberies, ambushes, and the shadowy legend of the “Black Rider.” Expect hardboiled camaraderie, frontier intrigue, and a mystery where loyalty and reputation matter as much as a fast draw.

The opening of the novel traces a tense return home: Shell Romaine slips off an early train into Moon Flats, where talk of a masked outlaw and his own past conviction hang over him. In quick turns, Cal Severn hires newcomers Hashknife and Sleepy; news arrives that the “Black Rider” has been shot dead—and it’s Shell’s bitter father, Rim-Fire—while a railroad safe is blown the same morning, stoking suspicion against Shell. Shell floors stage-driver Jim Searles, takes his father’s body home, and later tells Mary O’Hara (the sheriff’s niece and Severn’s sweetheart) he won’t report as a parolee and will live outside the law. Meanwhile, Hashknife and Sleepy are ambushed at the Romaine place (their horses shot, Hashknife grazed), Ma Haley tends the wound, Severn wins a staggering poker pot from Doc Maldeen, and the cowhands return to stake out the ranch—where they witness a hidden rifleman drop a rider (Undersheriff “Splinter” See), flush the shooter from the willows, and then unexpectedly see Mary riding the gulch just after, as the sheriff races for a doctor and the scene cuts off.