Western Seltzer, Charles Alden: The Boss of the Lazy Y v1 19 dec 2009

[mtravellerh]

Author:

Charles Alden Seltzer
(Aug. 15, 1875 - Feb. 9, 1942)

The vital statistics are: Born in August 1875, at the village of Janesville, Wisconsin. One year in Wisconsin. Then to Columbus, Ohio, where after a time I worked at various enterprises, such as newsboy, telegraph messenger, painter, carpenter and manager of the circulation of a newspaper. Spent the better part of five summer and some of the winters in Union County, New Mexico. At twenty I was in Cleveland, Ohio, where I was again a carpenter. Foreman, contractor. Began to write about this time -- nights. Thirteen years of writing without finding a publisher. In the interim I was engaged in various enterprises: Building inspector for the City of Cleveland, editor of a small newspaper, expert for the Cuyahoga County Board of Appraisers. Wrote and sold about one hundred short stories. Published a book of short stories called the Range Riders in 1911. A success. Followed it with a full length novel called The Two Gun Man in 1911. Another bell-ringer. Gone North will be the thirtieth published book. Twenty-three of these have been published as serials in ARGOSY.

I have no regular working hours, but I try my best to turn out at least two full-length serials each year. I still try to make an occasional trip to the West. I like to go over the old ranges. I do not like to have any one refer to Western stories as "wild and woolly," because, while I concede that the West was wild, it never became woolly until the advent of the sheep -- and that was after I lived there. I never saw a pair of sheep chaps; I never heard a cowhand call another "cowboy," "cow-puncher" or "waddie." "Hand," or "rider," or "cowhand" was the radius of the terminology as applied to the regular ranch employee. "Straw-boss," "wrangler," "buster," "range-boss" were others -- all understandable and universal in the Southwest. To be sure, there were Mexican equivalents used.

I have made some trips into the country which I have written about in Gone North. Fishing, hunting and observing. My hobbies are hunting, fishing, trap shooting, pistol practice and politics. I have broken ninety-two out of a possible hundred clay targets. In a pistol shoot in competition -- with a thirty-eight Colt -- at twenty yards I have made a ninety-one and a quarter per cent target. Last November I rang the bell in North Olmstead politics by being elected mayor of the town -- and I am now serving my sentence. North Olmstead is a suburban town on the edge of Cleveland and has a population of twenty-five hundred people and by the end of my two-year term I expect they will all join in chasing me out of town.

I have been married thirty-five years. Five children. One girl married, one at home. One boy Louis B., is editor of the Cleveland Press; another, Robert M., is a star reporter; the third is an advertising man. I am grateful that they did not attempt to follow in their father's footsteps.

Book:

When Malcolm Clayton and his daughter Betty arrive at the Lazy Y Ranch, they find themselves in the middle of a feud between the Marstons and the Taggarts. They discover Jim Marston, dying from a gunshot wound courtesy of Tom Taggart. Betty cares forMarston and before he breathes his last, he leaves the ranch in her care until his willful son, Cal, comes home. Cal, who left because of a dispute with his father, is not thrilled when he returns to find himself, and the ranch, being supervised by a woman. But he straightens up and gets the ranch back into the black. He also intends to pay back the Taggarts for his father's death. The day finally arrives when there's a showdown between him, Taggart and Taggart's son, Neal. But Taggart shoots his own son, thinking it's Cal. With this the feud is over and Cal settles down on the ranch with Betty. Was also made into a movie.

Published: 1915. Illustrated

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