Frances McElrath, The Rustler (1902)

2002 edition

This strange novel was rescued from oblivion by scholars of western literature and republished in 2002 by the University of Nebraska Press. Except for her name and little else, its author is unknown. She seems never to have published another book. Literary history lacks even her dates of birth and death.

Though a curiosity, The Rustler: A Tale of Love and War in Wyoming is somewhat more than a curiosity for its resemblance to Owen Wister’s The Virginian, which was published in the same year. Both are set in Wyoming at the time of the so-called Johnson County “war” by cattlemen against rustlers. Both have a ranch foreman as a central character, and both have a similar theme running through them that has to do with how a man becomes an outlaw.

Both also involve a cowboy’s romantic attraction to a schoolmarm from the East. The course of that mismatched romance plays out differently in this one, however. Wister’s ends in matrimony, while McElrath’s cowboy turns to a life of crime that results in his violent death.

Hazel sings to Jim

Plot. Summering on the Montana ranch of her wealthy cousins, Hazel Clifford amuses herself by trifling with the attentions of the local residents. Her first effort is to persuade her hosts to invite the ranch’s foreman, Jim, to have dinner with them. This idle attempt at fraternization comes to nothing.

When a neighbor is looking for a governess for his two children, she volunteers. When Jim shows up, on ranch business, she overcomes his defenses by playing some sentimental tunes on the piano. Believing that she cares for him, he emerges from his shell and falls head over heels in love.

Soon bored by life with ordinary folks and taken aback by Jim’s growing affection, she welcomes a visit by a longtime suitor, Horace Carew. He’s taken a management job with some Eastern capitalists who are buying up ranches in Wyoming. Jim, at the point of proposing marriage, discovers Hazel with Carew and realizes that her interest in him has been a ruse.

Reminded of his social position, his lack of good breeding, education, and money, Jim is furious with injured pride and a sense of injustice. He determines to acquire wealth and influence by any means possible, to prove his worth to her—not to win her, but to “show her.” And he goes into business as a cattle rustler.

Jim starts as a rustler

Events bring Jim and Hazel together again. This time she is his hostage at the rustlers’ hideout in a natural fortress known to history as the Hole in the Wall. Each of them eventually sees the error of their ways, and Jim dies of a gunshot wound as a host of rustler-hunting lawmen descends on the range.

Jim is buried, and Hazel gives her life to the welfare of the rustlers’ children she has taken under her wing at Hole in the Wall. Financially secure, now that her dead father’s estate has been settled, she gives herself to a life of service. And so we see how a careless girl has grown to embrace the true calling of womanhood.

Character. While another writer might have found the character of Jim impervious to the temptations of ill-gotten gains, McElrath finds a dark side to the man. She casts him first as a man of principle, dedicated to hard work and sober living. Raised by an alcoholic father and an abusive stepfather, he left home at an early age, determined to be a better man.

At the age of 35, he has risen to a position of importance and respect as a ranch foreman. He is gifted with the kind of intelligence that sees ranching as a business and thus keeps him abreast of new ideas. He is a good manager of resources and approaches his employer with suggestions for ways to improve productivity and reduce costs.

Burial at Hole in the Wall

Temperamentally, he is a type that McElrath must have been familiar with. Her portrayal of his attitudes and mannerisms is precise and well observed. He exists on a plane above and apart from his men, so that he has little to share with them that is personal. The one exception is the 12-year-old boy, Tips, whom he found once as a babe, the only survivor of an Indian raid.

McElrath understands that Jim is a proud man, proud of his work ethic and of the respect he has earned. Proud also of his self-denial and refusal to yield to any feelings that might reveal a weakness. She also understands that he is a lonely man, a realization that does not come to him until he’s on his deathbed, where he cries like the forlorn and abused boy he once was.

Jim’s pride, according to McElrath, is his weakness. Wounded when his love for Hazel is rejected, he turns all his industry and strength to breaking the law. A formerly modest man, he makes a show of his new wealth, outfitting himself and his horse in expensive gear. Once content with the respect that other men gave him for his qualities of character, he now commands them by striking fear in their hearts.

McElrath’s portrayal of a good man gone bad is very different from Wister, for whom weakness of character is evident in other ways. The Virginian’s friend, Steve, falls in with rustlers for lack of will and love of ease; he is soft at the core. McElrath’s Jim has all the strength of character and intelligence to be found in the Virginian, and it is these very qualities that contribute to his undoing.

Frances McElrath, 1902

Wrapping up. A bio in the June 1902 issue of Book News mentions that McElrath was already familiar to juvenile readers of her magazine articles on army and ranch life. It goes on to note that her grandfather, along with Horace Greeley, founded the New York Tribune. Her father, a retired army man and journalist, moved the family to Montana for his health. There McElrath seems to have acquired her knowledge of ranching.

Of her novel, the Book News reviewer observes, “The plot is decidedly new and well handled, the tone strenuous and the interest unresisting.” Reviewers at The Critic (July 1902) were not so generous. One complained that it had been completed in a hurry and showed it. Another found the details of ranch life of interest but objected to the “very bad illustrations” and found the story melodramatic, as well as “badly put together and artificial.” 

The Rustler is currently available only in print at amazon and AbeBooks. Friday’s Forgotten Books is the bright idea of Patti Abbott over at pattinase.

Image credits:

Book cover, detail from Desert Journey, Maynard Dixon, 1935

Illustrations from the first edition, Edward Willard Deming

Coming up: Warner Baxter, In Old Arizona (1928)

H

Old West glossary, no. 27

Montana cowboys, c1910

Here’s another set of terms garnered from early western novels. Definitions were discovered in various online dictionaries, as well as searches in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, Dictionary of the American West, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, The Cowboy Dictionary, The Cowboy Encyclopedia, The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, and The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

These are from Emma Ghent Curtis’ The Fate of a Fool, about an unhappy rancher’s wife in Colorado, and Florence Finch Kelly’s With Hoops of Steel about a rancher falsely accused of murder in Old New Mexico.

arctics = shoes designed to protect the feet in extreme cold temperatures. “Her arctics would make no noise, so she stole softly down stairs, through the dark kitchen and out into the street.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

Man in white shirt, c1893

bald-faced shirt = white dress shirt. “He keeps a room and his best duds here all the time, and the first thing he does after he strikes town is to go and put on a bald-faced shirt and a long-tailed coat.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

bias-eyed = slant-eyed; offensive reference to Chinese. “There’s one bias-eyed fan-tanner that won’t pull his freight for Chiny as soon as he gets his pockets full of good American money.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

blackleg = a fashionable dandy. “They teach their girls to choose their husbands for their clothes rather than for their characters, and to think that if they can get a blackleg that keeps his pants brushed and wears a canary neck-tie, and has a rich daddy, to be their husbands, that they’ve done better than if they’d got an honest man that wore a hickory shirt and worked for a living.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

blackman = a game in which one player stands between two facing teams, a distance apart, and after calling out “blackman,” attempts to tag runners crossing from one side to the other. “I respect a woman more that’ll let her dishes go, and go out and play black man with her children.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

Campbellites = any of the religious groups descended from a reform movement in the early 19^th century in the United States. “There’s the Baptists given’ the Methodists Hail Columbia, and the Presbyterians sailin’ into the Campbellites.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

comfort tacking = a process similar to quilting in which the layers of fabric, filling, and lining are tied together rather than sewn. “She agreed that if Cornelia would tack some comforts, and cut some carpet rags for her, that she would yield her objections.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

cranky = eccentric. “He told his friends at the saloon that although his wife was cranky and queer, still she always had a good warm supper ready for him when he came home at night.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

do up = beat up. “Everybody he knew he either loved or hated, and was ready, according to his feeling, either to do anything for, or to 'do up’ on a moment’s notice.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

Fan-tan gambling house

fan-tan = a Chinese gambling game similar to roulette. “There’s one bias-eyed fan-tanner that won’t pull his freight for Chiny as soon as he gets his pockets full of good American money.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

fantods = a state of extreme nervousness or restlessness; the willies; the fidgets. “That’s the reason she had such fantods when I wanted to kiss her that day last summer!” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

feathers = wealth, money. “I’ve had feathers enough in my time to make me a good bed, but I scattered and wasted ’em all with whisky and brandy.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

Frock coat

frock coat = a man’s coat characterized by knee-length skirts all around the base, popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. “He stepped from his room, freshly shaven and clad in black frock coat and vest, gray trousers and newly polished shoes.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

grass widow = a woman who is divorced or separated from her husband. “I knew it wa’n’t no use to go back to father for he thought a grass-widder was worse’n a snake.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

hickory shirt = A coarse, durable shirt worn by laborers, made of heavy twilled cotton with a narrow blue stripe or a check. “They teach their girls to choose their husbands for their clothes rather than for their characters, and to think that if they can get a blackleg that keeps his pants brushed and wears a canary neck-tie, and has a rich daddy, to be their husbands, that they’ve done better than if they’d got an honest man that wore a hickory shirt and worked for a living.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

hull = cartridge, shell. “Tom, give me some of your hulls! I used up all mine keepin’ your darned sheriff back.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

kalsomine = whitewash. “It had five rooms, and all they needed was a coat of paint and kalsomine.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

Pride of Colorado = flour made from locally grown wheat at the Lindell Mill in Fort Collins, Colorado. “Her face would have blushed with pleasure until it shone red as the artificial poppies on her head, had not the layer of Pride of Colorado flour been too thick upon her features.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

Overland Limited, c1905

scalper = one who buys the unused portions of long-distance railroad tickets in order to sell them at a profit. “He had been put off the overland train at that place because the conductor had discovered that he was riding on a scalper’s ticket.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

soft snap = a post or job requiring little time or effort. “You can’t expect a fellow to let himself be arrested for nothing, just so you can keep a soft snap as deputy sheriff.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

split-bottom = the seat of a chair made from woven strips of cane, bark, or reed. “A mother can take an old split-bottomed rockin’ chair, and hold the youngest child and tell stories to the others while they play around her.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

taking = capturing interest, fetching. “He is a very taking young fellow, with his handsome face and good-natured smile.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

Tansy

tansy = tea made from this medicinal herb was used to treat migraine, neuralgia, rheumatism, and worms. “I thought I’d jest come over and bring ye a little mite of double tansy.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

washee-washee = Chinese person. “I reckon I was a public benefactor when I sheared that washee-washee, and I deserve the pig tail as a decoration for my services.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.

yellow girl = mulatto; mixed race. “We Southerners’ll hold on to our yaller girls and our sins as tight as we did to our slaves.” Emma Ghent Curtis, The Fate of a Fool.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Frances McElrath, The Rustler (1902)

Day of the Outlaw (1959)

This gem of western noir stars Robert Ryan in another of his hard-bitten and slightly psychotic roles. Shot in black and white, the story is set in a small mountain town knee-deep in Wyoming winter snow. The location photography gives the film a gritty realism. So does the adult material. This is not a western for kids.

Plot. The first 20 minutes introduce us to the town’s residents, and tensions are running high. Cattleman Ryan is enraged by the encroachment of ranchers fencing off the open range. He says he intimidated and killed Indians and outlaws 20 years ago to defend himself. He’s ready to do it again.

His chief adversary is a determined settler, Crane, whose wife (Tina Louise) has some history with Ryan. To avoid a confrontation, she tries to fan a little spark of sympathy in Ryan and maybe a bit of the old romance, but he’ll have none of it. “You don’t have much mercy,” she says. “You won’t find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming,” he replies.

Just as a shootout is about to settle matters, a gang of surly outlaws arrives led by former Army captain Burl Ives. They have come into possession of a fortune in stolen gold, and the cavalry is in hot pursuit. Ives has taken a slug in his chest and needs a doctor. Under his orders the town’s residents are taken hostage, the local veterinarian removes the slug, and the weather worsens.

Tensions are now over the top. Only Ives is able to restrain the most libidinous and murderous of the men in his gang, and we learn that his time is running out. From what the vet tells Ryan, Ives is apparently dying from internal bleeding, while morphine keeps him miraculously ambulatory.

Burl Ives in his other career as a folksinger

After the gang persuades Ives that a dance with the handful of women in the camp would make the men less irritable, Ryan makes a move to get the whole slimy bunch out of town. And slimy they are, except for the clean-cut David Nelson (son of Ozzie and Harriet), who has somehow got mixed up with this bunch. Tender shoots of young love even begin to spring up between him and the storekeeper’s daughter.

Ryan reminds Ives that the cavalry will be there as soon as the weather improves. To avoid a “Mormon massacre,” he says he can lead the whole gang over a mountain pass that will take them to Cheyenne. And off they go, the horses knee deep and then belly deep in snow.

When one horse is injured and has to be shot, Nelson is ordered to give up his mount to the rider who is now afoot and to walk back to town. Then Ives dies, as predicted. And thus begins a slow process of attrition in which the remaining gang members begin to fight over the gold and do each other in.

Themes. This grim western set in the snow and wintry weather recalls the crime film On Dangerous Ground (1952), shot in the snowy mountains of Colorado and also starring Robert Ryan. The film’s leering villains are not just outlaws but certified sociopaths. As they manhandle the women in the dance scenes, you can feel your skin crawl.

Meanwhile, the film backs away from what a modern western would happily relish, the opportunity for blood and gore. The scene in which the vet removes the slug from Ives’ chest even cries out for it. Ives and the doctor both break into a sweat, but that’s about the extent of the trauma. It’s a surprise to see Ives walking around afterward hardly worse for wear.

David Nelson (left) with the rest of the family, 1960

A fistfight between Ryan and three of the gang members cuts back and forth between close shots and shots from the distance, where we see the fighters and a scattered collection of observers. The effect is oddly abstract. Instead of the usual scene in which an excited crowd gathers around to cheer, the onlookers watch without moving and without a word. It’s a strange effect.

The weather deserves a mention. Often the clouds descend and the snow flies, which suits the desperate mood of the film. A brief moment of farce intrudes as a man falls asleep with his boots against a stove, and they begin to smolder. Instead of garnering a laugh, however, the point seems to be that no one else in the room either notices or cares.

As matters worsen, Ryan has some sort of change of heart and gambles with his life as he lures Ives and the gang out of town with the false promise that he knows a way through the mountains. It is an act of mercy, which he’s said there’s little of in Wyoming. The apparently selfless act seems meant in a way to redeem him, but Ryan’s not that easily redeemable.

And it does not lead to a conventional ending, where he is reconciled with his former sweetheart Tina Louise. Instead, what we get in the final scene is Nelson asking him for a job. And after a moment’s thought Ryan says, “OK, you won’t need this,” and takes away the young man’s gun. There’s a similar resolution at the end of Shane (1952), when Chris (Ben Johnson) a former adversary, asks Starrett (Van Heflin) for a job as a hand.

Mount Bachelor, Oregon

Production notes. The film was actually shot in the mountains of central of Oregon, near what was then known as Bachelor Butte. At the time, the area was in the beginning stages of what was to become a major ski resort and renamed Mount Bachelor.

The film was directed by Hungarian-born director Andre de Toth, who’s also remembered for the Gary Cooper western, Springfield Rifle (1952). The film was adapted from a novel by Lee E. Wells by screenwriter Philip Yordan, whose credits include The Man From Laramie (1955) and The Bravados (1958).

Noir fans need to give this one a viewing. It’s up there among the best. Day of the Outlaw is currently available at netflix and amazon. Tuesday’s Overlooked Films is the much-appreciated effort of Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.

Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Old West glossary, no. 27

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I have an above-average appetite for novelty, but I have changed my blog design little since I first started blogging two years ago. The banner photo and the language there have stayed the same, and I like it that way. I don't change my self-pic either. Maybe it turns out that I also have an appetite for continuity.

Anyway, this past week I took down a "feature" that has been there from day one, an image-of-the-month that has appeared just to the left. Gradual additions over time to that column began to suggest "clutter" to me, and I decided it was time to take something down. So the cover of a Gabby Hayes comic book that started the month of March is now gone.

Today I'm posting a reprise of the images that have appeared in that spot, as a kind of farewell and a celebration of almost two years of taking up blog space with these disparate western interests of mine. Here they all are:

Finally, a big thanks to everyone who has followed these ramblings and extended to me a friendly hand across cyberspace. I have enjoyed getting to know all of you and appreciate the encouragement you have given me.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Robert Ryan, Day of the Outlaw

Saturday music: Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard

A lot of versions of this haunting story song by Townes Van Zandt. This is a favorite by two of my favorites.

Coming up: Burl Ives, Robert Ryan, The Day of the Outlaw (1959)

Western writer inspiration, no. 27

Here is this week's omnibus of #westernwriter inspirations posted each day at twitter [click to enlarge]. If you are on twitter, you can follow me @rdscheer.

Horse trams, Portland, Oregon, c1888

Warm Spring scouts, Lava Beds, California, 1873

Fort Garland, Colorado, 1874

Pisehedwin, a Potawatomi, and others in front of his Kansas farm home, 1877

Diamond City, Montana near Confederate Gulch, c1870

Inscription Rock, New Mexico, photographer, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, 1877

Camp supply, Indian Territory (Oklahoma); cavalry officers, sutlers, Arapaho Indians, 1870

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons 
Coming up: Robert Ryan, Day of the Outlaw

Photo-finish Friday: out and about

Yet another in the inexhaustible supply of Los Angeles wall murals. This giant portrayal of members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra truly graces the sides of a parking structure facing northbound traffic on the 110 Freeway downtown. It recently observed its 20th anniversary, noted here in the LA Times with some history and a photo that favors the south-facing musicians better. I snapped this from the back of a bus just as the bearded violist was about to slip behind the trunk of a palm tree.

Coming up:  Robert Ryan, The Day of the Outlaw (1959)