The Devil's Dooryard - W.C. Tuttle

I've mentioned before that W.C. Tuttle's stories and novels featuring range detectives Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens are some of my favorite Western yarns. I recently read "The Devil's Dooryard", a Hashknife and Sleepy novelette from the May 3, 1921 issue of ADVENTURE.

In this one, our two heroes have drifted into a cowtown called Sundown, where they quickly find themselves in the middle of a gun battle. This gets them involved in a feud between two local ranches, one of which is ramrodded by an old friend of Hashknife's. The ranch's owner was killed in the shootout in town, so the foreman, with help from Hashknife and Sleepy, is determined to keep the spread going until the owner's only living relative arrives to claim it.

From there, accusations of rustling, bushwhackings, and plot twists (most of them predictable if you've ever read or watched many Westerns) move along at a fast pace until the final showdown in the desolate wasteland of an extinct volcano known as the Devil's Dooryard.

This is a very early Hashknife story, the third overall, and is narrated by Sleepy in a very dialect-heavy style. That can make it fairly hard going for modern readers, but I've read enough of that stuff that I didn't have any trouble with it. It also leans heavily toward comedy, although there's action and mystery as well. Tuttle employs the same formula in the later third person stories and novels, although it's more balanced there and I think those later entries in the series are considerably better.

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy "The Devil's Dooryard". I had a fine time reading it. The ending is a little abrupt for my taste, but other than that I really enjoyed it. You can find it on-line and read it for yourself, if you're of a mind to.