Frank Richardson Pierce was a prolific pulpster, writing
close to a thousand stories in a career that lasted more than 40 years, from
the late Teens to the early Sixties, with quite a few credits in the slicks,
too. He wrote mostly Westerns and Northerns, with a detective or sports yarn
mixed in here and there, publishing under his own name or his most common pseudonym,
Seth Ranger. He used the names Roy Ford and Francis Bragg Middleton, as well.
But he wrote only a handful of novels, one of which was CHUCK RYAN, LOGGER,
published under his own name by Doubleday, Doran & Company in 1928. (As the
old saying goes, whatever happened to Doran, anyway?)
CHUCK RYAN, LOGGER is a contemporary story and opens with a college football game
in which our hero Chuck and his friends Brick Winslow, Shanks Emerson, and
others are participating. Then Chuck gets word that his father is missing and
presumed dead from a mishap during an Arctic expedition. Chuck and Brick leave
school and head for Seattle, where they meet with a lawyer and discover that
Chuck has inherited a big stand of valuable timber. Chuck decides that he’s
going to try logging, especially when he finds out that a villainous timber
tycoon named Crandall wants to get his hands on the trees.
Chuck and Brick run into all sorts of mysterious doings when they investigate
Chuck’s inheritance, as well as making a staunch friend in Bud Tuttle, a
massive young woodsman who becomes a valuable ally. As soon as it’s summer and
school is out, Chuck brings in his entire college football team to work as
loggers, except for one rich young man who owns his own airplane and goes to
work for the Forest Service. Sabotage abounds, a sinister recluse known as
String Bean Titus lurks around, mysterious lights flash on Fir Island, there
are fights and airplane crashes and finally a forest fire that threatens everything.
CHUCK RYAN, LOGGER is a boy’s adventure book that plays like a slightly more
grown-up Hardy Boys novel, with Chuck and Brick standing in for Frank and Joe.
But it also reminded me of a good 1930s adventure movie, with John Wayne as
Chuck, Ward Bond as Brick, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams as Bud, and Eugene Pallette
as the bad guy Crandall. Would’ve made a fine film. Although they would have
had to add a female character, since the entire cast of characters is male
except for a few nameless secretaries and stenographers.
I had a fine time reading CHUCK RYAN, LOGGER and learned a few things about the
timber industry, to boot. It’s a very old-fashioned book, but what would you
expect since it was published nearly 100 years ago. And most of the time, I’m
more than happy to retreat to that era in my mind. (Thanks and a tip o' the hat to Jack Cullers.)
