Knights of the Range. Zane Grey

Pearl Zane Grey (1872-1939) was an American author (and dentist!) best known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the western genre; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book.

Grey was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on January 31, 1872. His parents were Lewis Grey and Alice Josephine Zane Grey. He was an excellent baseball player in school and won a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied to become a dentist. After graduating, Grey established his practice in New York City under the name of Dr. Zane Grey in 1896. It was a competitive area but he wanted to be close to publishers to pursue his dream of being a writer. He began to write in the evening to offset the tedium of his dental practice.

His first novel, Betty Zane, was inspired by stories he heard about the Ohio frontier as a child. Unfortunately, he was unable to sell it at the time and self-published it. He began to study his craft and travel to the west, taking notes and copying down dialog he heard. He studied other successful novels, such as Owen Wister’s The Virginian, and continued to polish his craft. His next three novels were all rejected by publishers, though. Instead of giving up, though, he perseviered.

Grey married longtime girlfriend Lina Elise “Dolly” Roth in 1905 after a passionate and intense courtship marked by frequent quarrels. After they married, Dolly gave up her teaching career. They moved to a farmhouse at the confluence of the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers, in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where Grey's mother and sister joined them. (This house, now preserved and operated as the Zane Grey Museum, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.) Grey finally ceased his dental practice to work full-time on his nascent literary pursuits. Dolly's inheritance provided an initial financial cushion.

Finally Grey got his first break, selling The Heritage of the Desert in 1910 to Harper's Magazine. It became a best-seller. Two years later, Harper’s also published Riders of the Purple Sage—and his career was properly launched. Zane Grey was officially more than a one-book wonder.

After publication of The Heritage of the Desert, the family had moved west to Altadena, California. Grey also aquired a hunting lodge in Arizona. Each year, Grey spent time traveling in the west and fishing in the Pacific. He then would return home and spend time writing.

While Dolly managed Grey's career and raised their three children (Romer, Betty, and Loren), over the next two decades Grey often spent months away from the family. He fished, wrote, and spent time with his many mistresses. While Dolly knew of this behavior, she seemed to view it as his handicap rather than a choice. Throughout their life together, he highly valued her management of his career and their family, and her solid emotional support. In addition to her considerable editorial skills, she had good business sense and handled all his contract negotiations with publishers, agents, and movie studios. All his income was split fifty-fifty with her; from her “share” she covered all family expenses. Their considerable correspondence shows evidence of his lasting love for her despite his infidelities and personal emotional turmoil.

Grey died unexpectedly of a heart attack on October 23, 1939. By the time of his death, he had authored almost ninety books. The majority were westerns, but he also wrote nine books that had a fishing theme; several about baseball; a biography of George Washington as a young man; many short stories; and several stories for children.

—Karl Wurf

Rockville, Maryland

Chapter One

Colonel Lee Ripple sat on the porch of his ranch-house in eastern New Mexico, facing that famous fan-shaped scene that lay between the great timbered escarpments stretching down over the green and gray terraces to the vast rolling plain below, through which the Old Trail followed the shining way of the Cimarron into the purple distance.

It was the grandest scene in all New Mexico, and the sad blue eyes of the cattle baron lingered long there before shifting round to the west, where a splendour of range empire unfolded to his gaze. A million acres swept and waved on all sides to the silver slopes, and these in turn sheered up to the black-belted mountains with their snowy peaks.

“Wal, Kurnel, I heahed you, shore, but I’d like to get oot of takin’ you serious,” said Britt, the rancher’s foreman, who sat on the porch steps.

“Cap, you must take me seriously,” replied Ripple, in slow grave speech. “Another spell with my heart like this last one will kill me.”

“Aw, I cain’t believe it,” rejoined Britt, stubbornly, despite the something convincing in his employer’s tone and look.

“I know, Cap. I thought this second attack would do for me. My heart has acted queer for a long time. But that spell in San Antonio was the first bad one. I consulted a doctor. He told me to make my will and get ready. But scared as I was, I didn’t obey. I went on to New Orleans after Holly, and fetched her home without tellin’ her aboot it. I just couldn’t tell her.”

“No wonder, boss. Thet would have been plumb hard on the lass,” replied Britt, wagging his lean, hawk-like head. “You sent her to thet school when she was eight years old. An’ you went to see her half a dozen

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