
In the dusty frontier town of Lost Hills, the town’s lone lawyer, a towering figure with a habit of propping his feet on piles of dusty books, finds himself tangled in a desperate scheme. When the bank’s frail cashier, a man haunted by grandiose criminal fantasies, confesses that a risky oil venture has gone sour, the two men scramble to keep the town’s finances from collapsing.
Their uneasy partnership quickly turns into a battle of wits and loyalties, as both grapple with the looming threat of an audit, a missing fortune, and the ever‑present danger of the law catching up. With a mix of humor, sharp dialogue, and the stark backdrop of the western plains, the story follows their frantic attempts to outmaneuver fate and protect their reputations—before the real trouble arrives.
Language
en
Duration
~36 minutes (35K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co, 1926.
Credits
Roger Frank and Sue Clark
Release date
2024-03-04
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1883–1969
Best known for lively Western stories filled with humor, mystery, and ranch-country adventure, this Montana-born writer created the popular cowboy sleuths Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens. He also worked in Hollywood, writing for films from the silent era into the 1940s.
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