Gunsight Pass

by William MacLeod Raine

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Genres: Westerns, Ebooks

276 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

William MacLeod Raine (June 22, 1871 - July 25, 1954), was a British-born American novelist who wrote fictional adventure stories about the American Old West.

William MacLeod Raine was born in London, the son of William and Jessie Raine. After his mother died, his family migrated from England to Arkansas when Macleod was ten years old, eventually settling on a cattle ranch near the Texas-Arkansas border.

In 1894, after graduating from Oberlin College, Macleod left Arkansas and headed for the western U.S. He became the principal of a school in Seattle while contributing columns to a local newspaper. After leaving Seattle, he moved to Denver, where he worked as a reporter and editorial writer for local periodicals, including the Republican, the Post, and the Rocky Mountain News. At this time he began to publish short stories, eventually becoming a full time free lance fiction writer, and finally finding his literary home in the novel.

His earliest novels were romantic histories taking place in the English countryside. However, after spending some time with the Arizona Rangers, Macleod shifted his literary focus and began to utilize the American West as a setting. The publication of Wyoming in 1908 marks the beginning of his prolific career, during which time he averaged nearly two western novels a year until his death in 1954. In 1920 he was awarded an M.L. degree from the University of Colorado where he had established that school's first journalism course. During the First World War 500,000 copies of one of his books were sent to British soldiers in the trenches. Twenty of his novels have been filmed. Despite his prolificness, he was a slow, careful, conscientious worker, intent on accurate detail, and considered himself a craftsman rather than an artist.

In 1905 Mr. Raine married Jennie P. Langley, who died in 1922. In 1924 he married Florence A Hollingsworth: they had a daughter. Though he traveled a good deal, Denver was considered his home.

William MacLeod Raine died on July 25, 1954 and is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Reviews

[Robert Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had an old and disintegrating reader copy of this one and picked up a pristine (for its age) paperback copy of this one. I have been making more of an effort to push the boundaries of my Western genre reading beyond just Robert E. Howard and Louis L’Amour (strange bedfellows I know). So, I cracked this one open. My reader copy quickly fell apart after the first five chapters, so I cracked open the paperback. I was not disappointed.

I really appreciated the author’s use of natural imagery which is what initially sucked me into the novel. However, the casual use of the N-word booted me out of it each of the four times the author used it, granted this novel was written sometime in the early 1920s. This unfortunate ugly remnant of the past is all that really drags this novel down for me. The twists and turns of the story were enjoyable and somewhat unexpected.

The novel starts on the plains of Texas following a cowpuncher on the trail, David Sanders, who soon falls into the mechanizations of two conmen/gunfighters who are also friends of the cattle foreman which incident introduces his personal antagonist, Dug Doble. This first third of the novel follows the average template for a Western then the turn comes. Dave, the young cowpuncher is convicted of the murder of one of the conmen (Dug’s half-brother). The book quickly skips from going into the jailhouse to coming back out on parole. From there the hard luck portion of the story happens along with several confrontations with the surviving murderous conman and the cattle foreman joined by a third desperado under the employ of a rich villain, Steelman lifelong enemy of Dave’s cattleman boss Crawford. Eventually, the last third begins when Dave Sanders meets his old friends receiving gainful employment after a short series of real-world tests exhibiting Dave’s cleverness and sheer force of will. From there the story becomes an Old West Oil Baron thriller concerning the “Crawford-Steelman feud” mentioned in the first few pages. The occasional shootout occurs with the main villain’s oilwell sabotaging men including Dug Doble.

I enjoyed the story moving from the dusty cattle trail to a flash flood after a dam is blasted to the oil fields to fighting a massive wildfire. The story focus was on action and less so with gunfights and fisticuffs but still attached a minor romance between the hero and the boss’ daughter as per the Western genre cliché. I also did not like that in the last chapter the hero treats her like an object in a play at Western chivalry. However, for all its dated weaknesses I really did enjoy this novel.

I liked how the protagonist progresses from a naïve care-free boy on the range to a hardened ex-convict just trying to get by while getting ostracized by society for his crime then letting his protective shell fall away at the end from the gentle touch of his lady (it is a classical Western after all). I also liked how he rarely wore a gun and was still able to deal with anything that came his way. However, I think the author did a disservice to Dave as his “crime” turned out to be a frame job by Dug Doble who accidentally shot his half-brother while shooting at Dave as the cowpuncher stole his horse back from them. It would have sat better with me that Dave would have that black mark on his soul forever because he didn’t mean to kill that man, but his actions led directly to it. He served his time and now he has to go on. This colors the character swirling in some gray into the white hat. The author possibly realized this and still had his prison time weighed heavily on him even after the vindication of his crime. This implied to me that the hero of the story was raped in prison though I don’t think the author intended this. The same kind of implication is hinted at when Dave rescues Joyce from her kidnapper Dug Doble. I’m not sure that’s what the author intended there either. So, I guess that could be either a weakness or a strength in the writing style or maybe both.

Overall, I would recommend this book to those wanting to read a “standard” Western genre story with the caveat that it was written in the 1920s so there are a few instances of the n-word and very strictly defined gender roles between men and women. Other than that, if you can pick this up somewhere, do so, it does scratch the itch.

[Jefferson Fortner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining western, but its title oversells it (the full title is "Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West"). There is nothing in it that is particularly enlightening about the development of the west, nor anything illuminating about the western experience. In addition, only one brief episode early in the novel takes place at Gunsight Pass. Instead, we are given a string of moments in the career of one cowboy who has turned (almost incidentally) to oilman. It is a story that is loaded with 1950s era B-Grade Western tropes which never reaches beyond those tropes—and why should it? It was published in 1921 when those tropes were being developed, and the main thing about 1950s B-Grade Westerns is that those were the movies that were played on television in the 60s when I was a child (on any one of our only three television channel options). I will not go into listing those tropes and how they fit in the story, but it was very much like a return to that sensibility of what made good television when I was a kid.

[Clarence Schlag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting story of indomitable spirit in the face of adversity

A spirited young cowboy saves a ranchers life and then is sent to prison for a killing he didn't do. Years later he returns from prison to find the cattle country he left in the throes of an oil boom and the previous feud he was caught up in still going strong. As he moves forward to help old friends, he rises up, shakes off his past and demonstrates the man he is. Action packed story detailing the early oil booms, the competition, business dealings and passion, and one man's triumph over adversity to win the woman he loves.

[Jason Reeser · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book. I like Raine's style. Quick storytelling with strong, bold strokes. His characters are a bit flat, but they are adequate to the story. This is like watching an old Western, one made in the 1920s, which is when this was written.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flawed and predictable oater.