The Orphan is the only name anyone knows him by, an outlaw with a five thousand price on his head.
Two sheepherders try to ambush him and collect that reward. In self defense, one ends up dead and the other wounded. The orphan lets him go and the story the wounded man tells is they were ambushed in their sleep.
The sheriff, James Shields, rides out after him, following the trail. He becomes suspicious when the trail seems to lead to all easily marked grounds. He’s being lead astray. All of a sudden, the trail, in the middle of nowhere, disappears.
As he starts retracing his path, he spies a group of Apaches in the distance and realizes they will cross his trail any second. That starts a run to safety he’s about to lose when up popped the very man he’d been chasing. A truce is quickly formed to battle the Apaches.
That done, they part, quasi-friends, a promise that the next time they meet, the truce is over.
Next, in a card game, a puncher from the Cross-Bar-8 accuse him of cheating and goes for his gun. Now the Cross-Bar-8 hands are his deadly enemies. He begins a program of harassment against them, killing cattle, horses, burning buildings, firing into buildings. Never with the intent to kill anyone, just infuriate them.
Once he rescues the sheriff’s two sisters, coming in on the stage, from another band of Apaches, the sheriff becomes torn in his loyalties.
Mulford paints a portrait of a young man that, at times, is playful, other times hard. When a band of punchers are out hunting him, he leads them into a confrontation with Apaches. The result: five men dead. He sneaks up on the sheriff, who’s lying in wait, leaves a pot of flowers belonging to the sheriff’s wife, near him and fades away in the night.
When he rescues the sheriff from an ambush by the Cross-Bar-8 punchers, the man is determined to straighten him out.
Gradually we learn the back story of a man that’s been an outlaw since he was fifteen.
It’s a story of love and redemption of a man that really wasn’t as bad as his reputation.
I liked the book. It seems that it might have been a series of short stories the way the story progresses. But that’s okay. One humorous note: Apparently, the term G-string has been in use much longer than I realized. It’s used to describe an Apache’s breech clout. The book was published originally in 1909, though my copy is from 1924. Others may have known that, but not me.
In doing a bit of research, I learned the book had been filmed twice, both silent movies. The Orphan in 1920 and The Deadwood Coach in 1924. The latter starred Tom Mix and Tony, the Wonder Horse.
One other note. It seemed a standalone novel. But everywhere I look, It’s listed as book two in the Hopalong Cassidy series. There were none of the Hoppy characters or the Bar-20 that I was familiar with. But then, I’ve not read but a few other novels. Could be he tied it in somewhere down the line.