Forgotten Books: THE DEAD-LINE by W.C. Tuttle (1927)

If anybody knows exactly how many Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens books there are - and what they are - I'd sure like to know. 

The best source I've seen, Robert Sampson's fifth volume of Yesterday's Faces (called Dangerous Horizons), lists twenty-seven books, some with more than one title, but I've found at least a couple of those to be non-Hashknife novels, and Sampson himself admitted the list is incomplete. 

I'd also like to know where the various pieces of those novels made their first appearance in pulps, and whether they had all appeared in pulps, or if some - or pieces of some - first appeared in books. I'd be glad to compile all that myself, if I had a complete set of Tuttle's books, complete runs of Adventure and Short Stories pulps, and a few particular issues of Argosy. But I won't be holding my breath for that to happen. 

The Dead-Line, published in England in 1927 and the U.S. in 1941 (if not sooner), is likely one of the earliest Hashknife and Sleepy adventures published in book form. A novella by that title (yet to be examined by me) appeared in the Oct 20, 1924 issue of Adventure.

Unlike most of its breed, this digest appears to be unabridged.

Hashknife and Sleepy made their debut in that magazine in July 1920, and their first few appearances were standalone short stories. Over the next fifteen years, they appeared in close to forty issues, taking a few side-trails into Argosy. In 1939, they moved to Short Stories, where they had more thirty more adventures. 

Book publication of the series followed no rhyme or reason, with many appearing only in England, and some as late as 1967, in paperback only. Yep, it's a mare's nest.

While not the best of the bunch, The Dead-Line is still a fun read. Tuttle's work is full to the brim with eccentric characters and humorous dialogue, but what makes the series great are the personalities - and the relationship - of Hashknife and Sleepy.

Most Tuttle books are mystery stories set in the Old West, and this is no exception. In many stories, the two are undercover range detectives, hired by a cattleman's association to bust up trouble. But in other cases, as in The Dead-Line, they stumble upon the trouble themselves, and can't resist joining in. 

The "dead-line" of the title is an invisible line-in-the-sand drawn by cattle ranchers in an attempt to prevent a sheepherding magnate invading their territory. To spice things up, there's a sort of Romeo and Juliet marriage between a cattleboy and a sheepgal, whose ranch is smack dab in the middle of the action. And just as the fuse is about to be lit, fate tosses Hashknife and Sleepy into the mix. They are introduced thisaway:

In their years of ambling around the West, the boys have made a lot of friends and enemies, and seem to meet some of each wherever they go. It's always fun to see the the bad 'uns squirm and bolt for cover as they anticipate tangling with them again.

As the passage above foretells, our heroes find a way to heal old wounds and bring peace to the valley. But the fun is in how they do it, and who they do it to. So like all of their adventures, this one is highly recommended.

Forgotten Books: VALLEY OF VANISHING HERDS by W.C. Tuttle (1942)

Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens, the self-styled "Cowpunchers of Disaster," are at it again in this novel from 1942. In most of the other adventures I've read, the stage is well set, often consuming a quarter or third of the book, before our heroes arrive on the scene. Not so here. This time we meet them right on page one.

Still, much is the same. The Cattleman's Association knows evil doings are afoot in Antelope Flats, and they know once Hashknife gets a sniff of them he won't rest until things are set right. So when their first range detective goes missing, they sort of snooker Hashknife into looking for him. And next thing you know our boys are up to their ears in trouble.

As is often the case, there's a clueless dude on hand, providing a little extra comic relief and a romantic interest for the good-lookin' daughter of a rancher. In this case, the clueless dude is the son of a rich Easterner, soaking up Western atmosphere in hopes or writing a play. (That's him on the dust jacket above, wearing the specs.) Since no gal is ever going to stop Hashknife from seeing what's over the next hill, Tuttle gives them these dudes as consolation prizes.

As usual, Hashknife's reputation has preceded him.

     "I've heard about Hashknife Hartley," said Bill Nichols. "I was with the SK spread, over in New Mexico, and one of the boys mentioned that Hashknife Hartley was in town. Next mornin' we was two men short." 

     "Mucho malo hombre, eh?" queried Pete.

     "They tell me," replied Nichols, "that he don't just use his head to wear a hat on."

     "He don't look bad," smiled Higby.

     "Neither does dynamite, Nick."

And later, an evildoer remarks,

     "That Harley could trail a snake across a lake."

I never get tired of lines like that.

Forgotten Books: TWISTED TRAILS (The Santa Dolores Stage) by W.C. Tuttle (1934)

Yep, it's another adventure of those Cowpunchers of Disaster, Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens. Near as I can tell, this one first appeared as a pulp serial in 1929 and '30 (probably in Adventure) and was published in book form as The Santa Dolores Stage in 1934.

I believe I've mentioned before that these novels can be habit forming. In any case, I'm firmly hooked, and doubt I'll be shaking the habit anytime soon.

This time, Hashknife and Sleepy meet up with a tenderfoot who has just discovered his parentage was a lie, and heads West to find out who he really is. As usual, there are plenty of wacky ranchhands and hardbitten badmen, and it's up to our heroes to shake 'em all up and sort 'em out. To solve the mystery of the tenderfoot's past, Hashknife has to dig deep, poking into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding the robbery of the Santa Dolores Stage. He solves it, of course, but not before a lot of roping, riding, shooting and the foiling of various nefarious plans.

Along the way, we learn a bit more of Hashknife and Sleepy's history.

     "What business are you in, Hartley?"
     "Everybody's."
     Which was very true, in a way. Hashknife Hartley , christened Henry, was born in Montana; on the Milk River, to be exact. His father was an itinerant preacher, blessed with a big family. So big, in fact, that Henry started to work at a tender age, in order to reduce expenses.
     Life had given him many hard knocks before he became a tophand. He had drifted into the Southwest, finally working on the big ranch which gave him his nickname. Here he had met Sleepy Dave Stevens, who hailed from Idaho, and together they started out to see the other side of the hill.
     Their trails had led from Canada to Mexico. At times they worked for the law and with the law, and on their back trails their name was anathema to those who worked outside the law. Marked men, were these two. 
     Sleepy did not do much thinking. He laughed his way along, playing the game for the love of it until Hashknife told him that the end of the trail was near. That meant that if Fate were kind, they would soon head for another hill.
     It was not a remunerative occupation. They had less money now than they had that first day they rode away together. Their needs were few, and they did not want to be thanked for what they did. 

I'm already lookin' forward to ridin with these two again.

My earlier Hashknife and Speedy reviews are HERE.

Randy Johnson enjoyed this one a couple three years ago. You'll find his thoughts HERE.

Forgotten Books: THE MEDICINE-MAN by W.C. Tuttle

(Note! For this book, I am indebted to Mr. Mike Britt, in whose collection it once resided. Thanks Mike!)

Near as I can tell, W.C. Tuttle wrote at least two dozen novels starring Hashknife Hartley and Speedy Stevens, and shorter adventures (many later worked into the novels) appeared in more than twenty years worth of pulp magazines.

What made the series so popular? Tuttle's easy going prose, for one thing, and his wacky supporting characters. But the prime attractions are Hashknife and Speedy themselves, and the more I read about them, the better I like them. I can't actually say that The Medicine-Man (published in 1939 but using pulp material from 1924) is better than the other adventures I've read, but the cumulative effect is setting in, making me enjoy each book more than the last. And best of all, there are many, many more waiting to be read. (As you see, the title on the book and jacket is not hyphenated, but the title page and page headers do employ the hyphen, so I have to assure that was Tuttle's intent.)

The "Medicine-Man" of this one is Hashknife himself, so called because his troubleshooting abilities are so well developed as to appear magical - and because he's such bad medicine for bad guys.

Following the pattern of other novels, the stage is set and the players introduced before our heroes come onto the scene. In this case that's on page 62, well over one-fifth of the way into the book. Hashknife and Sleepy are on their way to visit an old pal named Bud Daley. What they don't know is that Bud has had a run of bad luck. His herd of cattle  mysteriously disappeared, leaving him $5000 in debt. Then the bank was robbed, resulting in a dead teller, and Bud is framed for the crime. Meanwhile, the gambler who owns the town is is love with Bud's wife. It's a situation tailor made for the peculiar skills of Hashknife and Speedy. Upon their arrival, someone asks if they plan on staying long.

     "You never can tell about us," smiled Hashknife. "We ain't gentlemen of leisure, but it kinda seems that we don't stay put in one place very long."
     "You don't look like a pair of drifters," observed Ma Miller.
     "No, ma'am," Hashknife shook his head. "We travel under our own power."
     "Bud used to say that they were the best cow-punchers in the world, but they never punch cows," said Mrs. Daley. "He said they were always to busy to work."
     "What did he mean by that?" asked Sody.
     Hashknife laughed and began rolling a cigarette.
     "Yuh see, we're kinda unlucky--me and Sleepy. Everywhere we go we find somebody in a jam. We just can't mind our own business--somehow. Personally, I'd like to settle down and grow old with the country, but Sleepy can't get over his childish ways; so I reckon we'll keep--movin' along."
     "You won't have much left for your old age, will yuh?" asked Uncle Jimmy.
     "Yeah, we'll have quite a lot," smiled Hashknife. "It won't be anything that yuh can cash in at a bank. And when we die, we won't leave nothin' spendable. There won't be nobody dependin' on either one of us, except the other."

As they dig deeper into the mystery, we get this exchange:

     "This," admitted Hashknife, "sure as hell has got me fightin' my head, Sleepy. What did that red-haired puncher want out there? Who shot him? Was all them shots fired at this jasper who shot Red Blair? Who were they? Sleepy, I'll be darned if this ain't some mix-up."
     "Do yuh reckon Bud Daley was mixed up in it?" queried Sleepy.
     "That's hard to tell, Sleepy. There's a lot of things to work out. F'r instance, who stole Bud's cows? Who robbed the bank? Why did they take Bud away from the sheriff? What in hell was Red Blair doin' out there to-night, and who shot him? My gosh, no wonder Sherlock Holmes was a hop-head."
     "Well," laughed Sleepy, "yo're happy, ain't yuh?, cowboy?"
     "Gittin' thataway," laughed Hashknife.

Adding to the fun is the fact that one of the minor bad guys has encountered Hashknife before, and is deathly afraid of him. He even suspects Hashknife is able to read minds. "I know some of the deals he pulled off," the guy tells his cohorts, "and I'd rather have the small-pox around me."

Were I an evildoer in the Old West, I'd feel the same way.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase.

Forgotten Books: HASHKNIFE OF THE DOUBLE BAR 8 by W.C. Tuttle

Jimmy Legg,  a San Francisco bookkeeper, suddenly gets fed up with his job and gets the itch to become a cowpuncher. He pulls out an atlas, and some instinct draws him to the town of Blue Wells, Arizona as a place where he could make his start. At that same moment, a stray yellow dog comes pawing at his door - running from an enraged policeman - and Jimmy sees that as a sign he should take the dog along.

When this skinny, inept dude arrives in Blue Wells, the local punchers see him as a great source of fun, but they soon discover he has grit and determination (albeit no natural ability) and take him under their wings, determined to make a real cowpuncher out of him. The hands have typical Tuttle names like Plenty Goode and Oyster Shell.

There’s plenty of slapstick humor involving Jimmy Legg. When trying to fire a pistol he almost shoots the sheriff, and when he tries to tame a wild bronc, the accidentally runs over the sheriff. These incidents brand Legg as a man to reckoned with.

As you might expect, the dog complicates matters. A train is robbed, and through a series of misunderstandings, the law believes the owner of the dog must be the guilty party. So when the dog appears at the Double Bar 8 - owned by a good rancher - that rancher, his son and his hands are all arrested by a sheriff with ulterior motives. This leaves the beautiful gal of the story, the good rancher’s daughter, with a ranch and no one to help run it.

Luckily, a third of the way into the book, Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens (whom you may remember from my review of Hidden Gold, HERE) happen along and volunteer to man the ranch. Actually, they’ve been sent by the state Cattlemen’s Association to investigate why a particular ranch is not paying enough dividends. By the Association’s way of figuring, “there’s too many cows out here, and not enough revenue.”

Meanwhile, a gang of crooks operating from south of the border is drawn into the mess, and - happily - these are the very crooks responsible for the misdeeds that H&S have been sent to stop.

From the book’s structure, it’s clear that this originally appeared as three novelettes in Adventure magazine, and our two heroes are not even mentioned in that first novelette. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tuttle began the story as a stand-alone about Jimmy Legg, and later saw the opportunity to bring Hashknife and Sleepy in, building the story into a novel.

Whether that’s so or no, Hashknife of the Double Bar 8 is mighty good readin’. And we're treated to a little of our heroes' history:

The copy I read bore no date, but according to the list in Robert Sampson's Yesterday's Faces: Dangerous Horizons, it appeared in book form England in 1927, and in the U.S. in 1936.

The Forgotten Books Round-up is at In Reference to Murder.

Forgotten Books: HIDDEN BLOOD by W.C. Tuttle (1943 - or is it 1925?)

Sometime in the ‘80s, in an intro to one of his collections (or maybe a book he edited - anyone know?) Harlan Ellison praised the writing of W.C. Tuttle, and - in particular - his tales of Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens. That was enough for me. Over the years I picked up whatever Tuttle books I happened to come across.

Tuttle had a well-developed sense of humor, and a great talent for turning a phrase. His dialogue, his word choice, his oddball with oddball names - and his sometimes wacky scenes, all work together to keep a smile on my face, as they doubtless did for Mr. Ellison.

Hashknife and Sleepy aren’t your average cowpokes. They’re magnets for mystery, and have a way of getting into troubles that only a passel of astute detective work can get them out of. Luckily, Hashknife has enough detecting smarts for both of them. In the stories I’ve read so far, they’re not functioning as official detectives, but they do occasionally hire out to solve a problem for an interested party. By their own definition, they’re not exactly soldiers of fortune - they’re “cow-punchers of disaster.”

I knew Hashknife and Sleepy were mighty busy characters, but I had no notion how busy until I consulted Robert Sampson’s fine book Yesterday’s Faces: Dangerous Horizons. According to Sampson’s info, they appeared in over 80 pulp appearances between 1920 and 1951, beginning in Adventure, crossing into Argosy, and finishing their careers in Short Stories.

Near as I can tell, their first appearance in hardcover came in 1924, with The Medicine Man, but it would be a monumental job to establish any sort of chronology in the novels. At least two dozen more Hashknife and Sleepy novels appeared, and I’m pretty sure that most, if not all, were constructed from novelettes or serials that originally appeared in the pulps. Some books were published first in England, some first in the U.S., and some only in one or the other. In some cases, the novel appeared as much as twenty years after the stories it was built from.

The history of Hidden Blood is typically mysterious. Sampson' list (which he admits may be incomplete or contain errors) says it was published on both sides of the pond in 1929, but the earliest U.S. edition I can find is dated 1943. In any case, both hardcover and paperback say copyright 1925, so I have to assume that's when the stories appeared in Adventure.

In this case, this one begins with a simple case of rheumatism. Hashknife has the miseries, and when they hear of a nearby hot springs that might cure his ills, they’re determined to drop in. As you might expect, they’re walking into a hornet’s nest, this one involving drug smugglers and Mexican banditos. Though this seems very much like the Old West, it’s actually the contemporary West (of 1925) and you never know when a reference to the odd automobile or a telephone might pop up. But heck, you won't care. You'll be having too much fun.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase!