Bully McGrane by Ernest Haycox
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Bully McGrane by Ernest Haycox is a Western short story written in the early 20th century. It follows a hard-edged marshal in the brutal boomtown of Pistol Gap and a reformed drifter determined to escape with a dance-hall singer, probing themes of frontier justice, redemption, and the thin line between cruelty and mercy. A miner with an outlaw past returns to town with his rightful stake, planning to marry a singer and
flee, but his three treacherous partners arrive to kill him. The marshal, who rules by fear and intends to let the crooks do his work before arresting them, watches as the trap is laid. The drifter secretly arranges horses with a Chinatown ally, collects the woman, and heads for a back exit, where an ambush springs. In the sudden gunplay, the marshal unexpectedly charges in, firing to cover their escape, while a steady blacksmith knocks out two gunmen. One assailant falls, the couple rides into the night, and the marshal is left scowling at his own reluctant kindness, his harsh creed unsettled by a moment of grace. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Haycox, Ernest, 1899-1950 |
|---|---|
| Title | Bully McGrane |
| Original Publication | Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1930. |
| Series Title | Produced from the November 25, 1930 issue of Short Stories magazine. |
| Credits | Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Western stories |
| Subject | Miners -- Fiction |
| Subject | Man-woman relationships -- Fiction |
| Subject | Marshals -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77816 |
| Release Date | Jan 30, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 278 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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