While I’ve enjoyed this collection of pulp stories, I sometimes think it lacks balance: For example, it ends with an essay on hero pulps rather than an actual story, so we get tantalized with The Shadow and Doc Savage with none of their adventures, perhaps for reasons of copyright. And there’s only one war story. And H. P. Lovecraft is touted in the commmentary but his entry is merely a short example of his poetry. There are, however, several other stories from the stable of Weird Tales writers, which we’ll get to as we approach the collection’s end.
Also, the collection of Western stories is one of the largest, whereas we have only one sports story and one war story. I have nothing against Westerns; I just wonder about this lack of balance.
Anyway, our story for this round is “Old Pard” by J. E. Grinstead. Like some of the previous stories, I have little to say about it—it is another example of workmanlike competence characteristic of many of the pulps. This story is about a cowhand with a mysterious past and the young man he takes a liking to. Much of the story has to do with their outfit, the Y Bar, and its battle with some rival ranchers, who are rustling cattle by “covering” the Y Bar’s brand with their own hourglass-shaped brand. Altering existing brands in this way is a classic way of stealing cattle, but any reader who doesn’t know that might be confused: I read this story aloud to my wife and infant daughter at bedtime, and I had to pause to explain to my wife the issue with the brands.
As it should, the story ends with a big shootout when the Y Bar cowboys take the law into their own hands. There is, of course, not even a mention of the possibility of involving lawmen. Such rough and ready frontier justice is what one might expect from this genre.
The final reveal of Old Pard’s true identity is meant to be shocking but isn’t particulary. It turns out he is someone of note who has been living anonymously as a mere cow puncher, but this reveal has no impact because his former life has no bearing on the story. The final lines of the story are unfortunately weak because they ride entirely on this reveal, but the story before then gives some colorful details of running cows and a big action scene, so the flat ending barely matters.
