The lovable liar

"The lovable liar" by W. C. Tuttle is a Western mystery novel written in the early 20th century. Set in a rough cow-country, it follows range detectives Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens as they drift into the Moolock valley and collide with a bitter feud between domineering cattleman Frank Allenby and the Bell family, while a sheriff with a steady hand tries to keep the peace. Train robbery, large-scale rustling, and a brazen murder pull the drifters into a tense web of suspicion, pride, and frontier justice.

The opening of the novel introduces Tecoma, where Hashknife and Sleepy find their horses secretly swapped for a pinto and a gray just as Sheriff Swan River Smith and his gloomy deputy Forty Dollar Dion arrive chasing train robbers. Riding on to Moolock, they learn of Allenby’s long-running war with old Hank Bell and his son Bud (fresh out of prison), and wake to find three hundred Half-Circle Cross Herefords stolen from the loading pens. A saloon flare‑up sees drunk Harry Allenby insult the sheriff until Bud floors him, while the gunman Sticky Clay hovers, and tensions mount. Allenby’s hired detective, Jim Seeley, is then found shot and tied to a saddle with a Half-Circle Cross hide—a grim message that sharpens suspicion of the Bells. Allenby tries to pin the Tecoma horses on them, but when the posse checks the sheriff’s stable the incriminating mounts are gone, the moment defused. After foreman Chet Hoban and Omaha Olsen refuse a vigilante raid and walk out, Allenby hires Hashknife and Sleepy and again dangles a five‑thousand‑dollar bounty for a conviction, as an inquest for Seeley looms and the newcomers quietly take stock of the ranch. (This is an automatically generated summary.)