JOHN D. NESBITT
FOUR - TIME WINNER OF THE SPUR AWARD 

Edward Dawes is a small boy when a stranger comes to call and shoots down his grandfather. Ed remembers what the assassin looked like.

Years later, working in a blacksmith shop, Ed sees the man, learns his name, and finds out he works for a rancher named Mort Ramsey. Ed learns how to do ranch work. He meets an old drunk who knows a great deal, and he meets a girl who is an orphan like himself.

Ed goes to work on Ramsey’s ranch, where he has to kill a lackey who catches him at his detective work. The old assassin seems to be onto him, and Ed has to shoot him.

He goes to the see old drunk, who tells him to go ask Leah Corrigan. The woman treats him as what he is, a stranger. The old drunk tells him that Ramsey stole money from his own father, the woman left him, aided by an older man, there was said to be a son, and the villain sent someone to kill the older man.

Ed goes to the girl, tells her he knows who his mother is, who his father probably was, and who his father isn’t.

At the ranch, he kills the brute bodyguard at close quarters with a knife and then the villain with a gun. He rides off with the girl.