Long Rider #9

THE LAND BANDITS

as by Clay Dawson

Charter, March 1990

Long Rider rode into the town of Bancroft along with the beautiful Lucy McCoy. But once he arrived things turned ugly. He saw the Town Company’s office turn out two poor orphans it lured to Kansas with lies. He shooed off two gunhawks trying to force Barney Lamont out of his homestead.

That was bad enough. But when he found out Ezra Bancroft was tricking Chief Antelope out of Ottawa land with a bunch of promises – promises he sure wasn’t going to keep – Long Rider got just one idea in his head: revenge!

This book starts off well enough with Gabe Conrad, Long Rider, arriving in the new and growing town of Bancroft and he soon begins to get suspicious about certain events. Standing up for the homesteaders leads to the hired gunmen setting upon Gabe, his near hanging at their hands making for some exciting reading.

Unfortunately I found the rest of the book lacking. There’s not much action and Gabe seemed to concerned about doing everything by the law - which isn’t how I remember his character from other books I’ve read in the series.

Very little was made of Long Rider’s Indian upbringing and he seemed to have knowledge of things that I found it hard to believe he could have learnt about living with Indians for most of his life - such as knowing how to drive a train.

Overall this is a readable book but one that didn’t prove to be very satisfying.