Charles Alden Seltzer

The Two-Gun Man Charles Alden Seltzer

Along with Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine, Charles Alden Seltzer is remembered today as an originator of what's often called the formula western. In it, a cowboy hero of sterling qualities, who is fast with a gun, meets and subdues a vicious villain. While this part of the story plays out, the cowboy also wins the heart and hand of a pretty sweetheart. The Two-Gun Man has all these elements firmly in place. The story is told with few complexities of plot or character. It is set at an unspecified time in the open ranges of the Southwest, somewhere in the neighborhood of Raton and Cimarron, New Mexico. The central character, Ned Ferguson, arrives in a small desert settlement. He's been sent for to find and dispose of rustlers who have been decimating the herds of a cattleman named Stafford, who runs a spread called the Two Diamond: http: //buddiesinthesaddle.blogspot.com/2013/03/charles-alden-seltzer-two-gun-man-1911.html