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Dan Barry #3
The Seventh Man
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1919
83 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Max Brand
1,813 books133 followersFrederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver
Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.
Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 22, 2023
Jan 21, 945am ~~ Review asap.
230pm ~~ The third of the Max Brand books about Dan Barry, this one was a pretty wild ride. And a little bit weird. The action begins six years after the end of The Night Horseman and for the first few chapters I admit to wondering where Dan Barry was, because we are introduced first to Vic Gregg, who is out working a mining claim, trying to strike it rich enough to propose marriage to Betty Dean the schoolmarm.
But one lovely Spring day Vic decides he has been in his self-imposed solitary confinement long enough and heads to town after months and months away. To his complete surprise Betty is planning to go to a dance that night. With someone else!
There is a lover's quarrel and Vic rides off to get himself drunk. The Someone Else arrives in the saloon and one thing leads to another (as it so often does) and pretty soon Vic is riding lickety split out of town while the Someone Else lies dead on the saloon floor.
The sheriff and five men ride out on his trail, and by chapter six Vic meets Dan Barry, who offers to help and this is where the story begins to get weird.
I understand why Dan decided to get involved, the whole thing was a big game to him, and gave him a chance to match wits with a posse as well as help a man in trouble. And I suppose he was just being true to his wild nature when he lost the thin veneer of civilization that developed during his six years with Kate and their five year old daughter Joan. What surprised me was the reason for shedding that veneer. Perhaps Dan's thinking made sense to him, but it seemed kind of foolish to me. And to Kate, come to think of it.
Dan set in motion a long sequence of events revolving around Vic, the sheriff, and the five man posse. Which of those was the seventh man of the title? Or would there be a different man stepping into that role?!
Part of me wonders just how much Brand intended for the character of Dan Barry to represent, and another part of me figures he was just an interesting creation that captured the author's imagination enough to write a cluster of books about him. Either way, these three books about Dan Barry have been intriguing, and now I am reading number four, Dan Barry's Daughter. How much of his untamed nature was passed on to her?
230pm ~~ The third of the Max Brand books about Dan Barry, this one was a pretty wild ride. And a little bit weird. The action begins six years after the end of The Night Horseman and for the first few chapters I admit to wondering where Dan Barry was, because we are introduced first to Vic Gregg, who is out working a mining claim, trying to strike it rich enough to propose marriage to Betty Dean the schoolmarm.
But one lovely Spring day Vic decides he has been in his self-imposed solitary confinement long enough and heads to town after months and months away. To his complete surprise Betty is planning to go to a dance that night. With someone else!
There is a lover's quarrel and Vic rides off to get himself drunk. The Someone Else arrives in the saloon and one thing leads to another (as it so often does) and pretty soon Vic is riding lickety split out of town while the Someone Else lies dead on the saloon floor.
The sheriff and five men ride out on his trail, and by chapter six Vic meets Dan Barry, who offers to help and this is where the story begins to get weird.
I understand why Dan decided to get involved, the whole thing was a big game to him, and gave him a chance to match wits with a posse as well as help a man in trouble. And I suppose he was just being true to his wild nature when he lost the thin veneer of civilization that developed during his six years with Kate and their five year old daughter Joan. What surprised me was the reason for shedding that veneer. Perhaps Dan's thinking made sense to him, but it seemed kind of foolish to me. And to Kate, come to think of it.
Dan set in motion a long sequence of events revolving around Vic, the sheriff, and the five man posse. Which of those was the seventh man of the title? Or would there be a different man stepping into that role?!
Part of me wonders just how much Brand intended for the character of Dan Barry to represent, and another part of me figures he was just an interesting creation that captured the author's imagination enough to write a cluster of books about him. Either way, these three books about Dan Barry have been intriguing, and now I am reading number four, Dan Barry's Daughter. How much of his untamed nature was passed on to her?
August 11, 2018
I like the first two books in this series better ("The Untamed" and "The Night Horseman"), mostly because the ending of this was not what I had hoped for, most of the story was one long chase scene, and Still a very fine story about a man who was truly connected with nature rather than people. I listened to this as a free download fro LibriVox.org (by an excellent reader). First published in 1919.
December 13, 2022
The shocking conclusion to the "Whistlin' Dan" Barry trilogy.
October 23, 2021
There's such an incredible wealth of skilled authors from previous eras who get lost to the memory of time when it comes to recognition of their work. Frederick Schiller Faust, better known by one of his more recognizable pen names, Max Brand, is one such author.
This guy is one helluva writer. He writes a posse chase like none other, and I can say for sure I wouldn't even come close, should I ever attempt it. The prose is balanced expertly with the type of country-fied voices that make westerns feel so real and enjoyable.
The only thing about writers of old is that some have a way of 'othering' and writing women in really annoying ways. Max Brand didn't write any women breasting boobily down the stairs but he did wax poetic about the female condition and make the only female side character pretty one dimensional and fundamentally set up to fail. I'd rather read about an all-male cast than read a book where a woman's only care in life is to "bring up a child properly".
OTHER than that, this book was enjoyable. I read it while simultaneously listening to the audiobook of it as performed by Robert Keiper and he does an overall fantastic job.
This guy is one helluva writer. He writes a posse chase like none other, and I can say for sure I wouldn't even come close, should I ever attempt it. The prose is balanced expertly with the type of country-fied voices that make westerns feel so real and enjoyable.
The only thing about writers of old is that some have a way of 'othering' and writing women in really annoying ways. Max Brand didn't write any women breasting boobily down the stairs but he did wax poetic about the female condition and make the only female side character pretty one dimensional and fundamentally set up to fail. I'd rather read about an all-male cast than read a book where a woman's only care in life is to "bring up a child properly".
OTHER than that, this book was enjoyable. I read it while simultaneously listening to the audiobook of it as performed by Robert Keiper and he does an overall fantastic job.
September 10, 2025
When the Most Terrible Monster Is Not the Whistling Outlaw, nor the Black Wolf Dog, nor the Psychopathic Sheriff, but the Loving Mother
I enjoyed Max Brand’s pulp western Beyond the Outposts (1925), which is a little like A Princess of Mars crossed with Little Big Man, so was looking forward to reading another book by him, and The Seventh Man (1923) delivered in spades.
The novel opens with Vic Gregg working hard and alone to stake claims in the mountains to earn enough money to someday marry his schoolteacher sweetheart, Betty Neal, and then returning to their small town of Alder to take a break and see Betty, only to provoke and shoot an ersatz rival, and then flee back to the mountains just ahead of a posse.
This sets in motion the chain of fateful events that involve the real protagonists of the story, Dan Barry, his wife Kate, and their five-year-old daughter Joan. Dan is like Mowgli trying to live among people: he has a huge pet wolf dog called Black Bart and a huge black stallion called Satan, with both of whom he communicates and collaborates with near telepathy. Since the birth of Joan, Kate has been civilizing Dan, so that his eyes have stopped turning feral yellow, and his eerie whistling in the wind has ceased. Nonetheless, they live up in the mountains in a small cabin, far from any town, and one wonders how deep Kate’s taming of the wild man has reached and how long it will last.
Their five-year idyll ends when Dan rescues Vic from a posse led by the psychopathic sheriff Pete Glass (“Man killing came easier to him than reading”), who lives to hunt outlaws, always gets his man, and reckons that when the dwindling supply of bountied outlaws runs out, he’ll become one.
And when the posse commits an atrocity (in Dan’s eyes) by shooting the horse he’s riding to draw them away from Vic, Whistling Dan Barry surfaces from beneath the veneer of civilization painted on him by Kate: a horse like Gray Molly is worth at least seven sneaking, slimy men in Dan’s moral calculation, so he starts serving justice on the seven members of the posse.
There are plenty of thrilling (if not wholly believable) western action scenes, much horse and gun lore, and a historical texture with famous outlaws of yesteryear and friends from the past popping up. There are some fixtures of the western genre, like the schoolteacher fiancé, the conflict between civilization and wildness, and the encroachment of technology into nature (the telephone plays a key role in the plot).
But there are also genre surprises, like the significant role played by Billy the Clerk (NOT Billy the Kid): “No one paid particular attention to Billy, and they never had. He was useless on a horse and ridiculous with a gun, and the only place where he seemed formidable was behind a typewriter.”
And I was surprised when Kate and Dan’s conflict over their daughter Joan starts driving the doom-laden plot. Brand creates a wonderful little girl in Joan, so innocent and loving! (I love the scenes where she rides the terrifying Black Bart like a pony, pulling on his ears and scolding him, “Bad dog!”) And Brand creates a merciless mother in Kate, who to keep Joan will do anything, from pleading and kidnapping to emotional blackmail and murder, even though the painfully divided girl would rather live with Dan and Bart and Satan.
Despite Dan’s demonic animal companions, yellow eyes, weird whistling, and unusual moral code by which an animal’s life is worth at least as much as a man’s, then, the scariest, most monstrous person in the book is Kate, a manipulative, self-centered, homicidally maternal woman:
“She don’t love Dan. She thinks she does, but down deep they ain’t a damned thing in the world she gives a rap about exceptin’ Joan. Men? What are they to her? Marriage? That's simply an accident that's needed so she can have a baby. Delicate, shrinkin’ flower, is she? I tell you, my boy, if it was necessary for Joan she'd tear out your heart and mine and send Dan plumb to hell. You fasten on to them words, because they're gospel.”
The Seventh Man is about the impossibility of the wild and the civilized to coexist for long. Maybe for several years, but not permanently and not easily. As much as Dan loves Kate and Joan and would never hurt them or wants to protect them, living domesticated with them has been smothering an important part of himself. Society and civilization won’t let extraordinarily “natural” men like Dan live in peace. He’s an ur-outlaw, like his wolf dog, hunted by groups of men from every town around.
Brand wrote savory dialogue, like this:
“Who are you?” The big voice fairly swallowed the rather shrill tone of the sheriff.
“I'm sheriff Pete Glass.”
“You lie. Whoever heard of a sheriff come sneakin’ round like a coyote lookin’ for dead meat?”
Pete Glass grinned with rage. “Haines, you ain’t much better’n spoiled meat if you keep back. I gave you till I count ten—”
“Why, you bob-tailed skunk,” shouted a new voice. “You bone-spavined, pink-eyed rat-catcher,” continued this very particular describer, “what have you got on us? Come out and dicker and we’ll do the same!”
For the reader today, Brand also wrote unpleasant touches from the late 19th and early 20th century, like casual racism. Despite the absence of any Hispanic characters, the narrator and characters negatively refer to “greasers” (e.g., “Captain Lorrimer was as dirty as a greaser; and like a greaser, was loose-lipped, unshaven”) and use “white” as a synonym for trustworthiness (e.g., “Stranger … you’re white. Damned white. Thats all.). The irrational hatred of wolves also crops up, as when Vic Gregg sees a wolf paw print and “grinned with excitement; fifty dollars’ bounty if that scalp were his!” Or as when a wolf’s howl sounds “demoniacal.”
Apart from such antique blemishes, Brand wrote exciting, thoughtful pulp westerns that hold up well today.
Robert Keiper, the reader who reads the Librivox audiobook I listened to, does a great job with the characters and narration, adding a lot to the experience.
I enjoyed Max Brand’s pulp western Beyond the Outposts (1925), which is a little like A Princess of Mars crossed with Little Big Man, so was looking forward to reading another book by him, and The Seventh Man (1923) delivered in spades.
The novel opens with Vic Gregg working hard and alone to stake claims in the mountains to earn enough money to someday marry his schoolteacher sweetheart, Betty Neal, and then returning to their small town of Alder to take a break and see Betty, only to provoke and shoot an ersatz rival, and then flee back to the mountains just ahead of a posse.
This sets in motion the chain of fateful events that involve the real protagonists of the story, Dan Barry, his wife Kate, and their five-year-old daughter Joan. Dan is like Mowgli trying to live among people: he has a huge pet wolf dog called Black Bart and a huge black stallion called Satan, with both of whom he communicates and collaborates with near telepathy. Since the birth of Joan, Kate has been civilizing Dan, so that his eyes have stopped turning feral yellow, and his eerie whistling in the wind has ceased. Nonetheless, they live up in the mountains in a small cabin, far from any town, and one wonders how deep Kate’s taming of the wild man has reached and how long it will last.
Their five-year idyll ends when Dan rescues Vic from a posse led by the psychopathic sheriff Pete Glass (“Man killing came easier to him than reading”), who lives to hunt outlaws, always gets his man, and reckons that when the dwindling supply of bountied outlaws runs out, he’ll become one.
And when the posse commits an atrocity (in Dan’s eyes) by shooting the horse he’s riding to draw them away from Vic, Whistling Dan Barry surfaces from beneath the veneer of civilization painted on him by Kate: a horse like Gray Molly is worth at least seven sneaking, slimy men in Dan’s moral calculation, so he starts serving justice on the seven members of the posse.
There are plenty of thrilling (if not wholly believable) western action scenes, much horse and gun lore, and a historical texture with famous outlaws of yesteryear and friends from the past popping up. There are some fixtures of the western genre, like the schoolteacher fiancé, the conflict between civilization and wildness, and the encroachment of technology into nature (the telephone plays a key role in the plot).
But there are also genre surprises, like the significant role played by Billy the Clerk (NOT Billy the Kid): “No one paid particular attention to Billy, and they never had. He was useless on a horse and ridiculous with a gun, and the only place where he seemed formidable was behind a typewriter.”
And I was surprised when Kate and Dan’s conflict over their daughter Joan starts driving the doom-laden plot. Brand creates a wonderful little girl in Joan, so innocent and loving! (I love the scenes where she rides the terrifying Black Bart like a pony, pulling on his ears and scolding him, “Bad dog!”) And Brand creates a merciless mother in Kate, who to keep Joan will do anything, from pleading and kidnapping to emotional blackmail and murder, even though the painfully divided girl would rather live with Dan and Bart and Satan.
Despite Dan’s demonic animal companions, yellow eyes, weird whistling, and unusual moral code by which an animal’s life is worth at least as much as a man’s, then, the scariest, most monstrous person in the book is Kate, a manipulative, self-centered, homicidally maternal woman:
“She don’t love Dan. She thinks she does, but down deep they ain’t a damned thing in the world she gives a rap about exceptin’ Joan. Men? What are they to her? Marriage? That's simply an accident that's needed so she can have a baby. Delicate, shrinkin’ flower, is she? I tell you, my boy, if it was necessary for Joan she'd tear out your heart and mine and send Dan plumb to hell. You fasten on to them words, because they're gospel.”
The Seventh Man is about the impossibility of the wild and the civilized to coexist for long. Maybe for several years, but not permanently and not easily. As much as Dan loves Kate and Joan and would never hurt them or wants to protect them, living domesticated with them has been smothering an important part of himself. Society and civilization won’t let extraordinarily “natural” men like Dan live in peace. He’s an ur-outlaw, like his wolf dog, hunted by groups of men from every town around.
Brand wrote savory dialogue, like this:
“Who are you?” The big voice fairly swallowed the rather shrill tone of the sheriff.
“I'm sheriff Pete Glass.”
“You lie. Whoever heard of a sheriff come sneakin’ round like a coyote lookin’ for dead meat?”
Pete Glass grinned with rage. “Haines, you ain’t much better’n spoiled meat if you keep back. I gave you till I count ten—”
“Why, you bob-tailed skunk,” shouted a new voice. “You bone-spavined, pink-eyed rat-catcher,” continued this very particular describer, “what have you got on us? Come out and dicker and we’ll do the same!”
For the reader today, Brand also wrote unpleasant touches from the late 19th and early 20th century, like casual racism. Despite the absence of any Hispanic characters, the narrator and characters negatively refer to “greasers” (e.g., “Captain Lorrimer was as dirty as a greaser; and like a greaser, was loose-lipped, unshaven”) and use “white” as a synonym for trustworthiness (e.g., “Stranger … you’re white. Damned white. Thats all.). The irrational hatred of wolves also crops up, as when Vic Gregg sees a wolf paw print and “grinned with excitement; fifty dollars’ bounty if that scalp were his!” Or as when a wolf’s howl sounds “demoniacal.”
Apart from such antique blemishes, Brand wrote exciting, thoughtful pulp westerns that hold up well today.
Robert Keiper, the reader who reads the Librivox audiobook I listened to, does a great job with the characters and narration, adding a lot to the experience.
July 16, 2025
*spoiler* This book really annoyed me. A man with mental illness apparently, his daughter showing the same mental illness. A mother who sends he daughter off into the wilderness on a wolf? Then that mother says she'd stay in the wild for the man but wants the daughter to leave with her. When the daughter won't leave with her the mother doesn't stay? The whole, wolf and stallion with human-like communication with a wild man trope gets really old.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2019
Whistling Dan, his daughter, and his wife Kate are the humans. Bart the wolf, and Satan the horse are the animals.
He kills seven men (doesn't get Greg, he ends up dying himself), all over a horse.
He didn't like the horse getting shot at.
Fran calling her father "Daddy Dan', and slapping the wolf and saying "bad boy Bart" was pretty funny too.
He kills seven men (doesn't get Greg, he ends up dying himself), all over a horse.
He didn't like the horse getting shot at.
Fran calling her father "Daddy Dan', and slapping the wolf and saying "bad boy Bart" was pretty funny too.
June 15, 2019
Amazing
There is only one word that comes to mind as I finished this story what a amazing story teller this author was.I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all but so far this is the best yet. As you read you can visibly see each character in your mind and picture the beautiful horse and magnificent fearless dog if you are a western fan you must read this book.
There is only one word that comes to mind as I finished this story what a amazing story teller this author was.I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all but so far this is the best yet. As you read you can visibly see each character in your mind and picture the beautiful horse and magnificent fearless dog if you are a western fan you must read this book.
July 26, 2021
Wonderful listening 🎧
Due to eye issues and damage from shingles so Alexa reads to me.
Another will written romantic thriller western in the Dan Barry a.k.a. Whistling Dan series. The characters are interesting and will developed. The story line is about revenge and family with a sad ending. I would recommend to readers of westerns. Enjoy the adventure of reading 2021 ✨🎉😎
Due to eye issues and damage from shingles so Alexa reads to me.
Another will written romantic thriller western in the Dan Barry a.k.a. Whistling Dan series. The characters are interesting and will developed. The story line is about revenge and family with a sad ending. I would recommend to readers of westerns. Enjoy the adventure of reading 2021 ✨🎉😎
December 3, 2018
Very good read
The author captures the wild days of the West where the instinct of men becomes savage as the wild animals. Well written Mr Brand s description of the area makes the book come alive.
The author captures the wild days of the West where the instinct of men becomes savage as the wild animals. Well written Mr Brand s description of the area makes the book come alive.
November 30, 2019
I read my first novel by Max Brand about 60 years ago.
Ironically, it was an Berry's Daughter. It remains one of my favorite books. What a surprise to discover who Dan Berry was. I enjoyed this story almost as much.
Ironically, it was an Berry's Daughter. It remains one of my favorite books. What a surprise to discover who Dan Berry was. I enjoyed this story almost as much.
December 24, 2023
The seventh man
It's a disappointing read. A confusing, unfulfilling ending, leaving doubt about who the seventh man was. The sci-fi part was a failure in this western like jungle natives walking through the bush wearing western suits.
It's a disappointing read. A confusing, unfulfilling ending, leaving doubt about who the seventh man was. The sci-fi part was a failure in this western like jungle natives walking through the bush wearing western suits.
September 5, 2018
Great Book.
October 5, 2019
Third in a series. Took me back to the days when western were everywhere in the both the small and large screens.
June 19, 2020
An interesting book by Max Brand - while it was written awhile ago, it would be interesting to get a modern psychological take on one of the main characters.
August 18, 2020
Weird western, but I enjoyed it till I realized it was the third book in a series of three. Now I have to go read the first two.
April 11, 2021
Much darker than the previous two (2) books in this trilogy. More intense as well. The ending was somewhat unexpected to me.
August 29, 2021
Very well written and thought out. Anyone that enjoys western will like this one. Kept my attention and read it in one sitting.
May 6, 2022
Imagery like you’ve never read before.
September 9, 2020
Sue
I didn’t think I would like this story but it really got me involved.very well read by narrator. Enjoyable listen and read
I didn’t think I would like this story but it really got me involved.very well read by narrator. Enjoyable listen and read
February 23, 2024
I know what to expect from a Max Brand western and it's something very different then any other western author out there: An eerie atmosphere, deep character study, high quality writing and a very unusual storytelling style. Off course, all these characteristics are present in the third book of the Dan Barry series, but we also get a bit more action then usual as the story is almost a long chase scene with shootouts. The Sevanth Man is a very good tale and kind close out in a satisfying way the series (at least the Dan Barry story arc).
June 8, 2015
Okay - I love this book. Yes it's a simple western, but I love the way the characters are developed. They are bigger than life. The story is unique. This is a book I have never forgotten since I first read it. I look for copies in every used book store I wander into. Book 3 in a series, but can stand alone. In fact I read this one first, then went back and found the other 2 - Untamed and The Night Horseman.
April 8, 2012
Very interesting Western without the usual stark contrast between the good guys and the bad guys. Max Brand uses typical western story themes and situations to pull the reader in and then twists things around to write a treatise on relationship psychology, true love, and real courage. I think this one might be interesting even to those who don't like Westerns. I read it as a free Gutenberg Project EBook on my ipad.
July 13, 2014
One of Brands best.
I beg to differ with those who say his books aren't literature. His writing is so poetic in nature that you feel an easy flow of the story as he transitions from person to person and scene to scene. If Dan were living in this day and age he would be considered a social deviant and probably schizophrenic,so the character is not so unbelievable to me
I beg to differ with those who say his books aren't literature. His writing is so poetic in nature that you feel an easy flow of the story as he transitions from person to person and scene to scene. If Dan were living in this day and age he would be considered a social deviant and probably schizophrenic,so the character is not so unbelievable to me
December 12, 2014
Yes, I know Max Brand doesn't write with the political correctness of our day but I still enjoy his stories.
This book was written almost 100 years ago and I thought the story was well told. It certainly kept me reading. I wanted to turn the page and find out what was going to happen next.
That's the work of a good storyteller.
This book was written almost 100 years ago and I thought the story was well told. It certainly kept me reading. I wanted to turn the page and find out what was going to happen next.
That's the work of a good storyteller.
August 4, 2016
Available on Librivox & Gutenberg.
Something is surreal in our relationship with our dogs and horses. The ending broke my heart.
Something is surreal in our relationship with our dogs and horses. The ending broke my heart.
January 16, 2013
Not really my genre, but thought I'd give it a try. Never read a western before, and probably won't again.
Read
August 1, 2013Listen to it for free on Librivox, it's really well read
November 5, 2013
A good ending to the trilogy of Dan Barry.
I liked this one better than "The Night Horseman", but not as good as "Untamed".
Really glad I found out about Max Brand.
I liked this one better than "The Night Horseman", but not as good as "Untamed".
Really glad I found out about Max Brand.
June 27, 2014
I truly enjoyed the story and the characters! I was surprised at the ending! I do recommend reading!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews