The Ferguson Rifle

Talon and Chantry #2

by Louis L'Amour

Stripped of all he values in life, Ronan Chantry takes up his prized Ferguson rifle and heads west -- into an unknown land and an uncertain future. For an educated man, Chantry is surprisingly tough. For a civilized man, he is unexpectedly dangerous. But even he can't know the true extent of his courage until he draws the fire of a man who will do anything -- kill anyone -- for the glitter of gold.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Historical, Action, Novels

180 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1973

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale is not up to L'amours' usual good story. It is just too disjointed. It starts as a scholar flees west wanting to die after his family is killed in a fire. It winds up us a treasure hunt. In between is a lot of moralizing, which is L'amour at his worst. If I wanted to be preached to I would go to church (and I rarely, if ever, go to church). Only recommended to fanatical L'amour fans.

[Laur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting frontier tale involving a scholar and a small group of men who are seeking to do trapping and collect furs, but come upon a small wounded group of Cheyenne Indians choosing to help and befriend them. Later they come across a dead man with some interesting articles in his coat and discover there is a lone woman and boy in the wilderness left to fend for themselves.

The men step up to help as she is being hunted by a band of men who believe that she will lead them to a treasure that they want for their own.

Plenty of action and history in this great story!

[GoldGato · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Louis L’Amour western which takes place before the big push toward the American West. Instead, it’s the time of the Lewis & Clark Expedition of the early 1800s, long before there were men walking around with six-shooters sitting low on gun-belts. The star of the story is really the Ferguson Rifle, a real-life gun which was advanced for its time. Patrick Ferguson, a British officer who lost his life during the American Revolution, developed the rifle and in this book, passes it on to the story’s protagonist in the opening chapter. This sets up the adventure about to come.

Ronan Chantry, one of those rugged names and rugged men, has lost his wife and son in a fire. With nothing left to live for, he goes West, knowing the great dangers involved. This is long before there are railroads and cavalry, as the United States is still a young country. Chantry hooks up with a group of rough trappers and they all find themselves in constant battle with different enemies. First up are the Spanish, who have not yet heard about the Louisiana Purchase and want Chantry’s group to go home. Then there are all the Indians, still masters of the land and unafraid of the small group. Finally, it’s the meanest enemy of all, a pirate who has journeyed inland to find a great treasure marked by a Maltese Cross.

This is more of an adventure book than a western, but as usual with L’Amour, it’s a page-turner. Chantry is not your average hero, a man who is nicknamed, “The Scholar”, because of his education and globe-trotting background. When he joins the trappers, I instinctively assumed he was putting himself in danger, but the travellers become bonded and protect each other. Oh, and there’s a young woman who must be rescued and a cave-dwelling hermit and yes, it’s very Robert Louis Stevenson-ish. Great fun.

Book Season = Summer (high adventure)

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most of Louis L'Amour's novels this was an enjoyable tale if you like his style and approach. However, what made this one a bit more remarkable for me was the history. L'Amour is known for blending fiction with some fact and real people, places, and events in his novels. This one was no exception, in that a real historical figure, Patrick Ferguson, made a brief appearance. The inventor of an early innovation in firearms technology, Ferguson might have played a key role in the American Revolution, except that he died prematurely. Indeed, some historians believe that had he lived and championed the technology he invented, and had the British military adopted it, it could have proven the difference in the outcome of the war. But that didn't happen.

A year or so ago, I had the opportunity to visit South Carolina, where I was able to learn more about Ferguson's life. Quite a remarkable man. That has happened often as I read L'Amour's novels...they have led me to read Plutarch (the Lives and the Moralia), numerous biographies, and to explore other historical and classical literature. For that alone, his novels have been important in my life.

[Jayna Baas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always game for a good adventure story, and this certainly fit that description. L’Amour’s storytelling style and historical detail always bring to life the men who settled America. Since Kings Mountain and Patrick Ferguson figure into my own current project (see more about that here), the title particularly caught my eye. It’s now commonly believed that Ferguson improved the breech-loading concept but did not invent it; either version fits with the events in this story. I applaud L’Amour’s ability to clearly portray his characters’ loyalties while acknowledging that Ferguson was admired by men on both sides (though certainly not the men he faced at Kings Mountain).

But all that is the rambling of a history lover. On to the story.

Ronan Chantry made a great hero. Now, I’m not a fan of people killing other people in duels, nor am I a fan of people cussing for emphasis, but I loved the tension of Ronan being a “civilized” man in a wilderness world. His quotations and historical observations and ethical deliberations made such a perfect counterpart to the side of him that would talk tough to the Spanish military and take on all the bad guys singlehandedly and win. His comrades were also a good group of characters, although there wasn’t necessarily much distinction between some of them. It never got confusing for me, though. Coming to understand their sense of honor explains why L’Amour can make his hero die at the end of a book and still consider that a happy ending (no worries, that doesn’t happen in this book).

Parts of the treasure-hunting story seemed a bit thin to me, but I was there for the action, and there was plenty of that. Lucinda was not my favorite of L’Amour’s women, probably because her character was not developed much at all. A romance this is not, despite the occasional hints and the suggestion of future romance at the end. It’s mainly a story of adventure and honor, yes, and chivalry, which is a lost and despised art. And through it all is L’Amour’s masterful storytelling and prose, his shrewd observations on human nature and history, his careful handling of frontier cultures, his heart-pounding blow-by-blow fight scenes. I read L’Amour to inspire my own writing. Sensitive readers, beware of profanity and violence, including a mildly disturbing stab-wound death scene. Otherwise, enjoy this grand adventure with the type of men who made America what it was in the beginning.

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[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Louis. Never looked back.

[*Stani* · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last of the Chantry books, this one evolves around a man named Ronan Chantry.

He came from the East as a scholarly and highly educated man, running from his dark past, with his wife and son dying in the fire.

Now he is out West, hoping for a fresh start in life. He befriends a group of man, who are set going even further West to hunt and trap for fur. He goes along with them and a chance meeting with a group of renegades turns out a dead body and a girl with a knowledge of buried gold in the mountains.

Now is up to Ronan to help the girl out and to stay alive long enough to get the gold and get her out of the clutches of her crazed uncle, who will stop at nothing to get the fabled treasure.

*****

It started great, with Ronan heading west and hoping for a fresh start. I was looking forward to learning about trapping and fur trade and life in the wild western lands.

But that’s abandoned rather quickly for a story of gold and treasure that Louis done so many times that by now is just tired and old and not that interesting.

I am so sad that he didn’t stick to more interesting premise of an actual life in the west. If you like treasure hunting stories, this one is for you. Otherwise it’s a skip.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This Louis Lamour title was not as absorbing as the last one I read. Maybe it's because the hero, after a tragedy in his life, is wandering aimlessly west. He's not exactly The Man With No Name, but he is sort of The Man With No Purpose Who Has A Really Cool Rifle. He falls in with some men along the trail, and then their group falls in with a young woman and her companion. The subsequent adventure flows from these other characters, rather than from anything the hero wants--which makes the story feel almost as aimless as the hero. As a result, I didn't find the treasure hunt particularly plausible and I wasn't too invested in how it came out. It wasn't a bad book, just not all that good.

[Greg Strandberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, with the narrative being the best part in my opinion. I like how the main character thinks back on his earlier days, thinks on the Indians around him, and even old philosophers that are long dead.

Chantry is a smart man, and I did not read the first book with him in it. I picked this one up at the library because I liked the cover. It's set in the earlier-1800's and makes for a good story. Sometimes I got lost between the characters and other times I found myself drifting. Usually those long paragraphs of narrative would pull me back.

I'm not a big fan of the books written in first person, but this one was alright. I look forward to reading more from the author.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent story. Ronan Chantry is a great main character. He is well educated and in this story becomes a hero as he associates with an Irish girl and helps her search for treasure. There is considerable danger and adventure.

[Ian Clary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read L'Amour since I was a kid, so this was a real treat to go back to. I identified with the character in a bunch of ways.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this many years ago (likely upon its first release) and I enjoyed the re-read. I find a few things in the story really, really far-fetched. First, the gift of the rifle to the young boy during the American Revolution. Some of the scholarly references were a bit much, I felt.

However, overall, this is meant to be taken as an action yarn. During the period of the mountain men, so a bit different than much of L'amours writing, but really, only a bit.

There is a cache of gold/lost treasure that plays an important part, a repetitive theme in L'amour's books. There are extra evil villains, and an old mountain man that one cannot decide whose side he may or may not be on... The woman's character is not really developed much, except that she acts fearless and impetuously as times. The other mountain men that our hero falls in with immediately receive him, and quickly come to like him.. as if he is Mr. Wonderful.

Moving on from there-- though, there is a rousing tale, plenty of direct action, a bit of a mystery... and all sort of tossed into this tale with a rifle that loads faster than most others of its day sort of in the center of the story.

L'Amour likes to write about odd guns -- his books often feature a colt revolving shotgun, which apparently had a very poor reputation in the West as a gun that frequently jammed. He mentions the LeMat pistol, a revolver with a an extra barrel for firing a small gauge shotgun shell,which could be effective at times, but was clumsy to operate and not exactly a common gun. In this case-- he writes about a rifle that had only like 100 produced and few used in the American Revolution-- and that likely had problems with quickly fouling, even if rapid to load and refire. L'amour is clear that the weapon did not have much place in the war, but all of the mountain men the hero meets are charmed by the rifle.

The story is a well-written western, set in the early west, and one I enjoyed this time around perhaps a bit less than thirty-five years ago or so when I first read it.. A good book, a bit above the average western, but far from L'amour's best.

[Caleb Wicklund · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ferguson Rifle is a book written by Louis L’Amour. It is an Old Western-type book with the idea of “cowboys vs. Indians” being relevant through it all. It begins with the main character and narrator, Rona Chantry, being gifted his Ferguson Rifle. As he sets off on a journey he quickly gains friends, enemies, and even a significant other. With these friends he sets off on a journey to find a lost treasure. As the book progresses, him and his friends face many obstacles, enemies, and deaths. While on their adventure, they navigate their way through the wild west, which had many secrets to unfold. Every step closer to the treasure, the plot thickens. At one point, all hope may have been lost if it wasn’t for an elderly man saving Chantry’s life. In the end, Ronan and his friends get the treasure, and more importantly, get back Lucinda, an indian woman who was taken from chantry earlier in the book.

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent writing by 'LL about a Long Rifle carried by a mountain man. The Long Rifle had been obtained from a sniper during the war with the British at Kings Mountain, TN. If you ever pass that way the state park allows entry to the cemetery so visitors can see the names of our forefathers. This is an excellent read for the genre. ....DEHS

[Melissa Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.25

What can I say? I am western trash. I will read anything with a cowboy on a horse set anytime before 1900 and I will give that ish at least 3 stars. I am a simple woman who likes westerns and this was no different. This isn't my favorite Louis L'Amore book but it was a super entertaining one and I flew through it.

[Michael Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ferguson Rifle, by Louis L'Amour, is just the kind of novel I needed on a chilly, fall day. I really enjoyed the boyhood flashback to Ronan's acquisition of a Ferguson rifle. Patrick Ferguson is a familiar name to many of us who live close to Kings Mountain, and who may have had family who participated in Ferguson's savage defeat there in October 1780.

Ronan Chantry has reason to treat this gift with great respect, and the weapon comes in handy as his adventures in the western frontier begin.

L'Amour usually has a somewhat expected story arc in his Westerns, and this book delivers excellent marksmanship, a pretty young woman in distress, and even some lost treasure waiting to be found. As I said, just what I needed.

[Simo · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a non-native English speaker, this was the very first book I've read in English in my entire life. Now I remember how, as a kid, I marvelled at the general old-west atmosphere L'Amour created in this book. I always think about giving it another read since it marks some unforgettable memories but somehow I never manage to do that. I would recommend this book to anyone who is into the wild West fiction.

[bakwardshatbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d never read anything by Louis L’Amour before this. I liked it for the most part, especially once it got going. It started slow but that could’ve been by design as it was kind of a trek type of book. On the whole, would I read another book by Louis L’Amour? Sure. Do I think this holds up when compared to other westerns like Lonesome Dove? No.

[Duncan McCurdie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disjointed and episodic in nature and leaves some plot point unresolved.

[Rod Innis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good story by Louis L'Amour. I read this one many years ago and so I had forgotten
a good part of it but there were a few things that I remembered.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining novel. One of Louis best I do believe.

[Reuben Healy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought 35 Western novels for $20. This was read number 1. It had all the classic elements: lone rangers, damsels in distress, shoot outs, fist fights, ambushes, Native American tribes, distant mountains and wide open plains. I really enjoyed it.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read The Ferguson Rifle for the first time years ago* and loved it, but I recently won the audiobook from Goodreads via their FirstReads program. This lined up nicely with a road trip my wife and I had to take, and so the adventure began anew….

I don’t usually do audiobooks, as I have little time for them. I don’t have copious amounts of driving built into my day (if this ever changes, I likely will start consuming larger quantities), I can’t listen at work, and frankly given the choice I would rather actually read the book myself. All that said, this was an excellent production. The reader, Brian D’Arcy James, has a marvelous command of accents, be they British, Scottish or Irish, and this book allowed him to showcase them to great effect. My wife and I both loved it, so I am reasonably sure this book will please both Louis L’Amour fanatics and newcomers.

It is no real secret that given how many novels L’Amour wrote that were set in the old west, sometimes they tend to run together in your memory. This, however, is one of those especially excellent entries in his bibliography that stand out in your memory both from sheer uniqueness and from persistent quality. Unlike most of Louis L’Amour’s bibliography, this book is not a “western” in the classical sense. It is set on America’s frontier around the year 1800, meaning the northerly Great Plains–the Dakotas, Montana, that area. In another sense, however, this is very much a western. That was “the west” at the time being described, just as what we now think of as the “east coast” was at one point the western frontier of exploration. It is into this territory, newly bought from France through the Louisiana Purchase, that Ronan Chantry rides. His old life is dead, all he loves burned up in a tragic fire. Now all he has is his experience on the frontier as a boy, his education in Europe as a man, his horse, and the extraordinary rifle he was given as a boy. He rides with a company of trappers into a new land, nearly unexplored, in search of a new start. When he discovers the trail of a woman and boy alone, being ruthlessly hunted by unsavory men, Ronan feels called to help. But when there is a fabled fortune of gold in the offering, men are not likely to give up its pursuit easily….

I’m a known Louis L’Amour devotee, so I absolutely loved this. No one crafts an adventure like Louis L’Amour, and few writers I’ve found have his appreciation for the scope of human history and the persistent force of western movement, while still retaining an appreciation for the contributions of the individual to history’s march. This is one of those books that, while reading, makes you yearn to look out across the unspoiled territory this country once was, to stand where his characters stand and see what they see. There’s a beauty to it, and you can hear in L’Amour’s writing a lilting note of mourning for what we have lost. He does not blame the pioneers and the farmers for what has happened, he understands history too well for that, and appreciates the inevitability of the march of “progress.” That doesn’t mean he (or his characters) have to like it. Ditto for the Indians, and you see that here as well. There are several sequences where the Indian is discussed, his character, his future, and his habits. Again, L’Amour understands why things happened as they did, but it still saddens him. Longtime Louis L’Amour readers will know what to expect in terms of characters and character development–there’s not usually a whole lot of moral ambiguity to a L’Amour adventure, there are good guys and bad guys, and they know their roles. Is that a problem? Not so far as I’m concerned. We need stories like that just as much as we need the other kind, maybe more. And this day and age, that type of story is harder to find.

CONTENT: Mild language, some violence, little to no sexual content.

*I’ve read most of Louis L’Amour’s books, but I can’t always remember which ones. This is fine–I’m totally up for reading a lot of them again. Probably going to go questing to read the entire bibliography at some point.

[Aaron Toponce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this Chantry entry, but I really wish that people would get the chronological order correct in the series. This book should be the 2nd, not the fifth. According to louislamour.com, the order is:

1. Borden Chantry
2. Fair Blows The Wind
3. Ferguson Rifle, The
4. North to the Rails
5. Over on the Dry Side

Not trusting that list, because they got the order for Borden Chantry wrong, I decided to follow http://www.orderofbooks.com/authors/l...

1. Borden Chantry
2. Fair Blows The Wind
3. North to the Rails
4. Over on the Dry Side
5. Ferguson Rifle, The

However, the real order should be:

1. Fair Blows The Wind
2. Ferguson Rifle, The
3. Borden Chantry
4. North to the Rails
5. Over on the Dry Side

Aside from that, the book was stock L'Amour. Nothing really exciting or new. The main character, Ronan Chantry, lost his wife and son to death, and decided to head west to die himself. In the process, he meets up with a drifting gang, and they decide to ..., well, I'm not sure. Hang out, I guess. Then, along the way, they meet a lady and her son. She apparently knows of a treasure, so they head out looking for it. Of course, the Bad Guys come also looking for the treasure, cause problems, and you know the rest.

What makes this story interesting, actually, is the caves, and the hermit living in them. To me, this felt very unlike anything L'Amour has done up to this point. It felt very "un-western", and I found it quite imaginative. Everything else about the story was so "been there, done that", that I actually am having a hard time remembering many details. But the caves really stood out to me.

Overall, I liked the story, but I was bothered that it was the 2nd book in the Chantry series that I read out of chronological order, and the caves and the hermit living in them made the last 1/3 of the book much more enjoyable.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this book as much as Where the Long Grass Blows which I read earlier this year. I found it very slow in places, parts of the plot were unbelievable and there was a lot of repetition and aimless wandering. The Ferguson Rifle lacked the excitement of other books by this author (except for the fist fight at the end) and Chantry, being a well-educated, city man, lacked the masculine toughness that is usually found in L'Amour's male protagonists.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why this celebrated Western writer was so popular, and I enjoyed this tale of a man who has lost all who decides to challenge the West, but it also raised my cackles a few times. More than once I thought to myself, "Can we get on with this?" as the main character started replaying information that we already knew about, even a few times. The book certainly reflects the style of the time it was written (I might even call it old fashioned), and occasionally I was bothered by descriptions and comments on Native Americas.

[Lee McClain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this old-fashioned Western for its hero. He's nicknamed Scholar, and has had a career as a writer and professor, but of course, he's strong and macho and a good shot with his Ferguson Rifle. Great descriptions of the west. Almost every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. Lots to learn from the master of Western fiction.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of L'Amour's best - wanders around pretty aimlessly until the final third of the novel, to the point that it feels like the author didn't exactly know what to do himself. While this may make the story more real, it makes the narrative pretty weak.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronan Chantry searches for Montezuma's gold along with an Irish girl's father was killed after telling her about some landmarks to the treasure. But others want the gold.

[Dav · Rating 3 out of 5]

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The Ferguson Rifle
• by Louis L'Amour
(The Chantry book series, first published 1973, about 200 pages)

OVERVIEW:
(the long ago tale of)...gold (and treasure) that had once belonged to Montezuma. Stolen and cached in a church in Mexico, it was recovered by two army officers who fled north for the French settlements. Along the way one stabbed the other to death. The remaining officer was eventually killed by Plains Indians, but he buried the treasure just before he died.

Now Ronan Chantry, a handful of trappers, and an Irish girl whose father was killed after telling her a few vague landmarks are searching for the lost treasure. But they are not alone. The girl’s uncle, Rafen Falvey (a bad man), wants it, too.

•

The story concerns a treasure hunt in the early 19th century American West: the 200-year-old legend of Montezuma's loot. Also it details the development of "...the most efficient weapon of the century" (1770s), Ferguson's breech-loading rifle.

In about 1780 (during the War of Independence) Ronan Chantry was a young boy living in a cabin with his mother and hunting for their meals. After a chance encounter with major Ferguson of the British army, little Ronan is gifted with the inventor's new rifle to replace their old musket. The rapid reloading of the rifle, it's accuracy and decorative stock made it a prized possession.

Now, 30-year-old Ronan carries his legendary rifle with him as he heads into the dangers of the wild West (about 1805). He recently lost his beloved wife and son in a fire and has given up on his affluent life as a scholar, lecturer, etc in East Coast society. Ronan heads west across the Mississippi river into the plains where he takes up with a group of congenial trappers who sell furs to the Hudson Bay Company.

In their travels they: deal with hostile Indians and raiders; assist friendly tribes; encounter Spanish forces who are unaware of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the new American territory. The story has some propaganda, pitting early Americans against the hapless Indians.

The Chantry lineage is Irish and they're an educated, talented and cultured family. Ronan is dressed like a dandy, an outfit that sets him apart from the buckskin-clad trappers, but it impresses the Indians who take him for a great chief. Soon enough he prepares a hide and sews his own buckskins--saving his Eastern clothes for special occasions.

It's Ronan who finds the Irish lass Lucinda Falvey and the young boy Jorge. The trappers agree to help find her father's treasure and then to escort her north (well out of their way) to family who'll help her return to Ireland. In the nearby sandstone caves a recluse named Van Runkle has been searching about 10 years for this same treasure, but it's one of the trappers who locates it first, hidden in a cave marked with a Maltese cross. They spent considerable time trying to match the map clues to the current topography and imagining what the area looked like 200 years ago.

Lucinda is captured by her uncle and by Van Runkle, but Chantry and company rescue her. In the end Ronan and uncle Rafen settle things with a fist fight; knuckles and knives. After Rafen is stabbed (defeated) his miscreant men desert him. Rafen is described as "...a bad man, but a man of courage for all that." Ronan and the men ride off with Lucinda and her treasure. They'll trap as they travel north, escorting the girl and collecting the needed furs along the way.

•

Mostly well done and intriguing.
It's not clear what the treasure consists of, ornaments, coins and a ring are mentioned and all sacked up it was hauled by two horses. They don't share with Van Runkle, leaving only a few items that fell to the dirt--a consolation. The treasure is assumed to be Lucinda's, by way of her deceased father, but what right did he have to it? I'd agree with Van Runkle who said: "That there gold belongs to who finds it..."

.

The Chantry Books in Chronological Order

Fair Blows the Wind (1978)
Borden Chantry (1977)
North to the Rails (1971)
Over on the Dry Side (1975)
● The Ferguson Rifle (1971)



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