The Mysterious Rider

by Zane Grey

A romantic adventure featuring Hell Bent Wade, a good man with a violent temper.  Now he’s a wandering gunfighter, one who turns up one day at Bellhounds Ranch.  Through helping right some wrongs, Wade soon finds that he can have not only peace, but redemption

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Classics, Romance, Ebooks

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Pearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and twisting plot. Full of good description, character development and cowboy action. Old man Bill, Hell Bent Wade Buster Jack, Wils Moore and the beautiful Columbine are the main characters on the White Slides Ranch novel by the masterful Zane Grey. Western writing at it's finest.

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love Zane Grey, but not this one. Let me summarize:

columbine: I have to marry Jack! I must for my father
Wils: But I love you
Columbine: I can never marry Jack! It would be wrong! I love you!

twenty pages later:

Columbine: I have to marry Jack! I must for my father!
Wils: But why Columbine? It will ruin you! I love you!
Columbine: I'll never marry Jack! It'll ruin me! I love you!

twenty pages later:
you get the idea.


Also twenty pages of Bent hunting and description of everything he sees in between every "I must marry Jack".

I spent the whole book hoping Bill and Jack died an ugly death. I got half of it.

[Barry Medlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read with wonderful writing!

[Dav · Rating 4 out of 5]

.


The Mysterious Rider

• by Zane Gray (first published 1919)

Late 1800s.
The story of "Collie", Columbine Bellounds, named after the flower. She grew up on her adopted father's Colorado ranch, White Slides along with cowboy-ranch hand Wilson Moore (Wils) who loves her and Buster Jack the owner's son who endlessly harassed her. Collie was a young child when she was found in the wild, asleep among the Columbine flowers--a survivor from a wagon train attacked by Indians.

The wealthy and admired rancher Bill Bellounds agrees to adopt the girl and raise her as his own. From about age 12 to 16 (4 years) she was sent to Denver for boarding school. Now age 19 she's the only woman on the ranch and her adopted dad (Bill) tells her he wants her to marry his ne'er-do-well son Buster Jack and help straighten him out. The two are not related. Bill (dad) is aging and doesn't want to divide up all his ranch lands between his two heirs, so what could be better--have them marry one another.

The mystery: where has ne'er-do-well Jack been for the past 3 years. Someplace humiliating, "It was hell," says Jack, a place Jack hopes no one finds out about. It's a place dad supposedly sent him to hopefully see Jack reformed. Nope. Buster Jack is still an incompetent, crooked, hothead who busts up everything he monkeys with. Bill (dad) is a fool where his son is concerned, making Buster Jack ranch foreman. Straightaway ranch hands start quitting, a horse is hurt and hounds lost.

It was just prison where Jack stewed for 3 years, returning home unreformed and bad as ever.

Now Bill is in desperate need of good ranch hands, especially a hunter to train the hounds, track and kill the wolves, lions and coyots etc that are decimating his herds. Hell-Bent Ben Wade is such a man, a jack-of-all-trades who heads for the ranch seeking work. Wade has a heart of gold and selflessly helps those in need, but "hell" seems to dog his trail; where he goes trouble often follows.

Wade's secret shame is his mistreatment of his wife Lucy and his baby daughter and the man he killed who turned out to be innocent. Many years ago Wade was a jealous fool, his suspicion and absence driving his wife away. When he learned the truth and went after Lucy and his baby girl he heard the news of the wagon train attack. As Wade makes his way on horseback towards Bill's ranch, plenty of gossips fill him in on all the doings at the White Slides Ranch. Hearing the tale of Columbine (Collie), the time and location she was found, he suspects the nineteen-year-old is indeed his lost baby girl.

Author Zane Gray seems determined to make his long-suffering protagonist Collie endlessly care about Jack, her POS step-brother. Collie is a young woman with a misguided loyalty to the father figure who raised her (Bill). Out of respect, a sense of duty or recompense for adopting her, Collie promises to marry dad's bent son (Buster Jack) who she fears and loathes.

When alchi Jack arrives thoroughly drunk on the day of the wedding, dad-Bill calls it off, to Collie's great relief. She seems to come to her senses and finally vows her loyalty to her beau, the ranch hand Wils. Jack behaves (for a while) in hope of dad again forcing Collie to marry him. When Jack discovers she's in love with Wils, he reverts to his evil ways. Collie's unbelievable response is to again plan to marry the hateful Jack and pretend to love him in order to save him from his vices. Since he behaved when he thought she wanted him, maybe he'd choose to be good if she married him.

What's the concern for this criminal with an evil nature who tormented Collie since she was a child?

Jack is just bad. He tried to beat convalescing Wils to death, making him a cripple with a clubfoot who now uses a cane. Dad's missing cattle are being rustled by Jack; stealing from his own father. Since Wils has captured Collie's love, Jack tries to frame him as the cattle rustler, leaving imprints in the dirt that look like Wils' cane and horse.

When Ben Wade is hired at the ranch he doesn't tell Collie that he's her missing dad, since she so loves her adopted father Bill. Ben does make it a priority to keep her safe. He also believes bad folk can repent and change their ways; he did. So Ben Wade tries to encourage Jack to turn over a new leaf, choose to be an honorable man and even trys scaring him straight with genuine death threats. Nope! Jack is just bad to the bone. Wade believes this is why God led him here--to prevent his kind-hearted daughter from being forced to marry the devil. "... I'd see Jack in hell before I'd let Columbine marry him," Ben vows.

In the end Ben Wade lives up to his two monikers. As Heaven-Sent Wade he doctors Wils back to health, trains the hounds and stops the cattle-killing predators. Also he helps others in need using his many talents. As Hell-Bent Wade he confronts the rustlers & killers working with Buster Jack--ending them when they draw on him. Ben Wade trys to persuade Bill Bellounds to listen to reason (he doesn't). Bill just can't see that his criminal son (Jack) would ruin Collie's life if they married. Wade even tells Bill his life story ending with the secret that Collie is his long-lost daughter.

As a last resort Ben Wade confronts Jack, challenging him to a gunfight. For whatever reason Ben lets Jack fire first (a lethal shot). Ben is able to return fire killing Jack the bastard. With his son dead, Bill's judgement seems to clear up. He hires Wils back as ranch foreman and Collie gets to marry her beau. Bill even reveals the truth, Ben being Columbine's long lost dad and she visits Ben Wade's grave site.


.

Okay the story was written a hundred years ago using lots of time period slang, but is easy enough to decipher and follow.

It's tuff to care about Collie with her idiotic concern for the evil Jack, which is really the author's doing--making his long-suffering protagonist reason like a moron.


A couple examples of the somewhat obscure writing:

"Bill's daughter, an' she makes up fer-fer-wal, fer a lot we hev to stand."

"Lemme sit hyar an' shoot the eyes outen this-lyin' pup..."

..

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feb 6, 2024: beautiful 103-year-old Grosset & Dunlap copy from a Little Free Library. Same vintage as many books in my ancestral “boy-book” library.

After the first few pages it was obvious how this tale was going to end, and it was no literary gem, so I considered adding it to the "abandoned" list. But credit inertia or maybe even sloth . . . the next book I NEED to read wasn't shouting my name, so on we pressed. And yes, the ultimate end was predictable, but how we got there was not . . . credit the "mysterious rider" of the title.

The Wonderful World Wide Web says Zane Grey wrote 85 books that have been turned into 112 films, and I'm pretty sure he wrote a bunch of magazine stories, too, because that's what writers of his vintage and subject matter did. But boy, did he churn out a leafy word salad in this book. Never has so much scenic description adorned so thin a plot. There were SO MANY ADJECTIVES in every scene that I stopped trying to build a mental picture. Check, interesting light. Check, vivid hues on the mountains. Check, floral tributes on all sides. Check, etc, etc, etc.

Characters -- a handful of cowboys, a rancher, his ne'er-do-well son, a foundling girl, and the mysterious stranger (not counting "extras") -- were sometimes cardboard, other times inconsistently rendered. One wondered at times how some of the characters could be so DENSE. Clueless? Yes!

Horses and dogs played significant roles. Much anthropomorphism at work here, but who are we to quibble?

Best part of the experience -- being reminded how much our culture and literary styles have changed since this was written 100+ years ago. It was a good exercise.

Will not seek out another Zane Grey. But am happy to have this lovely old copy on the shelf for others to read.

Note: why in the world would anyone choose to name a character Belllounds? Yes, that is a triple-L in the middle -- and I'm going to guess that it was a typo on first reference that was carried throughout.

4/8/25: Reviewing the lake-house library, I find I need to add a few more volumes from my “owned-unread” shelf so I have more to read here—and I probably should forget the idea expressed above about having books on the SHELF for others to read. They don’t, so it’s all about ME!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with Grey's other books, his description of magnificent outdoor splendor develops the atmosphere of this novel about conflict and romance on a Colorado cattle ranch. Strangely enough the Mysterious Rider does not initially appear until the stage is set and other characters are introduced. Consequently, the late arrival helps the reader know the importance of the Rider's role in this novel and how he ultimately relates to each character and influences their destiny in his brief time with them. This book is, therefore, a subtle reiteration of Donne's statement that "no man is an island," and whether for good or bad, all human beings have a significant affect on each person to whom they associate. To me, this was the strongest message in this enduring western tale. Furthermore, the lessons and virtues taught in this novel are timeless such as the Rider's repeated quote from the New Testament that "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." To some, the admonitions offered are old-fashioned drivel from an early 20th century writer, but for me it was a reminder of why we are here.

[Clayton Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zane Grey knows how to paint the West:

"A dreamy roar of water rushing over rocks rang in the traveler's ear. It receded at times, then grew louder. Presently the forest shade ahead lightened and he rode out into a wide space where green moss and flags and flowers surrounded a wonderful spring-hole. Sunset gleams shone through the trees to color the wide, round pool. It was shallow all along the margin, with a deep, large green hole in the middle, where the water boiled up. Trout were feeding on gnats and playing on the surface, and some big ones left wakes behind them as they sped to deeper water. Wade had an appreciative eye for all this beauty, his gaze lingering longest upon the flowers. 'Wild woods is the place for me,' he soliloquized, as the cool wind fanned his cheeks and the sweet tang of evergreen tingled his nostrils."

[Jason Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A typical Western from a great author. Nothing spectacular except for a major plot twist at the end of the story. I must also ask, who the heck names their child Columbine? With the modern hindsight, it's a rather morbid sounding name now. But I digress, this book is 100 years old.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying read from Zane Grey. Columbines figure greatly, along with Hell Bent Wade, a man with a gift of seeing the future and making himself part of it.

[Joanne N. Dorsett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Western Story!

This is a western story with a lot of twists and turns! It deals with a lot of different emotions!

[Tom Kepler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mysterious Rider is a more complex novel about redemption. Still a western romance, the plot centers around a young woman, an orphan named Columbine, who is entrapped by her allegiances into considering marriage to the drunkard son of her adopted father.

"Hell Bent Wade" is the mysterious rider, a man with a veiled past who has spent his life helping others--usually with the business end of his pistol, to the detriment of the evil-doers.

The novel is more complex in its conflicts, though, than many of Grey's romances. Rancher Bill Belllounds is a good man who is blinded by his love for his son. Hell Bent Wade is a good man who has done bad things. Columbine is a good young woman who is conflicted between her needs and the needs of her adoptive father. Jack Belllounds is the weak son who is hot and cold on morality. The love interest, Wilson Moore, loves as only a cowboy can--silently worshipping the rancher's daughter.

If I didn't have faith that Zane Grey would work everything out in the end, I'd fear that the realists or naturalists would prevail and everything would go to hell in the end--death, grief and suffering, and waste of life. However, Grey believes in the hero, and in the end like Beowulf meeting Grendel, the warrior comes to the aid of the people.

A Note About Zane Grey:

Zane Grey wrote his stories for the people who bought them. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, preferably male, are the protagonists. Woman are bosom-clutching individuals, more emotionally fragile than men--strong but only in their own female way. Racial and ethnic minorities are of lesser stature than the WASP main characters. Grey's romanticized vision of the wild west, unfortunately, did not include the visionary equality of gender, race, or cultural diversity. He was a man of his times--and those times had their issues.

I have written earlier of Zane Grey that I have a love/hate relationship with his writing. I choose to accept, understand, and forgive--something he and many of his time were not able to do.

At Project Gutenberg, this novel is available as a free ebook: The Mysterious Stranger .

[David Roark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good... His usual descriptive style was enjoyed, and the development of the characters. His way of depicting Wade I thought was especially interesting, and how he shows how Wade's dark premonitions build up to the climax of the story. "Thus she understood him. Love was the food of life, and hope was its spirituality, and beauty was its reward to the seeing eye. Wade had lived these great virtues, even while he had earned a tragic name."

[Bruce Holmstrom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grey had a way with words that at times was quite beautiful, but some of the characters in this book were often maddeningly stupid, and the narrative got very repetitive. Memo to Columbine and Bill, get a freaking clue, you idiots.

[Seth Whitfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

get. to. the. point. O... My... Word...

[Gary Sites · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my 18th Zane Grey novel. I've loved them all, but not this one. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it just didn't do much for me.

[Jeff Cliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty typical spaghetti western. You could probably write this kind of book with GPT3 now and it would be *very* tough to know whether a human being wrote it.

It was, however, a glimpse into a world of yore - a world without social media, without computers, without cellphone cameras, without police (more than the local sheriff and his toughs) where law an order was roughly people living up to their word. A world where you couldn't expect everyone around you to be literate. A world of hard work, hard men and hard times. A world where you had to reiterate what was going on to everyone because there was no central place to check for updates - consequently there was a lot of retelling of stories from people's different points of view, which were very divergent from eachother.

While there was the casual racism that you'd expect from such a time clearly present, the author was clearly a bleeding heart type - the Utes had to be driven off the land *first*, through good will negotiating before the story could take place, thus keeping the moral consequences from everyone being on land that was effectively native land only a generation or two prior from affecting the story. There were no africans except by reference. This was a story by whites, about whites, concerning their internal drama alone. About good and evil in the heart of the white man - phrased in terms of the white vs the not so white. Also notably absent was any mention of the civil war, which would have also taken place about a generation prior and *you'd think* would have impacted....someone's life, at some point in the storyline yet didn't seem to. It's like it never happened.

Either way - good enough for a bedtime read, but don't expect any kind of deep insight from this book.

Project Gutenberg has this one by the way.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good Western story in which a kind and generous rancher raises a handsome, spoiled, cowardly, deceitful, bad son, and adopts a baby girl found by miners after an Indian attack on a wagon train. The girl grows into a beautiful, loyal, loving, principled young woman, who feels she must pay back her dad for all the love and care he gave her. She and the evil son have been separated for a number of years due to schooling and other circumstances, and before Son comes home, Dad exacts a promise from her to marry his boy, because he believes only she can turn him around. Besides the obvious problem that this will absolutely ruin her life, she is in love with an honest, hardworking cowboy. (I did call her many names as she pondered this decision.) That stage is set before we meet "The Mysterious Stranger," known as "Hell-Bent" Wade, who has a habit of being compelled to turn up in places where he is able to help people with wise counsel, the story of his own life, and sometimes a little application of his awesome gunslinging talent. He has a dubious past, and trouble seems to follow in his wake. First published in 1921, I listened to this novel as a free download from Librivox.org, read by a very talented reader. (Several reviewers complained about the "cowboy talk" and "bad grammar;" all of that disappears when you listen to it read aloud.)

[Gerald Matzke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic example of a Wild West story with a love story thrown in to bind all the action together. An infant girl is found in the wilderness after Indians had attacked a wagon train. The child is raised by a generous, independent rancher along with his own no-good son. The rancher’s hope is that his natural son and the foundling girl will one day marry and continue his legacy. What happens becomes a complicated love triangle that will require some paternal intervention in order to finally come to a satisfactory resolution. The telling of the story includes Grey’s signature descriptions of the beauty of the Colorado landscapes from the plains to the mountains, sunrises and sunsets.

[Rick Farlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Zane Grey classic! Wade finds his missing daughter after many years and eventually reveals the truth about her, but only after a lot of western drama and action. The storyline is well written and character development was excellent.

One of the things that I really enjoy about Gray’s writing is how he is so descriptive with setting up the scenes of the western frontier. He always paints the landscape, beautifully, prior to placing his characters into the storyline… Great book and highly recommended!

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t believe I have ever read a Zane Grey book before, so I was expecting something less. But I was blown away by the author’s apparent expert intuition of human nature as depicted in his characters. He also had a sixth sense for all things in the natural world as shown in the beautiful descriptions. The plot was excellent and multifaceted. In other words there was more than one reason to keep reading. Interestingly, when I looked up this author on Wikipedia, I found that he had been a dentist.

[Krishl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t read many westerns since the few I tried back in the 70s. About one chapter into the book, I started wondering if I had accidentally picked out a romance novel to read. I read some reviews here and decided to carry on. The romance bits were sometimes hard to take, but I still enjoyed it. I think I’ll find a copy of Riders of the Purple Sage and read that, and take care of my Zane Grey commitment.

[Spike · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to evoking western landscapes, nobody has done it better than Zane Grey. You can smell the tang of the sage, see the softly contoured foothills in the fading twilight. He gets everything right. And Hell-bent Wade is one of the greatest characters of not only the western genre, but of fiction in general. Heroic, quiet. Strong, yet haunted. Moral, but not without flaws--not without his own special darkness.
Highly recommended.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great romantic western tale set on a Colorado cattle ranch. Read when I was a kid, junior high age, more or less. I remember it as awesome. An orphan girl named Columbine has been raised by the rancher who expects her to marry his no-good son. But she loves Wils Moore, a cattle hand. Into this situation comes the Mysterious Rider, "Hell-Bent" Wade.

[Leigh Weilandich costello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Western Romance

This is a book I had read long ago. Zane Grey describes a land of wildness, wilderness, deep romance, and of justice. I read this story with the the light of adolescent ideals. I reread this story with the light of maturity. I enjoyed it more having already lived much of my life.

[Richard Koerner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I really enjoy Zane Grey. Although they are stories of the West and from the past, they still ring true. I enjoyed seeing the simple people representing good and innocence and the people who represent imperfection turning into evil. Good always wins and today, I needed that ending.

[Richard Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

intensely grey

Zane Grey uses words to paint pictures of the West he visited and loved. He is elegant in his style and generous with his visions. To me, the story suffers from his endless descriptions of the setting of each scene. Brand, Mulford or Lane would have stripped away much of the scene painting and given the reader a more direct story.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written almost a hundred years ago, it moves a bit slower than more modern westerns. But the good plot and characters were a refresh change from today's fast moving works that rely on fast action rather than a good story line.

[Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zane Grey - One of the Best

A story of love lost, love found and redemption. This is The Mysterious Rider. well-being Wade has spent his life getting rid of evil to make amends for his past, but little does he know where his last stand will take him.

[Rod Innis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read quite a number of Zane Grey books. I don't remember the names of all of them but they are stories of the old west and I enjoy them. This one was a good story. I have several more on my bookshelves and I plan to read at least some of them next year.

[Douglas Wingert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, good character development with lots of empathy, way more than you would expect of western story. The story would be evident in any period and time frame. I enjoyed it a great deal.