In Lawrenceville he wrote his name J. Montague Smith and lived up to his reputation as a society butterfly. But when a net of suspicious circumstances closed about him and he was obliged to leave his native town and begin life over again in the far West he called himself John Smith and tried to meet the requirements of the name. He began work in a humble way on an engineering project and in short order worked up to a place of importance. Then the past rises up to confront him and to square himself before the law and in the eyes of the girl he loves, he determines to go back and face it (Book Review Digest, Vol. 11, pp 298-299).

Francis Lynde (1856-1930) was a prolific writer, with short fiction appearing in magazines like Munsey’s as early as 1894. A decade later, he began a long relationship with The Popular Magazine.

By 1910, when The Taming of Red Butte Western was published by Scribner’s, he’d already published six novels, plus a couple dozen titles in the magazines. In later years, three of his stories would find their way to film.