Monk ridges Sagebrush Smith pretty hard with a litany of cowboy pejoratives that give some insights into young Lester Dent’s early reading material.

In Chapter 7 – Detour, Monk and Ham call Sagebrush Smith various nicknames:

“What’s eatin’ you, Jesse James?”

James Boys Weekly, May 8, 1903

“I’ll tell you something Two-gun Terror,”

Red Book April 1918

Monk scowled. “Listen, Six-Shooter Sam,”

Buffalo Bill Stories, January 18, 1902

“There’ll be that many on the one we ride to New York, Cole Younger

James Boys Weekly, April 24, 1903

Sagebrush Smith is no stranger to these names: “Another thing,” he gritted, “you better quit callin’ me them wild west names and givin’ me orders!”

Lester Dent is pulling back the curtain a little and showing something of his upbringing in the wilds of Wyoming. Dent himself remarks about the stack of magazines in the cowboy bunkhouse.

“There is probably no institution of mankind better equipped with reading matter than the cowboy bunk house. The height of the stack of magazines in the corner will vary with the seasons, shrinking in the winter when they are handy for starting fires, but usually it ranges around shoulder high.”