Young's first published story was "The Lady's Picture", in "The Cavalier" magazine, in March 1913. Gordon Young began writing fiction for the magazine "Adventure" in 1917. Young's first stories for "Adventure" were a series of crime thrillers about a gun-wielding gambler, Don Everhard. Magazine historian Robert Sampson argued the Don Everhard stories influenced later writers of Hardboiled crime fiction such as Carroll John Daly. Young soon became one of the most popular of Arthur Sullivant Hoffman's roster of authors for "Adventure". He followed the Everhard stories with a series of South Seas tales about Hurricane Williams, an adventurer who shuns "civilized" society. Young's novel, "Days of '49" (1925), a historical narrative about the settlement of California during the Gold Rush, was well received by contemporary reviewers. James Oliver Curwood declared that "Days of '49" was "the best book he had read for ten years", while Edwin Bjorkman compared Young's work to that of Walter Scott. "Huroc the Avenger" is a historical adventure set in the seventeenth century, and revolves around the titular hero's quest for revenge against a ruthless Venetian trading family.