Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1906-07-09
BLOOD-AND-TH THUNDER
AS A PROFESSION
HOW DIME NOVELS ARE MANU-
FACTuRED.
GREAT PRODUCER DIES
After Writing Hundreds of "YeIIow
Backs" Col. H. X. Shackelford
uccumbs-Lecturer and Preacher
on the Side-Less Blood and Thun-
der Now.

A brief dispatch in the newspapers
few days ago announced the death
of Colonel H. K Shackelford of Balm
bridge, Ca, man known to few by
this title, but famous among a GER
tain class of readers the country
over as Hal Standish, author of
Fred Fearnot, Old Sleuth and other
stories of adventure. He had for
thirty-ive years welded a pen that
dripped gore and traced innumerable
thrills upon the excited fancy of
American youth morbibly hungry for
tales of improbable performances by
mythical heroes. When not engaged
in literary pursuits, Colonel Shackel-
ford on occasion lectured, filled a pull
pit as Baptist minister or delivered
democratic campaign speeches. He
died at the age of IS.
What thity-fve years of labor in
the writing of these blood-and-thun-
der tales means can scarcely be ap-
preciated bw the average person. Col
onel Shackelford had penned millions
of words, aggregating hundreds of
volumes of fiction. While lacking
the merit to entitle them to rank as
literature, his stories were ingenious
in their composition and possessed
the interest necessary to compel their
perusal by large class. Incidental
ly he had slain more men with his
pen than fell in battle during the
Spanish-American war
The Last of an Old-Time School.
Colonel Shackelford was one of
the last of an old-time school of writ
ers that enjoyed its greatest pros
perity twenty years ago In those
days there were a half dozen large
publishing houses in this country
that subsisted almost exclusively up
on the returns from sale of what the
English call penny dreadfuls,' hair
raising narratives of Indian fights,
battles between detectives and des-
perate criminals, and life in western
mining camps There are few mid
die aged men today who cannot re-
call when they carried a ragged
"Beadle & Adams Dime Library in
their pistol pockets, Selling every
opportunity to surreptitiously scan its
fearful but fascinating pages. Hal
Standish, Oil Coomes, Captain Mayne
Reid, Ned Buntline, Joseph E. Bad
ger. Jr., Old Sleuth, Nick Carter,
Buckskin Sam and Colonel Prentiss
Ingraham were the authors OF that
day whose names on the title pages
of library were a guarantee of
Nightmares to the boy reader. In
a few instances these were the true
names of the writer's. AS time pass
ed death thinned the ranks of the
"thrillers,' but their places were i'm
mediately taken by imitators and
their names continued to adOrn the
covers of the pocket novel.
The greatest of the old-time pro
fessionaI blood-curdlers, and one of
the number that habitually wrote I'M
der their own names, was Colonel
Prentiss Ingraham, who died two
years ago. Colonel Ihgraham was
an ex-Confederate officer, an adven-
turer in many chimes, highly cultured
and possessed Of a marvellous ima3i-
nation. 1t was his boast that he had
written more than LOO complete
tales of adventure, varying in length
from the conventional short story to
volumes of several hundred pages. He,
more nearly than any of his contem-
oraries, approached a high literary
standard in his work. To the day OF
his death he was on the pay roll OF
New York firm of publishers, though
the infirmities of old age had practi-
caIly retired him from active service
several years before. One of his last
efforts was to write, in characteristic
dine novel style, an account OF the
exploits and death of the notorious
western bandit, Tracy, for the New
York Journal.
He Knew of What He Wrote.
Colonel Ingraham was one of the
very few writer's of his class who had
ever witnessed such scenes as
wee described and had
visited the localities told of. The
larger number of Wild West writers
were eastern men, who had never
seen the prairies, and had never seen
an Indian other than the innocuous
variety adjoining cigar stores. One
of the most successful writer's of
western tales was a New Yorker who
had never been outside of the state,
and for the last twenty years of his
life never visited any part OF his
native city north of Twenty-third st.
By no meane blind to the peculiar
l.nd rnr,nnu-hnt fndifferpnf nnalitV of