Perhaps the same thing that Mark and his older friend Gaynor have searched for for ten years. "Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges -- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!" Will Mark find lost treasure, or sudden death? Jackson Gregory was a California schoolteacher before turning to writing. He first appeared in Adventure in 1915, and became a regular in Western Story. He did mysteries, fantasy, and south sea adventure, but wrote mainly westerns, producing several per year till his death in 1943. As his dustjacket copy put it: "Mr. Gregory has won a place as one of the most entertaining and successful American storytellers. The backgrounds of his tales are authentic for he 'lives his stories' by locating in the place where the plot is laid and becoming for the time a native son."

Author Biography

Jackson Gregory (1882 - 1943) was an American teacher, journalist, and writer. Jackson was born in Salinas, California, the son of Monterey county attorney Durrell Stokes Gregory (1825 - 1889) and Amelia (Hartnell) and was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.L. in 1906. Jackson began his career as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco. He later served as a principal at a high school in Truckee, where he met his future wife, Lotus McGlashan. They were wed December 20, 1910 and the couple would have two sons. Jackson then became a journalist, working in Illinois, Texas, and New York. When their first son was born in 1917, the family settled in Auburn, California, where Jackson became a prolific writer of western and detective stories. Fifteen years later the couple moved to Pasadena, where they were divorced. Jackson then moved in with his brother Edward, who was living in Auburn. He died there June 12, 1943, while working on a novel titled The Hermit of Thunder King. Jackson Gregory authored more than 40 fiction novels and a number of short stories. Several of his tales were used as the basis of films released between 1916 and 1944, including The Man from Painted Post (1917).