First published in 1904. Ridgwell Cullum was a pseudonym used by British writer Sidney Groves Burghard (1867-1943). After joining the goldrush in the Transvaal in South Africa aged 17, he then travelled to another goldrush in the Yukon in Canada and spent several years cattle-ranching in Montana. His first novel, 'The Devil's Keg' (1903) proved a success and he settled in England and went on to write a large number of adventure novels, most set in sparsely populated areas of the USA and Canada.