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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Arizona Argonauts," H. Bedford-Jones weaves a captivating tapestry of adventure and intrigue set against the stark, unforgiving landscape of early 20th-century Arizona. This novel marries vivid descriptions with a gripping narrative style, embodying the spirit of American pulp fiction. The book emerges as a significant contribution to the Western genre, employing rich characterizations and swashbuckling escapades that reflect the zeitgeist of post-war America, where dreams of gold and fortune coalesce with the harsh realities of life on the frontier. H. Bedford-Jones, often heralded as the 'King of the Pulps,' possessed an insatiable wanderlust that heavily informed his writings, drawn from his own experiences traveling across the American West. His familiarity with both the people and places of Arizona manifests in a vivid and authentic portrayal, illustrating how his personal history and adventurous spirit led him to craft this compelling narrative, intertwining the allure of treasure hunting with a profound examination of human nature in perilous circumstances. "Arizona Argonauts" is a must-read for enthusiasts of classic Americana and Western lore who appreciate a well-rounded blend of action, suspense, and psychological depth. Bedford-Jones's timeless narrative invites readers to traverse the rugged terrains of the past, where every turn promises excitement and danger, making it an essential addition to any literary collection. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Arizona Argonauts
Table of Contents
Introduction
In Arizona Argonauts, H. Bedford-Jones distills the stark contest between fortune and conscience into a frontier crucible where opportunity beckons as fiercely as danger, drawing driven seekers across sun-struck mesas and canyon-shadowed trails to test the mettle of their ambitions, the price of their loyalties, and the fragile promise of justice in a country whose vast silence magnifies every oath, deceit, and gamble until each choice—whether to stake a claim, back a partner, or face a gun—becomes a wager not merely on wealth but on the kind of person one dares to be when the horizon offers both liberty and reckoning.
Arizona Argonauts is a Western adventure by H. Bedford-Jones, a prolific voice of the early twentieth-century pulp tradition. Set against the deserts and mountain towns of Arizona, it embraces the classic conventions of the frontier tale—hard travel, contested claims, shifting alliances—while favoring swift action and clear stakes. The book emerged from the pulp era’s appetite for vivid, episodic storytelling, when magazines and inexpensive editions delivered high-velocity fiction to a broad audience. Without depending on exact historical annotation, the narrative situates readers in a recognizable Southwest, evoking boomtown edges and open-range hazards that frame the moral and material gambles animating its cast.
The premise turns on a new prospect that lures a knot of adventurers—argonauts in spirit if not in name—toward a chance at transformative gain. Bedford-Jones structures the approach in tightening circles: scouting for routes, feeling out partners, measuring rivals, and discovering that geography is only the first obstacle. Action sequences are crisp but never gratuitous, building from tense negotiations to sudden bursts of risk. The voice is direct, the style economical, and the tone resolute rather than cynical, letting danger register through consequence rather than gore. Readers encounter rugged momentum: campfire calculations, dust-stung chases, and decisions made under heat and scarcity.
Themes emerge through pressure rather than lecture. Ambition confronts conscience as characters weigh quick profits against the obligations forged by travel and trust. Law figures as both institution and idea, sometimes embodied in an under-resourced badge, sometimes in a personal code that refuses certain compromises. The land imposes a moral tempo of its own: distance, thirst, and fatigue narrow options until temperament becomes destiny. Bedford-Jones also probes the ambiguity of partnership, where loyalty can be a shield or a trap, and shows how rumor, reputation, and bluff act as currencies as real as dusted gold, shaping who leads, who follows, and who pays.
Part of the pleasure lies in the author’s craft. Bedford-Jones uses clean scene work and lean description to map terrain and motive with minimal fuss, cutting swiftly from reconnaissance to confrontation. Period detail is sparing but telling, enough to suggest supply problems, improvised logistics, and the practical intelligence needed to survive. Dialogue carries attitude without grandstanding, and reversals arrive from plausible misreadings rather than convenient coincidences. The result is a reading experience that feels brisk yet grounded, a journey of tactical choices and earned payoffs in which character is revealed under stress and the land’s physical facts keep the story honest.
Contemporary readers will recognize familiar currents beneath the saddle leather. The book’s portrait of boom-and-bust appetite, high-risk speculation, and opportunistic branding echoes cycles that recur in markets and migrations today. Its questions—what we owe collaborators, when to walk away from a bad deal, how to balance daring with care—remain unsettled in any era that rewards speed. The frontier here is not license but responsibility: open space exposes rather than absolves. By insisting that prosperity purchased without foresight corrodes the very community it requires, Arizona Argonauts speaks to modern debates about extraction, stewardship, and the costs of chasing advantage at any price.
Arizona Argonauts thus stands as a vigorous example of the pulp-western mode Bedford-Jones practiced with authority, channeling taut storytelling into a study of character under extreme incentive. It offers the satisfactions of a classic frontier adventure—movement, menace, ingenuity—without mistaking nostalgia for truth. The stakes are personal as well as monetary, the hazards immediate as well as strategic, and the victories, when they come, feel paid for. To read it now is to encounter a compact laboratory of risk and resolve, a reminder that the oldest American promise can inspire bravery and blindness in equal measure, and that judgment is part of the journey.
Synopsis
Set against the harsh expanses of the Arizona frontier, the narrative follows a cadre of restless seekers drawn by rumors of sudden wealth. Newly arrived drifters, seasoned trail hands, and cautious traders converge on a fledgling settlement where supply prices soar and gossip travels faster than water. Early chapters establish the practical obstacles of distance, scarcity, and uncertain order, while sketching the wary calculations that bind strangers into temporary cause. The lure of a strike promises solvency and stature, yet suspicion grows in equal measure. What begins as opportunity soon resembles a contest in which nerve, navigation, and prudence matter as much as muscle.
As interest intensifies, a provisional partnership forms—seekers with overlapping aims but divergent codes. Some prize method and maps; others rely on audacity and instinct. Arguments over routes and rations frame their first march into less-traveled country, where a misread trail or delayed water cache can be fatal. A brush with opportunists on the road reveals that competition will not remain abstract. The group’s tentative trust deepens through shared risk, yet frictions persist over leadership and the division of any future gains. The chapters balance frontier logistics with sudden flashes of violence, underscoring the costs of haste and the value of foresight.
Returning intermittently to the settlement, the story examines a civic order still under construction. Rules about possession and priority are invoked, interpreted, and occasionally ignored, depending on who holds the ledger or the gun. An influential local figure cultivates advantage through credit and favors, complicating any straightforward path to securing rights. Merchants hedge, teamsters negotiate protection, and newcomers weigh loyalties against survival. As word of a promising district spreads, rivals gather men, maps, and pack stock, preparing to move. The Argonauts recognize that winning the wilderness will mean little if they cannot defend or legitimize whatever they may discover upon return.
Midway, the party presses deeper into stark canyons and sun-struck mesas, guided by fragments of prior surveys and half-trusted recollections. Natural hazards—drought, mirage, and treacherous footing—become as threatening as human foes. A near disaster forces a recalibration of goals and the first serious proposal to split the company. An enigmatic companion appears increasingly pivotal, carrying knowledge that might shorten the search or imperil the entire venture. The narrative tightens around questions of reliance: who watches at night, who bears the heaviest loads, who keeps counsel. With each mile, the arithmetic of risk shifts, and motives sharpen into unavoidably hard choices.
The expedition’s persistence yields an inflection point: tangible indications that rumor rests on substance. The specifics remain spare and hard-won—signs in the rock, promising samples, an alignment of landmarks that matches prior hints. Elation is brief. The party must decide how to secure proof, conceal it long enough to act, and move it into recognized form before others pounce. Rivals are nearer than hoped, and the terrain offers both barricade and trap. The ensuing struggle emphasizes craft over spectacle—managing lines of sight, husbanding water, and weighing fidelity against fear—while withholding decisive outcomes and reserving the sharpest turns for later developments.
After the field contest, attention shifts to the fraught return and its legal, economic, and ethical aftermath. Some participants argue for formal partnership; others press for immediate liquidation or silence. The town’s modest institutions—offices, ledgers, and informal hearings—become stages where personal reputation carries the weight of law. Temporary alliances emerge among former antagonists, and deals are struck that preserve face while postponing final reckonings. A private decision by a central figure reshapes the balance, influencing who speaks for the group and on what terms. Emphasis falls on endurance and ingenuity, less in gunfire than in bargaining, patience, and restraint.
Throughout, the work treats the frontier less as backdrop than as crucible, testing conviction, cooperation, and appetite for risk. Without tipping final resolutions, it suggests that success entails compromises that blur easy distinctions between heroism and opportunism. The title’s Argonauts are less conquerors than custodians of fragile chances, constrained by weather, supply, and the limits of trust. H. Bedford-Jones crafts a brisk, practical tale of enterprise where wealth promises order yet beckons disorder, and where law trails necessity. Its enduring appeal lies in the measured portrayal of ambition under pressure and the recognition that fortune, once found, demands more than discovery to endure.
Historical Context
H. Bedford-Jones (1887–1949) was a Canadian-born, U.S.-based author whose historical adventures and westerns appeared widely in pulp magazines such as Blue Book, Adventure, and Argosy during the early twentieth century. Arizona Argonauts draws on the convention of “Argonauts,” a term popularly applied to nineteenth-century gold seekers in the American West. Bedford-Jones often set tales against verifiable frontiers and conflicts to heighten realism, and the Arizona borderlands—already central to U.S. expansion narratives—offered abundant material. Readers of his era were familiar with accounts of prospecting, stage routes, and territorial law, and the story’s milieu engages this documented world of mining camps, desert travel, and contested authority.
The geographic and political frame for Arizona in the mid-nineteenth century was shaped by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853–1854), which transferred what became southern Arizona from Mexico to the United States. The area first formed part of New Mexico Territory before Congress created Arizona Territory on February 24, 1863. The first territorial capital was established at Prescott in 1864, accompanied by Fort Whipple for military support. Territorial institutions—including a governor, a legislative assembly, federal courts, and the U.S. marshal service—extended American governance across dispersed settlements, mining districts, and ranches amid significant logistical hurdles.
Gold and silver discoveries drew migrants and investment. Placer finds at Gila City (1858) and the La Paz strike on the Colorado River (1862) sparked Arizona’s early rushes, followed by the 1863 discoveries at Rich Hill/Weaver and Wickenburg’s Vulture Mine—one of the territory’s most productive gold mines. Lynx Creek near Prescott also yielded significant placer gold in the 1860s. Miners from California and Sonora joined Americans from other states, organizing mining districts that set claim rules and local procedures. With scarce water and distant mills, prospectors relied on drywashing, arrastras, and later stamp mills, while fluctuating ore prices and freight costs shaped camp fortunes.
Travel and supply defined survival. The Southern Emigrant Trail via Yuma Crossing linked the Southwest to California, with the Pima Villages of the Akimel O’otham serving as critical resupply points for emigrants and freighters. The Butterfield Overland Mail (1858–1861) maintained stage stations across southern Arizona until the Civil War suspended service. Freight then moved along the Colorado River on steamboats operated by firms such as George A. Johnson & Company, reaching Yuma and upriver landings near mining camps like La Paz. Journeys across the Sonoran and Mojave deserts demanded careful water planning, with hazards including heat, sand, and exposed passes such as Apache Pass.
The American Civil War reshaped authority. Confederate leaders proclaimed “Arizona” in 1861, administering the southern portion of New Mexico Territory; a small Confederate force briefly occupied southern Arizona in early 1862. The Union’s California Column advanced east, winning skirmishes at Stanwix Station (March 1862) and Picacho Pass (April 1862), and reasserted federal control via Yuma and Tucson. Arizona Territory’s formal organization in 1863 followed these campaigns, with forts and volunteer units reestablishing routes and protecting settlements. Wartime disruptions thinned regular army presence at first, leaving travelers and camps exposed, then brought renewed garrisons that stabilized key corridors and mining districts.
Indigenous nations anchored the region’s human geography and politics. The Akimel O’otham (Pima), Tohono O’odham, and Maricopa cultivated river valleys and traded with travelers; the Quechan (Yuma) controlled the critical Colorado crossing. In uplands and border ranges, Apache groups, including the Chiricahua, contested U.S. and Mexican encroachments. The 1861 Bascom Affair at Apache Pass deepened hostilities with Cochise, and Fort Bowie was established in 1862 to secure that route. Through the 1860s–1870s, U.S. campaigns targeted raiding and resistance among Chiricahua, Yavapai, and Tonto Apache, often employing Indigenous scouts. These conflicts materially affected mining ventures, freighting, and settlement patterns.
Law and commerce evolved unevenly. Mining camps used miners’ courts, elected recorders, and ad hoc rules to resolve disputes until territorial courts and county sheriffs extended reach. The Arizona Miner newspaper began publishing at Prescott in 1864, reporting claims, legislation, and conflicts. Freighting companies, assay offices, and merchant houses supplied distant districts, while stage lines reconnected after the war. The Southern Pacific Railroad’s arrival at Yuma (1877) and Tucson (1880) soon transformed supply chains, prices, and policing. Even as markets expanded, robberies, rustling, and claim jumping persisted, defining the stakes for fortune-seekers in a landscape still adjusting to formal institutions.
Arizona Argonauts reflects these conditions by foregrounding prospectors, freighters, and camp society amid fragile jurisdiction and dangerous travel. The narrative terms and situations align with documented practices—mining district rules, reliance on river and desert routes, and the pressures created by wartime occupation and postwar stabilization. As with much early twentieth-century popular history and pulp adventure, the story prizes enterprise and mobility while situating characters within larger forces of territorial governance and Indigenous-settler conflict. In doing so, it echoes the period’s debates about law, risk, and community-building under severe environmental limits in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands.
Arizona Argonauts
CHAPTER I TWO PALMS
Piute Tompkins, sole owner and proprietor of what used to be the Oasis Saloon but was now the Two Palms House, let the front feet of his chair fall with a bang to the porch floor and deftly shot a stream of tobacco juice at an unfortunate lizard basking in the sunny sand of Main Street.
"That there Chinee[1]," he observed, with added profanity, "sure has got this here town flabbergasted[1q]!"
"Even so," agreed Deadoak Stevens, who was wont to agree with everyone. Deadoak was breaking the monotony of an aimless existence by roosting on the hotel veranda. "I wisht," he added wistfully, "I wisht that I could control myself as good as you, Piute! The way you pick off them lizards is a caution."
Piute waved the grateful topic aside. "That there Chinee, now," he reverted, stroking his grizzled mustache, "is a mystery. Ain't he? He is. Him, and that girl, and what in time they're a-doing here."
"Even so," echoed Deadoak, as he rolled a listless cigarette. "Who ever heard of a chink ownin' a autobile? Not me. Who ever heard of a chink havin' a purty daughter? Not me. Who ever heard of a chink goin' off into the sandy wastes like any other prospector? Not me. I'm plumb beat, Piute!"
"Uh-huh," grunted Piute Tomkins. "Pretty near time for him to be shovin' out as per usual, too. He was askin' about the way to Morongo Valley at breakfast, so I reckon him an' the gorl is headin' north this mornin'."
The two gentlemen fell silent, gazing hopefully at the listless waste of Main Street as though waiting for some miracle to cause that desert to blossom as the rose. At either side of the porch, rattled and crackled in the morning breeze the brownish and unhappy-looking palms which had given the city its present name. They were nearly ten feet in height, those palms, and men came from miles around to gaze upon them. It was those two palms that had started Piute Tomkins in the orchard business, which now promised to waken the adjacent countryside to blooming prosperity.
