James B. Hendryx
James B. Hendryx
James Beardsley Hendryx was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the son of the owner and publisher of the local newspaper. He grew up with the novelist Sinclair Lewis. As a boy, Hendryx and his friends were amateur woodsmen, skilled at hunting, fishing, trapping, swimming, and riding boxcars. In 1899 Hendryx studied law at the University of Minnesota (which he paid for in part by running weekly poker games), but he left after one year and decided to travel the country. Before he was out of his 20s he had worked several jobs, including selling hardware and life insurance, buying bark for a tannery in Kentucky, running levels on a proposed electric railway in Ohio, book-keeping for a sheep-shearing plant, punching cattle on several big spreads in Montana and Saskatchewan. While in Montana, he met two notorious outlaws, Kid and Lonny Curry, members of the Wild Bunch who were hiding out in the mountains. In 1898 Hendryx and a friend took $1,400 in poker winnings and went to pan gold in the Yukon. They found that they had arrived too late into the gold rush: their claims were poor and the cost of living in the Yukon too high. After 14 months, he took a position on a salmon boat and landed in Vancouver, spent another year punching cattle, and then drifted to Cincinnati where his father was editing a newspaper. Hendryx got a job writing feature stories for a different newspaper, then sold his first piece of fiction and quit working to become a full-time writer. His first novel, The Promise, was published in 1915. He married and in 1921 he bought 300 acres of forest land on Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan, settling in the former resort hotel. Over the next 30 years he wrote more than 70 novels and many short stories of outdoor adventure. Many of his stories were serialized in "The American Boy". Although he wrote primarily as a means to spend most of his time hunting and fishing, he was a careful craftsman. He made at least one trip each year to Ottawa to consult with authorities of the Royal Canadian Mounted in Ottawa and to get new maps of the wilderness areas so he could be accurate in his fiction.
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Featured books
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- Image source: Open LibraryTP
The Promise
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTW
The way of the North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTS
The stampeders
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTG
The gold girl
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTC
The Challenge of the North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTG
The Gun-Brand
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTT
The Texan
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTG
The Gun-Brand
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTT
The Texan
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTC
The Challenge of the North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTT
The Texan (A Story of the Cattle Country)
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTT
The Texan A Story of the Cattle Country
cover - Image source: Open LibraryOO
Outlaws of Halfaday creek
cover - Image source: Open LibraryBO
Blood or the North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryMO
Man of the North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryAT
At the foot of the rainbow
cover - Image source: Open LibraryWG
Without gloves
cover - Image source: Open LibraryCM
Connie Morgan in the cattle country
cover - Image source: Open LibraryN
North
cover - Image source: Open LibraryCM
Connie Morgan in the fur country
cover - Image source: Open LibraryPF
Prairie flowers
cover - Image source: Open LibraryTG
The gold girl
cover - Image source: Open LibraryPF
Prairie flowers
cover - Image source: Open LibraryCM
Connie Morgan in the lumber camps
cover
Works in catalog
Quick navigation into the work-level grouping pages behind the featured books.
- Open Work
The Promise
- Open Work
The way of the North
- Open Work
The stampeders
- Open Work
The gold girl
- Open Work
The Challenge of the North
- Open Work
The Gun-Brand
- Open Work
The Texan
- Open Work
The Gun-Brand
- Open Work
The Texan
- Open Work
The Challenge of the North
- Open Work
The Texan (A Story of the Cattle Country)
- Open Work
The Texan A Story of the Cattle Country
- Open Work
Outlaws of Halfaday creek
- Open Work
Blood or the North
- Open Work
Man of the North
- Open Work
At the foot of the rainbow
- Open Work
Without gloves
- Open Work
Connie Morgan in the cattle country
- Open Work
North
- Open Work
Connie Morgan in the fur country
- Open Work
Prairie flowers
- Open Work
The gold girl
- Open Work
Prairie flowers
- Open Work
Connie Morgan in the lumber camps
