Munsey's Magazine, August 1926

# "Open Range" by George M. Johnson

This romantic novelette, set in the western frontier, concerns Virginia Stirling, an eastern woman who inherits the Bar Y Bar ranch and stocks it with sheep, defying local cattlemen's territorial claims over the open range. When a cattle-dominated consortium declares war on sheep growers, Virginia refuses to comply with their demands, instead sending three hundred head onto disputed grazing lands. Cattlemen retaliate by stampeding her flock over a canyon cliff, killing the animals. Buck Strachan, a cattleman's son who loves Virginia but cannot embrace sheep ranching, stands conflicted between his loyalty to her and his associates.

The story introduces Larry Wilson, a skilled gunslinger and former cowboy traveling the range, who encounters hostile cattlemen enforcing their grazing monopoly. When confronted and ordered away, Wilson demonstrates superior marksmanship and intimidates the antagonist, establishing himself as a formidable character whose role in the escalating conflict remains to unfold.