"IN LOVE WITH A THIEF, A LIAR, AND A SCOUNDREL" by Lin Stone is a new book, and a new kind of book that has just been published by Browzer Books.

Magi Dwight found her soul mate in a young man both rebellious and proud. Finding him on an American trout stream was like falling down in ice cold water. Here at last was a man that understood her.

Or did he understand her too well? Magi's chaperones and friends were frightened by this young savage that was claiming more and more of her trust, faith and love. They began to believe the evidence declaring Crumbs was a thief, a liar, and a scoundrel, but Magi steadfastly refused to believe the fast-mounting evidence even when it was both obvious and overpowering. "You just don't understand unrestrained spirits like he and I are."

She stood behind Crumbs even when the robberies began and the sheriff came screaming down on his trail like 6 kinds of bloodhound. "It's okay, they can't prove a thing," Crumbs told her.

Crumbs Colmeny was an unrestrained spirit, bound by no law that didn't make sense to him or play fair with his friends. "It's different in America. What's right over in England isn't necessarily right in America. I'm expected to steal from the big miners over here; after all, I'm a highgrader. All the miners do it. The district attorney is the biggest buyer of stolen goods in the county."
Magi Dwight found one after another of her protective walls falling away in her liberation process until at last she had to ask herself, is there any real right and wrong, anywhere? Is this kind of love right just because Crumbs Colmeny says it is?"

Then Crumbs fell head over heels in love with Magi's best friend.

Didn't trust have any limits? Magi began to wonder at last.

Lin Stone is history's first "hybrid" novel rewriter specialist. He takes books that have fallen into the public domain, changes the plots, the places, the people, and the original purposes, to produce a completely new book for the reading pleasure of modern readers. No one should expect to see part or particulate of the original creator's material in these products.
 

"IN LOVE WITH A THIEF, A LIAR, AND A SCOUNDREL" has been written directly from a plot furnished by William MacLeod Raine in a 1913 romance novel. Names, plot, location and language has been altered for modern readers. Where you might perceive some of the broad brushwork of the past master you should also pause to note the large and elaborations.
Whether hybrid books become a fascinating new art form or another dot.com flop out remains for history to determine. Here is your opportunity to determine for yourself what your opinion will be.

 

In Love With
A Thief and a Scoundrel

Inside the chink-logged cabin a man was preparing baked biscuits to gleam in the light of the lantern.  He was a big, strong-set man, with a face with the look of fine leather. His rolled-up sleeves revealed knotted brown arms white to the wrists with wet flour. He was singing joyously in tune with each sweeping stroke as he brushed biscuit tops with butter. "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary."

Having eased his biscuits back into the oven, the cook filled the doorway. His eyes were hard and steady, but from the corners of them innumerable little wrinkles fell away and crinkled at times to mirth.  "First call to dinner in the cat's fancy dining-car," he boomed out in a heavy bass.

Outside, one man glanced up then went back to arranging his fishing tackle. From his book he had selected three flies and was attaching them to the leader. Nearest the rod he put a royal coachman, next to it a blue quill, and at the end a ginger quill.  

Two men lounging under a shedding cottonwood beside the river showed more signs of life. One of them was perhaps twenty, scarcely more than a boy, a pleasant amiable youth with a weak chin and eyes that held no steel. His companion was nearer forty than thirty, a hard-faced citizen who chewed tobacco and said little.

"Where you going to fish to-night, Crumbs?" the cook asked of the man busy with the tackle.

"Think I'll try up the river, Cotton — start in above the Narrows and work down, mebbe. Where you going?"

"Me for the Meadows. I'm after the big fellows. Going to hang the Indian sign on them with a silver doctor and a Jock Scott. The kid here got his three-pounder on a Jock Scott."

The man who had been called Crumbs put his rod against the side of the house and washed his hands in a tin pan resting on a stump. He was a slender young fellow with lean, muscular shoulders and the bloom of many desert suns on his cheeks and neck.  "Going to try a Jock Scott myself after it gets dark."

The boy who had come up from the river's bank grinned. "Now I've shown you lads how to do it you'll all be catching whales with your earthworms."

"Once is usually, twice makes it a habit. Bring us another three pounder, Curly, and we'll hail you king of the river," Cotton promised, bringing to the table around which they were seating themselves a frying pan full of trout done to a crisp brown. "Get the coffee, Mosby. There's beer in the icebox, kid." They ate in their shirtsleeves, camp fashion, dining off an old checkered oil cloth table cloth that was scarred dark with the ancient marks left by many hot dishes.

They brought to their dinner the appetites of outdoors men who had whipped for hours a turbid stream under an August sun. Their talk was strong and crisp, after the fashion of the mining West. It could not be printed without editing, yet in that atmosphere it was without offense. There is a time for all things, even for the elemental talk of frontiersmen on a holiday.

Dinner finished, the fishermen lolled on the grass and smoked.

A man cantered out of the patch of woods above and drew up at the cabin, disposing himself for leisurely gossip but eyeing the fish and hoping for an invitation.  "Evening, gentlemen. Heard the latest?" He drew a match across his chaps and lit the cigarette he had rolled.

"We won't know for sure until after you've told us what you think it is," Cotton suggested.

"The Remonte country ce'tainly is being honored, boys. A party of effete Britishers are staying at the Lodge. Got in last night. I seen them when they got off the train — me lud and me lady, three young ladies that grade up A, a Johnnie boy with an eyeglass, and another lad who looks like a man from the ground up. Also, and moreover, there's a cook, a horse wrangler, a hired girl to button the ladies up the back and around the ankle, and a valley chap trained to say 'Yes, sir, coming, sir,' to the dude."

"You got it all down like a book, Steve," grinned Curly.

"Any names?" asked Cotton.

"Names to burn," returned the native. "A whole herd of names, honest to God. Most any of 'em has five or six, the way the Denver Post tells it. Me, I can't keep mind of so many fancy brands. I'll give you the A B C of it. The old parties are Lord James and Lady Jim Farquhar, leastways I heard one of the young ladies call her Lady Jim. The dude has Rerinder burnt on about eight trunks, s'elp me. Then there's a Miss Dwight and a Miss Chellie Seldon — and, oh, yes! a Captain Colmeny, and an Honorable India, by ginger."

A sudden change came over Cotton's face. His blue eyes grew hard and frosty.  He flashed a quick look of amiable derision at Steve.  "It's a plumb waste of money to take a newspaper subscription when you're around. Did you happen to notice the color of the ladies' eyes?"

The garrulous cowpuncher primped himself on the spot once more. "Sure, I did, leastways one of them. I want to tell you lads that Miss Chellie Seldon is the prettiest skirt that ever hit this neck of the woods — and her eyes, say, they're like pansies, soft and deep and kinder velvety." The fishermen shouted for joy. Their mirth was hearty and uncontained.

"Go to it, Steve. Tell us some more," they demanded.

Crumbs, generally the leader in all the camp fun, had not joined in the laughter. He had been drawing on his waders and buckling on his creel. Now he slipped the loop of the landing net over his head.

"Go yore own self, kid." retorted the grinning rider. "What's yore hurry, Crumbs?"

The young man addressed had started away but now turned. "No hurry, I reckon, I am going fishing."

Steve chuckled. "You're headed in a bee line for Old Man Trouble. The Johnnie boy up at the Lodge is plumb sore on this outfit. Seems that you lads raised ructions last night and broke into his sweet slumbers. He thinks he's got the kick of a government mule coming. Why can't you wild Injuns behave proper?"

"We only gave Curly a chapping because he let the flapJohns burn," returned Crumbs with a smile. "You see, he's come of age almost, Curly has. He'd ought to be responsible now, but he ain't yet. So we gave him what was coming to him."

"Well, you explain that to Mr. Rerinder if he sees fit to see you. He's sure up on his hind laigs about it."

"I expect he'll get over it in time," Crumbs said dryly. "Well, so-long, boys. Good fishing to-night."

"Same to you," they called after him.

"Some man, Crumbs," commented Steve.

"He'll stand the acid," Cotton agreed briefly.

"What's his last name? I ain't heard you lads call him anything but Crumbs. I reckon that's a nickname."

Curly hurried to answer the cowpuncher's question. "His name's Colmeny — John Colmeny. His folks used to live across the water. Probably this Honorable India and her brother are some kin of his."

"You don't say!"

"Course I'm not sure about that. His dad came over here when he was a wild young colt. Got into some trouble at home, the way I heard it. Bought a ranch out here and married. His family was high moguls in England — or, maybe, it was Ireland.

“Anyhow, they didn't like Mrs. Colmeny from the Bar Double C ranch. Ain't that the way of it, Cotton?"

The impassive gaze of the older man shifted back from the rushing river. "You know so much about it, Curly, I'll not butt in with any more misinformation," he replied with obvious sarcasm.

Curly flushed. "I'd ought to know the true information. John's father and mine were good friends, so's he and me."

"How come you to call him Crumbs?" asked Steve

"That's a joke, Steve. John's no ordinary rip-roaring, hell-raisin' miner. He knows what's what. That's why we call him Crumbs — because he's fine bred. It's a pun, see. Fine bred — crumbs? Get it?"

"Why, I reckon that I got it the first time, kid. I ain't no Englishman. You don't need a two-by-four to pound a josh into my cocoanut," the rider remonstrated.

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