Ridgwell Cullum

Ridgwell Cullum was the pen name of Sidney Groves Burghard (1867-1943), a Londoner who left home at seventeen for the Transvaal gold rush and later turned up at the Yukon strike, with several years of cattle ranching in Montana and a spell in the US Army along the way. His first novel, The Devil's Keg, appeared in 1903; its success let him settle in Britain and write full time for more than three decades, most often about thinly populated corners of Canada and the American West. Several of his books were adapted for the screen. He died at Torquay in 1943.