A Man-Eating Jeopard

Introduction

“I’m a peaceable man, as law-abiding as I can be without straining myself, and it always irritates me for a stranger to bob up from behind a rock and holler, “Stop where you be before I blow your fool head off!”

Sold to Street & Smith by Binder circa March 1936 and first published in Cowboy Stories in June 1936, featuring his character Buckner Jeopardy Grimes. The story was received by Howard’s agent, Kline, on December 26, 1934. The story was sold for $55.00 and Howard earned $49.50.

The story was also published shortly after Howard’s suicide in the Cross Plains Review.

From the letters:

In a letter (#344) to August Derleth, April 15, 1936:

Naturally, my work has had to be neglected, though I have managed somehow to keep up the Breck Elkins series. I’ve made three new markets since writing you last: Dime Sport, Cowboy Stories and Complete Stories — the latter with a 24000 novelet of the El Borak series.

These were “Fists of the Desert,” published as “Iron-Jaw,” April 1936; “A Man- Eating Jeopard,” June 1936; and “Sons of the Hawk,” published as “The Country of the Knife,” August 1936.

And in a letter (#345) to E. Hoffmann Price, April 21, 1936:

I’m in better shape financially than I was when you saw me last, in spite of my heavy expenses. Weird Tales has been paying regularly lately, another sale to Thrilling Mystery helped, and I’ve cracked two more S&S magazines — Cowboy Stories — with a humorous-western of the B. Elkins type;4 and Complete Stories, with a 24,000 word Oriental adventure novelet.

The visit Howard refers to was when Price and his wife came to Cross Plains to meet Howard in October 1935. The story in Thrilling Mystery was “Black Wind Blowing,” published in June 1936.
The Complete Stories tale was “Sons of the Hawk,” published as “The Country of the Knife,” August 1936.

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