Lewis (1855-1914) was an American investigative journalist, lawyer, novelist, editor and short story writer. He began his career as a staff writer at the Chicago Times and eventually worked his way up to editor of the Chicago Times-Herald. By the late 19th century he was writing muckraker articles for Cosmopolitan and as an investigative journalist he wrote extensively about corruption in New York politics, including a biography published in 1901 of Richard Croker, a leading figure in the corrupt political machine known as Tammany Hall which exercised considerable control over New York politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. As a writer of genre fiction he had his greatest success with his collections of Wolfville western stories which he continued writing until his death. This collection reintroducing the reader to such characters as the Old Cattleman, Doc Peets and Faro Nell was published in 1902.