The Lookout Man

"The Lookout Man" by B. M. Bower is a novel written in the early 20th century. The story centers around Jack Corey, a young man who finds himself in a precarious position after a wild night out leads him to commit a crime with friends. To escape potential consequences, Jack flees to a remote lookout station in the wilderness, where he faces not only the solitude of nature but also the weight of his past actions. The opening of the novel sets the scene in the bustling after-hours atmosphere of a beach town, where Jack and his friends engage in reckless behavior that spirals out of control. Following a humorous yet dangerous turn of events during a joyride, Jack's involvement in a mock robbery leads to an unexpected shooting incident that changes everything. Overwhelmed by guilt and fear, he retreats to the mountains, where he assumes the role of a lookout, watching over the forest but grappling with feelings of isolation and regret. As he adjusts to life in the wilderness, he becomes introspective about his situation, illustrating the contrast between his former carefree existence and the gravity of his current circumstances. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan, née Muzzy, best known by her pseudonym B. M. Bower, was an American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West. Her works, featuring cowboys and cows of the Flying U Ranch in Montana, reflected "an interest in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as main characters, the occasional appearance of eastern types for the sake of contrast, a sense of western geography as simultaneously harsh and grand, and a good deal of factual attention to such matters as cattle branding and bronc busting." She was married three times: to Clayton Bower in 1890, to Bertrand William Sinclair in 1905, and to Robert Elsworth Cowan in 1921. However, she chose to publish under the name Bower.