James Oliver "Jim" Curwood (1878-1927) was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books ranked among Publisher's Weekly top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early 1920s. In The Valley of Silent Men, a Mountie who believed that he was dying "deliberately told a lie that branded him as a murderer" and set a man free. His trail partner and a beautiful mystery girl are sure that Kent is not a murderer. The Mountie recovers and becomes a fugitive to find the real murderer.