Anthony Hazzard is a brute money lender with a dark secret. On Christmas Eve, he finds a young man half-frozen in the snow and recognizes him as escaped convict Harry Fortune. Hazzard rescues him and takes him home, intending to turn him in for the reward, but both Harry Fortune and Hazzard's warm-hearted niece mistake his action for one of kindness. As Hazzard cunningly maneuvers so as to realize how to make the largest profit possible for his planned betrayal, his selfish acts keep on being misinterpreted as more kindness and benevolence. Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944) was an American author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary Westerns under the pen name Max Brand. Prolific in many genres he wrote historical novels, detective mysteries, pulp fiction stories and many more.