Luke L. Short (January 22, 1854 – September 8, 1893) was an American Old West gunfighter, cowboy, U.S. Army scout, dispatch rider, gambler, boxing promoter and saloon owner. He survived two gunfights—one against Charlie Storms in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, and the other against Jim Courtright in Fort Worth, Texas. He was associated with three saloons in the Old West: the Oriental in Tombstone, Arizona Territory; the Long Branch in Dodge City, Kansas; and the White Elephant in Fort Worth, Texas.
Luke Short was born in Polk County, Arkansas on January 22, 1854. He was the fifth child of Josiah Washington Short (February 2, 1812 – February 8, 1890) and his wife Hetty Brumley (February 2, 1826 – November 30, 1908). Short had nine siblings. Martha Frances, John Pleasant, Josiah, Jr., Young P., Mary Catherine and Henry Jenkins Short were all born in Polk County, Arkansas. The family soon moved to Montague County, Texas. Josiah and Hetty had three more children there: George Washington, Belle Nannie, and William B. Short.
Luke Short (born Frederick Dilley Glidden November 19, 1908 – August 18, 1975) was a popular Western writer.
Born in Kewanee, Illinois, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for two and a half years and then transferred to the University of Missouri at Columbia to study journalism. Following graduation in 1930, he worked for a number of newspapers before becoming a trapper in Canada. He later moved to New Mexico to be an archeologist's assistant. After reading Western pulp magazines and trying to escape unemployment, he began to write Western fiction. He sold his first short story and novel in 1935 under the pen name of Luke Short (which was also the name of a famous gunslinger in the Old West, although it's unclear if he was aware of that when he assumed the pen name.) His apprenticeship in the pulps was comparatively brief. In 1938 he sold a short story, The Warning, to Collier's and in 1941 he sold his novel Blood on the Moon, aka Gunman's Chance, to The Saturday Evening Post.