Lance Kilkenny's gun is believed to be the fastest in the West, but once the gunfight is over, he disappears. Most folks don't even know what he looks like. Some time back, Mort Davis saved Kilkenny's life after he was shot up. Now Davis needs Kilkenny's help. He has filed a claim on a water hole near Lost Creek in the live oak country. The district is dominated by two wealthy cattlemen, Webb Steele and Chet Lord, each one claiming for himself the...

Tyrel Sackett was born into trouble but vowed to justice. After having to kill a man in Tennessee, he hit the trail west with his brother Orrin. Those were the years when decent men and women lived in fear of Indians, rustlers, and killers, but the Sackett brothers worked to make the West a place where people could raise their children in peace. Orrin brought law and order from Santa Fe to Montana, and his brother Tye backed him up every step of the...

At what point does a group of strangers become a community? When young Bendigo Shafter and a ragtag bunch of travelers settle in the rugged Wyoming mountains, they quickly come to depend on a toughness and wisdom many of them never knew they possessed. Led by the beautiful and resourceful widow Ruth Macken, the settlers battle harsh winters, renegade opportunists, and the destructive lure of gold. Through these brutally demanding experiences, young...

For the westerner trouble came with the territory. Long grass valleys, merciless deserts, sheer rock cliffs, icy streams, hidden trails, dusty towns. These were the proving grounds of daily life. At any time violence could explode and on the frontier there was no avoiding its sudden terrible impact. In this collection of his stories Louis L’Amour guides us to some of these untamed places where men and women faced the challenge of survival.

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A WORD FROM LOUIS L’AMOUR
 
“Almost four decades ago, when my fiction was being published exclusively in ‘pulp’ western magazines, I wrote a number of novel-length stories, known back then as ‘magazine novels.’ In creating them, I lived with my characters so closely that their lives were still as much a part of me as I was of them long after the issues in which they appeared went out of print. Proud

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"It was a hard land that bred hard men to hard ways. King Mabry survived by his guns. He wasn't proud of his deadly skill, nor was he ashamed. He just lived with it every hard day on the frontier. When a traveling theatrical troupe hired a ruthless killer to guide them through the Wyoming wilderness, King Mabry -- his guns at the ready -- set out to follow their trail, and not blizzards, not Indians, nor the wily guide would stop him" -- back cover....

Hopalong Cassidy tries to save the Rocking R Ranch, only to find himself accused of murder and the target of a ruthless gunman.