Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Gaylord Riley, former member of the Coburn gang, has made a new life for himself on a range borndering Dark Canyon. When he is falsely accused of rustling and murder, his old friends return to lend him a hand. They will have to plan well and move fast to help Riley and keep themselves out of jail.

Presents a collection of short stories depicting the struggles of frontiersmen to survive the harsh conditions of the American West and defeat deadly outlaws.

It's 1936 and the Great Depression has taken its toll. Eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado, up in the high country of the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, since before it was Colorado. When she first meets seventeen-year-old Nit Spindle, Hennie is drawn to the young grieving girl. Nit and her husband have come to this small mining town in search of work, but the loneliness and loss Nit feels are almost too much to bear....

After the death of his beloved wife, after the loss of his advertising business to his once-trusted partner, after bankruptcy forced him from his home, Alan Christoffersens daring cross-country journey-a walk across America, from Seattle to Key West, with only the pack on his back-has taught him lessons about love, forgiveness and, most of all, hope.Now Alan must again return west to face yet another crisis, one that threatens to upend his world just...

They came West, risking it all to dig the gold, ride the range, conquer the greedy and carve out a legacy of freedom. Louis L'Amour tells of the real heroes of the frontier, the survivors, for whom hanging tough was as natural as drawing breath.

It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job -- and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within...

Poor, orphaned at thirteen, Otis Chancy left the Tennessee mountains with nothing but a will to work, a drive to succeed, and the backbone for a fight. So when a fight comes his way, along with a chance to buy a herd of cattle and start his own spread, nineteen-year-old Chancy doesn't hesitate. He guns down a man who'd been using a sheriff's badge to justify cattle thieving. But when a mysterious woman betrays him, he will find himself stalked by...

When his father is charged with murder and refuses to do anything to prove his innocence, Will Robie returns as an outsider to his hometown of Cantrell, Mississippi--where is he is met with distrust--to conduct his own investigation.

Orlando Sackett got to Texas with a damn good idea of the whereabouts of buried gold across the border in Mexico. In Mexico he had bad luck. His party had to run for it, and when Lando stood rear guard they pulled out and left him. Six years in a Mexican prison put muscles in his arms, fire in his heart and pure recklessness in his head. He survived by using his skills as a boxer and by making three vows. One was to find the men who betrayed him....

Lawman, manhunter, peacemaker - it takes a hard breed of man to survive as a Texas Ranger, but Chick Bowdrie stands head and shoulders above the rest. The rough trails are his home, from the Big Thicket to the Pecos to the border. He's dried by the desert sun and wind, scarred and toughened by uncounted gunbattles, and when you look into his black eyes it's like looking down the barrels of two .44s with their hammers drawn back. He rides in the name...