Frank Carlson Library

Gladstone Brass found out how to make his livelihood during the thirty years he prospected the arid wastes of the Nevada desert. He pried ore out of the few little deposits he discovered, then went to town -- which he hated -- only long enough to trade his bits of gold for the supplies he needed. Otherwise he was devoted to keeping these arid, secret wastes all to himself, and that meant driving out rivals, invaders, interlopers, and adventurers....

While there were some initial suspicions about Sam Stop's background, people came to respect and then trust the reclusive founder of Pony, Montana's local bank.

"On his graduation from Harvard, Jay Warren, son of a self-made rich man, receives a ticket to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and five hundred dollars with instructions to find himself and shape his own destiny. He hopes to find Easy Street, but instead has some brutal lessons and plenty of opportunity to succeed or to destroy himself"--

This novel is based on the experience of American explorer John Frémont and his attempt to find a railway route to the West along the 38th parallel, when he becomes trapped in the snowbound Colorado mountains and must fight his way out.

"Richard Lamb was a peace-loving man hoping to live out the rest of his days with his Indian wife and their large extended family, but the Partridge brothers had other plans--deadly plans to advance their careers. All they needed was a little Indian resistance"--

During the 1886 Montana drought Harvard educated John Quincy Putnam had Federal Law on his side, and desperate angry neighbors surrounding him.

After her husband dies, her son is killed and her house is burned to the ground, mine owner March McPhee, targeted by the wealthy and powerful, fights back with the help of a saloon man, an assayer and a slippery lawyer, but wonders if wealth of any sort should be defended at such a price.

Collected here are all the Western short stories of Richard S. Wheeler, tales which span the Western landscape from Montana to Arizona and Washington to Wyoming in a period that covers the late 19th century through modern times. Here are a wide cast of characters -- madams, miners, morticians, detectives, newsman, and lawman. Some characters are drawn from history -- the Earp brothers, Mark Twain, William Wright, a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise,...

"At the beginning it looked as if Randy and Linda Van Pelt would have the most wonderful married life together. They had a perfect Montana ranch and the best and the best stock of bulls, but their newlywed bliss was not destined to last. Randy died of pneumonia after their first hard winter and Linda, a transplanted Easterner, found herself alone in a desolate country. Linda turned for help to her neighbor, a horse trainer named Canada Parker. After...