Frank Carlson Library

Boss Spearman knows that times are changing on the open range for free-grazing cattlemen who don't own land. But more and more settlers are staking claim to the land, and when a local rancher kills one of Boss's crew, he knows he must make a stand.

When Dale McAfee, foreman of John Rockland's mighty Texas Star Ranch, killed a range rider working for Clell Durham, a free-graze cowman, at the Union Eagle Saloon in Perdition Wells, Texas, the bullet went through his body and also killed an aged swamper. Several Eyewitnesses told Sheriff Doyle Bannion that the old man had ignored warning calls and continued sweeping, so he ruled the involuntary shooting death by misadventure. Now, two months later,...

"U.S. Deputy Marshal Ben Knight takes off his badge and rides into Gunsight seeking vengeance for his kid brother's hanging. But the town marshal was killed during the lynching and the townspeople want Ben to take his place. Ben must choose between his trail of vengeance or protecting the town against the Diamond H Ranch"--

"The discovery of a man and his horse, both shot dead through the head, with $10,000 buried nearby in a desert canon near Springville, Arizona, lead Sheriff Claude Rainey to believe this is something bigger than a simple bushwhacking"--

Seward City was in roughshod, chaotic Dakota Territory. The day he arrived by stage, Jud Parker looked impressive, physically a big man, dressed in the best clothing with a tall silk hat. Despite appearances, however, in his pocket he had less than one hundred dollars. Renting a dingy room for ten dollars a week seemed like a fortune to Jud. Yet there was a restlessness here that Jud had noticed imbued the entire countryside. Banker Heber Caldwell...

"Walt Hodge had delivered eighty horses to Whipple Barracks for the Army and he wasn't in a big hurry to get home. He traveled down the Saginaw Mountains and into the upland cow country of Sunflower, Arizona, seeking only a cold glass of beer, food, and a bed for himself, along with feed for his horse. He should have listened and turned around when he asked the hostler what was going on and was told: "Trouble, mister. Bad trouble." After Walt had...

Kit Butler and Lige Turner remember the days when they had been welcome at an Indian fire, squatting at a powwow and gorging on half-cooked buffalo hump. But times had changed. Too many whites were moving West and the Indians were embarked on an attempt to throw back the tide. With the fur trade gone, Kit and Lige find themselves guiding a wagon train of thirty wagons with one hundred sixty people -- only seventy-seven were men -- west from Independence,...

The massacre at Fort Mims is what spurred young Davy Crockett to leave his family and become a volunteer scout in the military campaign between American militias and the Creek Indians. It was while serving in this capacity that Crockett earned his reputation as a first-rate scout, which added to his already established reputation as a crack shot. Like many volunteers serving in militias, Crockett also had to concern himself with protecting his wife,...