The year is 1871, and wealthy ranch owner Jane Withersteen is in trouble. She has incurred the displeasure of her Mormon church leaders by refusing to marry a church elder and by befriending Gentiles (non-Mormons). In rides Lassiter, the quintessential Western hero: mysterious, purposeful, a deadly gunslinger, but with an unexpected streak of gentleness. While Lassiter is assisting Jane at the ranch, her friend and rider Bern Venters is having an adventure of his own in the Utah canyonlands. Riders of the Purple Sage is a story of heroism, love, brave men and strong women, good dogs and fast horses. And who is that Masked Rider?
Buck Duane, son of a famous gunfighter, falls prey to the old problem - called out by a cowboy who wants to make trouble, Duane kills him and then must ride off to the lawless country near the Neuces River to escape being arrested and perhaps, hanged. His brief encounter with deadly gunplay has ignited a deep urging to repeat the adrenaline rush but is tempered by ghosts that haunt his sleep. He only dares to release his inner demon when he is taking down an outlaw who is particularly known for his brutality.
He develops a reputation for killing the most notorious Texas outlaws, which draws an unexpected interest: a captain of the Texas Rangers offers him a pardon and a ranger's badge if he will infiltrate the gang of the shadowy figure known as "Cheseldine" who wields vast power in West Texas, and make it possible for the Rangers to break the gang's hold on the region's towns. Duane accepts, never guessing in his wildest nightmares that he would sniff out this Cheseldine, his hideouts, his lieutenants... and fall in love with his daughter!
"We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be thankful, to be united, and to love one another! We never quarrel about religion."
Travel along as Mike Vendetti aka miketheauctioneer narrates an outstanding true account of a trip made in 1909 by Zane Grey and a plainsman, Buffalo Jones, through the Grand Canyon to lasso a cougar. That’s right lasso. Throw a rope around. That’s equivalent to catching one by the tail.
As I narrated this book, I found fact to be as exciting as fiction. This part of the west was relatively wild and untamed at this time. Wolves, wild horses, buffalo and other wildlife were quite prevalent, and the Indians were not that friendly.
This adventure would never make it to “Animal Planet”, or as a National Geographic special, because there is quite a lot of what we would consider cruelty to animals, but this is a true story, and life as it was at the turn of the last century. Parts of this story will offend the sensibilities of some, but it is a glimpse into a world that no longer exists. I was definitely drawn into this story, as I hope the listener will be.
The Seventh Man by Max Brand, tells part of the story of the larger-than-life western character, Dan Barry, known as “Whistling Dan,” and his alter-ego companions, Black Bart, the wolf-dog, and Satan, the indomitable black stallion. It’s also the story of Kate Cumberland and the incredible five-year-old daughter of Kate and Dan, Joan. We first see Dan as a gentle, caring man with a deep sense of fairness. But then, after six years of a peaceful life in their mountain cabin Dan, more feral than human, sets out to revenge an injustice by killing seven men. Ultimately, it is his devotion to his daughter and Kate’s love for the child that brings about the climax of the tale.
Warning: don’t look for a typical cowboy story here – it’s far deeper and stronger than that.
This is the fifth published book of Owen Wister, author of the archetypical Western novel, The Virginian. Published in 1900, it comprises eight Western short stories.
Padre Ignacio has been the pastor of California mission Santa Ysabel del Mar for twenty years. In 1855 a stranger rides into the mission bringing news and a spiritual crisis. It's really more of a novella than a novel.
Volunteers bring you 10 recordings of Up The Line by Will Carleton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 7th, 2010.
Cattleman J.G. Whittemore, owner of the Flying U ranch in Montana, trusts the task of meeting his sister at the train to only one man, Chip. Chip’s not too keen on women. In his experience they come in only a few types: prissy “sweet young thing”, annoying cowgirl, or old maid that wants to drag him to church. He isn’t prepared for Miss Della Whittemore, the “Little Doctor.” She turns the ranch upside down, but can she turn Chip head over heels?
The Story of the Pony Express offers an in depth account behind the need for a mail route to connect the eastern U.S. with the rapidly populating west coast following the gold rush of California, the springing up of lumber camps, and all incidental needs arising from the settling of the western frontier. Here we learn of the inception of the Pony Express, its formation, successes, failures, facts, statistics, combined with many anecdotes and names of the people who were an integral part of this incredible entity which lasted but less than two years, yet was instrumental in the successful settlement of two thirds of the land mass comprising the expanding country.
Dave ran a lumber mill in western Canada. There are some workers within his organization who he trusts implicitly, some who he doesn't trust at all, and some who he is unsure about. But Dave is basically a trusting soul. Most of the folks in Malkern liked him, as he had been a major factor in shaping the village and in providing employment for a lot of the folks who lived in the area. Dave was not a pleasant site to look at; ungainly, not very attractive, yet he had a heart that was the antithesis of his lack of physical attractiveness.
Dave was a good friend to Betty, who had promised her hand in marriage to Jim Truscott, who was on leave from Malkern searching for gold in the Yukon territory to secure a future for himself and his bride-to-be. Truscott had asked Dave to watch over Betty during his absence, but when he returned from his fortune seeking expedition in the Yukon, Truscott was a changed man. He didn't seem the same personable Jim Truscott that Betty had promised herself to, and Dave was a bit suspicious of his personality alterations as well. Now, Betty had to decide whether to hold herself to her promise, and Dave had to determine whether or not he should also keep himself to the promise he had made to his friend.
There is plenty of action, suspense, and personal introspection combined with a love story in The Trail of the Axe, and many a surprise awaits every turn.
Arizona Nights is a collection of tales from the American West as told by those who took part in them.
Rod Norton is a lawman in a land where bandits and criminals make their own rules. Risking his life for justice and a future with the woman he loves, mortal danger awaits. For Norton and those in peril, the Bells of San Juan will chime.
"Early in the summer of 1860, I had an attack of gold fever. In Chicago, the conditions for such a malady were all favorable. Since the panic of 1857 there had been three years of general depression, money was scarce, there was little activity in business, the outlook was discouraging, and I, like hundreds of others, felt blue."
Thus Chalkley J. Hambleton begins his pithy and engrossing tale of participation in the Pike's Peak gold rush.
Four men in partnership hauled 24 tons of mining equipment by ox cart across the Great Plains from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Denver, Colorado. Hambleton vividly recounts their encounters with buffalo herds, Indians, and"the returning army of disappointed gold seekers."
Setting up camp near Mountain City, Colorado, Hambleton watched one man wash "several nice nuggets of shining gold" from the dirt and gravel, only to learn afterwards that [i]"these same nuggets had been washed out several times before, whenever a 'tenderfoot' would come along, who it was thought might want to buy a rich claim."
Two years later, "tired and disgusted with the whole business," Hambleton returned to Chicago, where he arrived "a wiser if not richer man."
In later years, Hambleton was a prominent Chicago lawyer, real estate developer, and a member of the Chicago Board of Education. He wrote this candid account for family and friends, publishing it privately in 1898. It is based in good part on letters he had sent from the gold fields to his sister. Summing up his experience with wry humor, he writes: "After selling out my interest in the joint enterprise, I still had left some fifty claims on various lodes . . . Some time after returning to Chicago, I was making a real estate trade . . . and I threw in these fifty gold mines. . . Had I only kept them, and gotten up some artistic deeds of conveyance, in gilded letters, what magnificent wedding presents they would have made. . . In the long list of high-sounding, useless presents, the present of a gold mine would have led all the rest."
In this short novel the narrator is a superintendent on the K. and A. railroad, sometime in the late nineteenth century. The train is robbed somewhere in the Arizona desert. Various adventures involve this young superintendent. Romance is provided by a comely passenger.
Phil Thurston was born on the range where the trails are dim and silent under the big sky. It was the place his father loved, the place he had to be. After the death of his father when he was five, his mother brought him back to the city, where he grew up and became a writer. To revive his stale writing, he returns to the West, and may just find what he is really missing.
An exciting tale of gun play, brave deeds and romance as Jerry Lambert, the "Duke" tries to protect the ranch of the lovely and charming Vesta Philbrook from thieving neighbors and other evil doers.
A typical early 20th century western. It's a tale of a tough guy who gets involved with an evil man with an angel daughter for whom the tough guy falls. His efforts to recover hers and her father's gold mine claims is the story. Not a lot of shoot em up but enough story to make one want to finish the book to see how things work out.
He made one mistake in the beginning. He pushed the chestnut too hard the first and second days, so that on the third day he was forced to give the gelding his head and go at a jarring trot most of the day. On the fourth and fifth days, however, he had the reward for his caution. The chestnut's ribs were beginning to show painfully, but he kept doggedly at his work with no sign of faltering. The sixth day brought Andrew Lanning in close view of the lower hills. And on the seventh day he put his fortune boldly to the touch and jogged into the first little town before him..
Fans of the old radio shows and the TV series The Lone Ranger will recognize the characters in this book - the Lone Ranger, his faithful Indian sidekick Tonto and his trusty horse, Silver. The Lone Ranger Rides, a wonderful western story in itself, also details the origins of why a Texas Ranger would stirke out on his own, wearing a mask at all times, and how he met his companions Tonto and his ever dependable equine friend Silver.
Yee-hawww! The Pony Rider Boys are on the trail again! In the second book of this series, Professor Zepplin has taken the young men to San Diego, Texas, to experience the life of a cowboy. The cattle drive will take them across the great state of Texas, where they will meet many dangers and adventures.
Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 – May 6, 1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.
The Rainbow Trail is a sequel to The Riders of the Purple Sage. Both novels are notable for their protagonists' mild opposition to Mormon polygamy, but in The Rainbow Trail this theme is treated more explicitly. The plots of both books revolve around the victimization of women in the Mormon culture: events in Riders of the Purple Sage are centered on the struggle of a Mormon woman who sacrifices her wealth and social status to avoid becoming a junior wife of the head of a local church, while The Rainbow Trail contrasts the older Mormons with the rising generation of Mormon women who will not tolerate polygamy and Mormon men who do not seek it.
The story follows an ancient feud between two frontier families that is inflamed when one of the families takes up cattle rustling. The ranchers are led by Jean Isbel and, on the other side, Lee Jorth and his band of cattle rustlers. In the grip of a relentless code of loyalty to their own people, they fight the war of the Tonto Basin, desperately, doggedly, to the last man, neither side seeing the futility of it until it is too late. And in this volatile environment, young Jean finds himself hopelessly in love with a girl from whom he is separated by an impassable barrier.
Jack Hare is a young cowboy who was rescued from sure death by an old settler by the name of August Naab. Hare learns that Naab's ranch is a dangerous place and is challenged by cattle thieves and a corrupt rancher who is after Naab's water rights. The greatest danger Hare faces though, is over Mescal, a half-Navajo shepherdess who is already promised in marriage to Naab's first-born son. Hare must stop the marriage, but can't kill the son of his benefactor, August Naab...until a gun battle with rustlers brings the two face-to-face over drawn pistols.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is a 1908 romance novel/western novel written by John Fox, Jr.. The novel became Fox's most successful, and was included among the top ten list of bestselling novels for 1908 and 1909.
Set in the Appalachian Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century, a feud has been boiling for over thirty years between two influential mountain families: the Tollivers and the Falins. The outside world and industrialization, however, is beginning to enter the area. Coal mining begins to exert its influence on the area, despite of the two families feuds. Entering the area, enterprising "furriner" (foreigner) John Hale captures the attention of the beautiful June Tolliver, and inadvertently becomes entangled in the region's politics.
These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the invaluable weight of length; and they have been received by my closest friends with suspicion. ...When our national life, our own soil, is so rich in adventures to record, what need is there for one to call upon his invention save to draw, if he can, characters who shall fit these strange and dramatic scenes? One cannot improve upon such realities. If this fiction is at all faithful to the truth from which it springs, let the thanks be given to the patience and boundless hospitality of the Army friends and other friends across the Missouri who have housed my body and instructed my mind. And if the stories entertain the ignorant without grieving the judicious I am content.
Lin McLean is an unaffected, attractive young cowboy in the Wyoming territory before statehood. This book is various stories in his life.