Nathan T. Riggins panicked as he hurried from one empty building to the next. Where was everyone? How could everybody in a whole town just disappear?In the deserted Post Office, bags of unopened mail lay everywhere. With increasing dread, he looked through the stacks of letters. There it was--his own letter to his parents telling them he was coming. No wonder they hadn't waited for him here in Willow Creek. Now what should he do?Nathan set out across the Nevada desert in sear...

Tap Andrews knows that to stay alive in the Old West he needs three things: a fast horse, a quick hand, and enough smarts to know when to get out of town! Pepper Paige is sick and tired of fighting and emptiness that surround her as a dance-hall girl. And tired of fearing Jordan Beckett, a violent patron who has turned his attentions on her. Pepper gets her chance to escape when an injured woman in a stagecoach wreck dies in her room. The stranger, a refined and educated Christian, informs...

It's 1880 and Catherine Goodwin has got to escape from her Virginia hometown. She heads west to marry a childhood friend. Race Hillyard heads west with vengeance for his brother's death on his mind. Fiery, opinionated, quick to react, they despise each other at first meeting. But can they team up long enough to throw the devil off the train?

The Joyton family runs a station for the famed Butterfield Stage Line on a mountain pass in southern Arizona Territory. It is a pleasant, solitary life until a stagecoach arrives with a dead man inside. They are told the mysterious man accidentally shot himself. But 14-year-old Drew Joyton suspects foul play. A new family arrives and begins to build a store, even though there is no town nearby. Meanwhile, a dangerous stranger appears. Then hostile Apaches pin down two wagon drivers headed ...

Retta Barre's not the first 12-year-old girl to travel the Oregon Trail. And she won't be the last. But for something that's supposed to be the grandest adventure of her life, the long, slow days sure are dull. Thick dust, irritating bugs, and picking up buffalo chips are not the stuff of the action-packed penny novels she loves to read. When things change in Retta's life, they change fast. A simple trip into the prairie brings both adventure and big time trouble. Soon Retta is the talk of...

In a town full of folks seeking to get rich quick, the Skinner family has already found their real treasure. Alkali dust blows on 100-degree days. Saloons line every block. A gold rush puts gamblers and gunfighters, prospectors and promoters on every corner. It is Goldfield, Nevada, June 1905. No place for a family to settle. O.T. Skinner and his family have no intention of staying more than a day or two. Long enough to replenish their supplies before continuing the journey west. But next ...

For a man who didn't need another disaster, the fierce winter at Broken Arrow Crossing couldn't have come at a worse time. Stuart Brannon abandoned his Arizona ranch, sick with grief after losing his wife and baby son in childbirth, as well as his cattle to disease. That's when the vicious Colorado blizzard struck. Half frozen, Brannon stumbles into the isolated stage station at the Crossing. He finds a wounded prospector and attempts to nurse the man back to health. Winter storms bring ot...

What is going on in Kamiah, Idaho? Maybe it's a kidnapping. Or it could be a spy network. Or an international drug ring. Nothing makes sense to fourteen-year-old Crystal and her friend, Megan. They've been camping and traveling from California with Crystal's author father on a research trip and find themselves chased by the cavalry, stopped by a stagecoach, and searching for some unknown treasure. Meanwhile, Crystal takes her first official horse ride in desperation to save Megan and a new...

New York editor Lynda Dawn Austin expected to find a manuscript that would rock the publishing and boost her career. But the real surprise was the cowboy guiding her through canyon country to find it. When he first walks into the plush New York offices of Atlantic-Hampton Publishing Company, no one takes the eccentric stranger seriously. At least, not until he mentions the manuscript. He claims he possesses the long-lost third novel of Martin Taylor Harrison, their most successful author. ...

In 1870 a fugitive from Yankee justice, Confederate veteran Sandy Thompson looks for peace and solitude in the expanses of the untamed West. His quest is complicated by his reluctant business partnership with a low-down peddler named Montana Mudd and an orphaned Indian girl entrusted to his care. Somehow, together, the three drifters must find a home in a land where thieves, vengeful enemies, and forces of nature constantly threaten. And the trio must finally come to grips with the siniste...

Nathan couldn't believe it. He and his dad and his friend Colin were going on a cattle drive. But as they set out, the trip began to take unexpected turns. Nathan's dad had to leave them to hunt down an escaped crook and would have to join the group later. Then Colin's friend Leah finagled her way along.When Pepper the cook hurt his foot and had to return to camp, the three kids were on their own. How would they round up cattle when they had never done it before? And how should they...

Nathan's got a real job for the summer. He'll be helping Push-Bill Horn freight supplies to the booming, brawling mining town of 10, Nevada. However, his dog Tona's disastrous fight with a bobcat on the second trip out thrusts Nathan into a dilemma. He wants revenge. And he desperately wants to save Tona's life. Will he take Push-Bill's advice to do the kind thing and put Tona out of his misery?Then, later in a chilling face-off at gunpoint, Nathan confronts two bushwhackers intent ...