Cassie Edmond was puzzled by the odd behaviour of those around her. First it was the curious bark from their dog Butte, then the old Ute called Charlie who sometimes called to trade for coffee and flour but now sat silent on his droop-headed paint at the yard gate. Finally it was her father, lifting down his Winchester to go hunting for meat when the meal she'd been preparing was ready for the table. But when Brad Edmond returned home, carried by Charlie Ute and a stranger, his life slippi...

Since the signing of the Laramie Treaty six years earlier, the tribes of the Plains have practised their nomadic lifestyle within the boundaries of the lands set aside for their use. The dwindling herds of buffalo and deer which provide the staple requirements of their existence are a growing source of discontent but while the Americans, the wasicun, stay out of the tribal lands the tenuous peace is maintained. One word, however, uttered at a riverside meeting with 'Yellowstone' Kelly, rai...

Cattle baron Nat Erdlatter has built his empire by taking what he wants then ruthlessly holding on to it. Even now, with the Homestead Act encouraging people to settle on range land that he has always considered his own, he believes that his needs take preference over the government's decrees. But times are changing and the citizens of the nearby town of Enterprise are angered by his latest callous act, none more so than his former ranch hands Clem Rawlings and Gus Farley, who become embro...

Luther Drummond, owner of the Diamond-D ranch, the largest cattle spread around the Montana township of Bridger Butte, is buying up land vacated by settlers who have been forced out by a ruinous winter. Rumours abound, however, that many of the misfortunes suffered by the settlers are not the result of nature but are directly attributable to Luther's son, Dagg. Ethan Brodie, a Pinkerton detective, becomes embroiled in the affairs at Bridger Butte when he is accused of murder and stagecoach...

Successful prospectors in the hills north of Council Bluffs are being ambushed and killed by a gang determined to snatch every ounce of gold that is dug from the ground or panned from the streams. But when one such indiscriminate attack earns the robbers nothing but a pack of pelts, it sets in motion a chain of events leading to a bloody conclusion. Their victim is a man unwilling to relinquish his possessions without seeking revenge. To the settlers along the Missouri he is known as Westo...

Tom Belman has been drifting west since the end of the civil war, lured by tales of wealth and verdant valleys in the territory beyond the far sierras. In the Texas panhandle, however, close to the Canadian River, his progress is interrupted when his horse is stolen. His pursuit of the young thief leads to an unfriendly reunion with a former soldier in Tom's unit, Lou Currier, who is now sheriff of a small town called Ortega Point. A subsequent lynching compels Tom to find and return to he...

Law was a rare commodity on the vast cattle ranges and a man had to fight if he meant to hold on to what he owned. A rancher dispensed his owned justice when he caught those who stole his livestock, but Titus Sawyer lost more than cattle when rustlers raided his Red Diamond spread. Men were killed, too, slaughtered in a dreadful ambush, so, when he summoned his nephew Frank to track down the killers his desire to punish the culprits was deeper than justice; it was revenge.

Ben Joyner has no argument with the people who built their homes on the grassland near Pecos, but the cattlemen have long considered the range their own domain and now trouble is brewing. Rancher Gus Remarque is Ben's boss and believes that the dollar a day he pays buys not only a man's labour but his loyalty, too. The time is fast approaching when that loyalty might involve killing or being killed, and Ben wants to wash his hands of this dispute: he did his fighting during the war. So he ...

Until the night of the fire, Stanton, Montana, was a peaceful town. It boasted a church, a school and a bank, and no longer attracted those hard-riding, hard-drinking characters who brought with them the kind of lawlessness and destruction that had been rife during its earlier frontier days. Its marshal, Silas Tasker, rejoiced in the knowledge that he had rid the town of the kind of rip-roaring reputation attributed to so many other cattle-towns across the west. But in the aftermath of the...

Blamed for the murder of a prominent politician, gambler Dan Freemont is forced to flee Nebraska. Pursued by the real killer's henchmen he arrives at the small Wyoming town of Beecher Gulch where he hopes a planned rendezvous with a US Marshal will prove his innocence. But settlers are being attracted to the area and a conflict is developing between the newcomers and Carl Benton the cattle king of the territory. Mistaken for a town-taming lawman brought in to oppose the cattlemen, Dan is s...

The stagecoach from the north has failed to arrive in the small settlement of Laramie, and when two men ride in fresh from a fight in the southern long-grass country, the inhabitants begin to fear that the rumoured unrest among the Sioux following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills has become reality. Their concerns are relayed to the nearby fort, where the visiting wagon-train scout Wes Gray agrees to join an army patrol party sent to find the missing coach. Although doubtful that t...

Clancy Jarrett possesses a quick and violent temper and the citizens of Brannigan are careful not to cross him. But when his stagecoach hold-up is thwarted by three trail-herders his rage cannot be contained and with revenge on his mind soon there are bodies piling up. For the cowboys, their status as heroes is short-lived and when Jarrett learns they are escorting Kate Jeavons, a dance-hall girl whose sister he has captive, to testify against him, they are firmly in his sights. Black clou...