Max Brand

Recently, a number of Western stories have been discovered among Max Brand's unpublished works and the first story in this book, The White Streak, is one of them. Its protagonist is twenty-one-year-old Jimmy Babcock, a former football star, but now a worker at the local bank run by William Parker in the town of Dresser, which has changed from cattle country to one made up of oil and alfalfa fields. When Parker fires Jimmy, all Jimmy can think is how...

Hugh Collier in "The Danger Lover" feels he is living an empty life as little more that a competent bank employee in the town of Stanton. He decides to leave behind a life that for him was a "caricature and savage cartoon of the beautiful truth that life may be" and heads into the mountains alone, carrying only the essentials on his horse. Two things change the course of his adventure: he sees a town from a hill, and a stranger, desperate to file...

"In 'Lawman's Heart,' Larry Traynor is driving a stage with his shotgun guard, Sam Whitney, the man who has been his mentor in life, when a hold-up occurs. Sam is shot dead. Traynor is determined to bring the thief to justice, but then fate intervenes. Although he does not recognize the symptoms, or what they mean, Traynor is suffering from heart failure. He is deputized to give pursuit even though, given his condition, it can only lead to his ruin."...

Peter Dunstan is a big rancher who wants to become bigger, to control more land. So when he buys Dr. Henry Morgan's ranchland that has been unsuccessfully converted to farming, it is his intention to return it to open range. The only stipulation the doctor makes is that Dunstan must retain Sandy Sweyn, who has more or less been Dr. Morgan's ward. Though the man is of age, he is generally considered a half-wit, even by the doctor. Still, Sandy has...

"Newcomer David Duval is secretive about his past and Marian Lane is determined to discover what he is hiding. When she enlists the aid of the famous manhunter, Marshal Richard Kinkaid, a dangerous game of matching wits between Duval and Kinkaid begins"--

Paul Torridon rides the fabulous steed Ashur on his way to Fort Kendry with his guide, plainsman Roger Lincoln, in The Man from the Sky. When Roger disappears one morning, Paul knows only that finding Fort Kendry by himself will be almost impossible -- and that's if he manages to survive on the empty plains. Then he comes upon ailing Cheyenne warrior Standing Bull sprawled on a small island in a dry gulch . . . On his deathbed, gunman Hank Peyton...

In "Dust Storm," Bob Lindsay is stuck in his shack in the Powder Mountains during a huge dust storm. When he finally emerges, he finds his water hole is nothing but a wallow of mud, and two-thirds of his crop has been wiped out. Now the two largest ranches in the area are ready to fight for water. Lindsay stopped the fighting once…can he do it a second time? Hugo Ames is the outlaw in "Outlaw's Pursuit" with a $15,000 bounty on his head following...

Outlaw Lawrence Grey has been captured in El Paso-- but Marshal Neilan will set him free if he can locate John Ray, now in Mexico, and heir to a fortune. During the search, Lawrence finds himself surrounding by intrigue, with his life threatened from all sides.

"Peter Quince was a fighter born and bred. Orphaned at a young age, he remembered an old woman saying that he was a bad one and would cause a lot of trouble in the world. Others claimed he had bad blood and it would show up sooner or later. But Bill Andrews felt a connection with the boy, took him home and raised him as one of his own despite his wife's misgivings. Peter soon learned he could manipulate people by withholding his true feelings--showing...