He came out of Malpais, the terrible volcanic badlands where nothing can live, riding a giant red stallion no other man could put a hand to. His boots were polished, his speech was gentle, but his guns were quick and smooth as silk. He shot first and talked later.

He rode wild country with wilder men. Shalako was a loner who owned nothing but his horse and saddle--and his guns. He was a man willing to gamble his life to get the woman he wanted.

In order to seek revenge on the Sackett family whom she believes destroyed her father, Laura Pritts Sackett dupes her brother-in-law Tell into undertaking a deadly mission through Apache territory to search for her kidnapped son.

This is an eminently readable and enjoyable collection of 10 previously unpublished short stories by the late L'Amour. In"The Ghost Fighter," Bat McGowan is the world heavyweight boxing champion. He is also a drinker, womanizer, and carouser. His managers have a chance to make some money off the title by staging matches in small towns, and decide to employ look-alike Barney Malone as a stand-in. As the exhibitions progress, Malone proves that having...

From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America, here is Louis L'Amour's memoir of his lifelong love affair with learning--from books, from yondering, and from some remarkable men and women--that shaped him...

It is almost too much for even a Sackett to handle! He could outride and outshoot any five men, but he was a fool for a lady in distress. The posse was hot on his trail for murder when he took time out to rescue Sylvie from a gang of desperados. it wasn't til she bushwhacked him with a shotgun, and tried to poison him that he realised she was up to no good. After he'd heard her sad story, he should have cut and run, but somehow Sackett never seems...

He had led the posse for miles through the desert, but now Matt Keelock was growing desperate. He was worried about Kristina. His trip to the town of Freedom for supplies had ended in a shoot-out. If caught, he would hang. Even though Kris could handle a horse and rifle as well as most men, the possibility of Oskar Neerland's finding her made Matt's blood run cold. He knew that the violent and obsessive Neerland, publicly embarrassed when Matt had...

Considine and Pete Runyon had once been friends, back in the days when both were cowhands. But when Runyon married the woman Considine loved, the two parted ways. Runyon settled down and became a sheriff. Considine took up robbing banks. Now Considine is planning a raid on the bank at Obaro, a plan that will pit him against Runyon . . . and lead to riches or suicide. The one thing he never counted on was meeting a strong, beautiful woman and her stubborn...

At what point does a group of strangers become a community? When young Bendigo Shafter and a ragtag bunch of travelers settle in the rugged Wyoming mountains, they quickly come to depend on a toughness and wisdom many of them never knew they possessed. Led by the beautiful and resourceful widow Ruth Macken, the settlers battle harsh winters, renegade opportunists, and the destructive lure of gold. Through these brutally demanding experiences, young...

Matt Bardoul was a good man to have as a friend and a bad one to make trouble with. He was also a single-minded drifter - until he met his match in an outspoken beauty named Jacquine Coyle. She was headed into the Bighorn Mountains with her father and an expedition in search of gold. After Matt signs on to join them, he discovers that there is a group of outlaws in the party - gunfighters and thieves that Matt wouldn't trust for a minute. At first...