Tales from the Old West

This collection of Western tales contains three stories by the finest Western writers who ever lived.

In “Cañon Walls” by Zane Grey, Smoke Bellew enters a remote Mormon settlement only a jump ahead of a posse. Finding employment as a ranch hand working for a dowager Mormon, Smoke finds that his life undergoes a transformation and he is able to make her ranch a financial success, at the same time falling in love with her wanton daughter, Rebecca. But it is too good to last. The law follows him.

“Black Sheep” by Max Brand finds young Mary Valentine—upstart, tomboy, and general troublemaker—seeking to protect a man wanted by the law. To complicate her life even further, her two cousins, who have been dodging the law, return home and decide with their father to join the notorious Markle gang in holding up the local bank.

In “The Sixth Shotgun” by Louis L’Amour, Leo Carver is about to be hung. The only problem is that a lot of folks are indebted to Leo for one thing or another.

Louis L'Amour's 115 title-plus bibliography is astonishing on its own; even more so given the fact that his writing career did not start in earnest until his 40s. Simply being prolific, however, does not a bestselling author make. L'Amour's Western stories, as written by a real-life adventurer, capture the survivalism and code of honor on which the American frontier mythology rests.