Dangerous Ground and Other Old West Short Stories

Book excerpt: Revisit the wild, wild west during a time when unwritten rules of conduct for survival were never formal but respected everywhere on the range in this collection of ten, rollicking short stories, including: "Dangerous Ground": The town marshal quits his job yet he's reluctant to leave town once he hears about the mayor's plot to steal $200,000 in gold. "Out of the Desert": Undercover Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Boone correctly suspects a banker's plot to steal a gold shipment... "The Hero of Lost Creek": A crippled horse breaker turns hero when he foils cattle rustlers and wins the heart of the boss's daughter. "The Trail to Nowhere": With Indians hot on his heels, a naked trapper and former schoolteacher runs into the forest in the dead of winter and uses little more than ingenuity to thwart his enemies and get all his stuff back. "Quickdraw": Using a special arm harness and pieces of an old corset, Walker shoots it out with the town bully... "Square-Toed Boots": In a cow town, his farmer's boots appear to make him fair game but, when four cowboys dare to insult his wife, they're about to get a lesson in good manners. "Come Morning": At twelve, Sean Mixus can handle a Sharps .50 rifle like nobody's business but putting up with a bath at his sister's house every day forces him to consider O'Reilly and the trail herd as his best escape. "Gold is Where You Find It": Marcus and Saul swindle a greedy banker into buying a worthless gold mine, leave town, and they're living in what they believe is the lap of luxury when they read about a gold strike--right where their false map sent the banker! "Mad Dog Muncie": Two scoundrels at Fort Clark have been cheating folks and selling boys into slavery...but then Mad Dog Muncie appears to right a few wrongs. "Curley's Kids": Curley Samson is a lone trapper until he rescues two orphan kids and a pretty young woman and finds himself rescued from a life of loneliness in the process.