Presents four novel-length Western stories written during the early years of author Louis L'amour's career.

Milo Talon signs on as a hand at the Stirrup-Iron ranch and soon finds himself involved in trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious smuggling operation which has been going on for a number of years and which has set rancher against rancher, threatening an all-out range war.

"It began with gold that had once belonged to Montezuma. Stolen and cached in a church in Mexico, it was recovered by two army officers who fled north for the French settlements. Along the way one stabbed the other to death. The remaining officer was eventually killed by Plains Indians, but he buried the treasure just before he died. Now Ronan Chantry, a handful of trappers, and an Irish girl whose father was killed after telling her a few vague landmarks...

In this classic L'Amour adventure, a dark-eyed drifter wages a war against a murderous band of rustlers. As far as the eye could see was a vast, lonely horizon. And Evie Teale and her two children were all alone here now, alone in an untamed country where the elements, the Indians, and the thieves made it far easier to die than to live. But soon a man named Conagher would drift into her life -- and together they would have the courage to make a stand....

Rye Tyler was 12 when he saw his father cut down in an Indian raid. Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for Shakespeare and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the lessons of a hard country.