Arthur Henry Gooden

When Donal Cameron and his Circle C outfit first came to San Benito in the Rio Seco Valley, he was warned to keep his cow moving till they were a long way from those parts. But Cameron figured the Rio Seco wanted cleaning up, so he moved in his Circle C outfit to do the job.

King Malory's entry into San Lucas was an unusual if not impressive one. He left the stagecoach for the jail, accused of cattle-rustling--but it wasn't long before he had broken out of captivity. With all the forces of the law against him, King Malory brought to light certain facts which some of the most powerful and respected members of local society would rather have left undiscovered.

Arrogant old rancher Jim Cary was lord and master of the mighty Smoke Tree Range, with its fertile valleys and sandy desert. But the same could not be said of his headstrong grandson Lee. When Lee championed the cause of Nan Page and her younger brother to Ranchos Los Posos, one of the richest sections of all Smoke Tree holdings, the old man was secretly proud, but determined to bend Lee to his will. Nan Page was hardly a weakling, but she was alone in a strange land and she was hardly a match for the scheming, greedy man who would try to possess her land by any means. Without the aid of Lee Cary, she could never save the range she had inherited.

"Allan Rand, looking for the missing heiress of a cattleman's fortune, rescues Poco Gato from cowboys set on a lynching. With Poco as a friend who would die for him, Rand sets out on a double quest through the rough and tough Roaring River district to stop the rustlers and to find the girl"--

V. Crumm, proprietress of the Santa Ysabel General Store and the Feed and Stage Stables, is known and respected for a hundred miles in every direction, but she'd had a warning in a letter--get out of Santa Ysabel or face ruin and death. Who was it wanted her dead. Who, and why?

When Jim Chaine, owner of the Bar Chaine Ranch, was murdered, his son, Ross, was sent to live with an aunt. Shortly afterwards, Buel Patchen, manager of the Flying A Ranch, built a large dam in the valley, turning Alamos into a ghost town and destroying the Bar Chaine Ranch. Now a man, Ross Chaine returns to Red Creek Valley to find out what really happened to his father and to take possession of the Bar Chaine. Ross knows his return will likely have a chain reaction -- and that bloodshed could well be involved. But he's determined to set things right, and he has friends on both sides of the border who will help him do just that.

Back in the early days of ranching, King Cole owned a million acres of grazing land and vast herds of cattle. His only daughter, Lylah, scorned the side-saddle of the period and boldly rode astride, making her the talk of the countryside. In addition to her independence of spirit, she had youth and the dark beauty of her Spanish mother. Life had always been exciting to Lylah, but when she discovered that Jeff Wayne, the son of her father's old enemy, had come back to graze his cattle on what she considered her father's land, she was frightened. That Jeff was handsome and had saved her life in a storm complicated the issue -- but, after all, her father was "King" Cole of the K-C Bar ranch. There were others in that lonely section of New Mexico besides the Cole family who watched the return of Wayne. Tragedy stalked the sun-baked mesa when the Wayne trail herd was rustled, but Jeff Wayne was not a man to be easily beaten. For him it meant war, even though he might lose his life and never again see the girl he loved.