The Proving Trail

The story was that Eli Patterson had died in a gunfight, but Mike Shevlin knew it couldn't be true: The man who'd been like a father to him had been a Quaker. But when Shevlin rides back to Rafter Crossing to uncover the truth, he finds that the quiet ranching community has become a booming mining town. Newfound wealth has not made Rafter a peaceful place, however, and the smell of fear and greed is thick in the air.

When beautiful Angelina Foley presents Tom Radigan with a Spanish grant and claims ownership of his land, he realizes he's up against a cunning and deadly opportunist. Foley wants him off Vache Creek immediately, and with 3,000 head of cattle, an outfit of hardcase gunfighters, and winter coming on, she is unwilling to take no for an answer.

Colonel Utah Blaine, held captive by the Army of the Revolution, broke out of jail and headed north from Mexico with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then he found new trouble struggling at the end of a noose - and stepped in just in time to save the life of a Texas rancher. The would-be executioners were the rancher’s own men, looking to steal his land.

Bill Canavan rode into the valley with a dream to start his own ranch. But when he managed to stake claims on the three best water holes, the other ranchers turned against him. No one is more determined to see Canavan dead than Star Levitt. Levitt is an unscrupulous businessman who has been accumulating cattle at an alarming rate. Suspicious after witnessing a secret meeting between the riders of warring ranches, Bill begins noticing other dubious behavior: Why is Levitt's fiancée, Dixie Venable, acting more like a hostage than a willing bride-to-be?

Rye Tyler was 12 when his father was killed in an Indian raid. Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for books and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the hard lessons of life in the West. But after killing a man, he is forced to leave his new home. He rides lonely mountain passes and works on dusty cattle drives until he finds a job breaking horses. Then he meets Liza Hetrick, and in her eyes he sees his future. After establishing himself as marshal of Alta, he returns, only to discover that Liza has been kidnapped.

He was a tough enforcer for a New York gang. But when young Tom Shanaghy made one too many enemies, he skipped town on a fast-moving freight. He landed in a small Kansas town that had big dreams, no name, and the need for an honest lawman. Tom figured that a knuckle-and-skull man from Five Points would be perfect for the job. He didn't know that a high-stakes cattle drive was headed his way and that leading it was a vindictive rancher bent on settling an old score.

Macon Fallon had never needed more than a deck of cards, a fast horse, and a ready gun; he was counting on those things now as he led an unsuspecting group of settlers to an abandoned mining town. But while Fallon prepared to pass the ghost town off as a gold mine in the making, a funny thing happened: a real-life community started to take shape in the town he’d christened Red Horse. So when a band of vicious outlaws and a kid who fancied himself a gunslinger threatened to rip Red Horse apart, Fallon found himself caught in one predicament he’d never gambled on. 

It was the only water for miles in a vast, sun-blasted desert where water meant survival. So Logan Cates naturally headed for Papago Wells. But he wasn't the only one. Fleeing the fierce Churupati and his Apache warriors, other travelers had come there, too. And when the Apaches found them, they began a siege as relentless and unforgiving as the barren land - and just as inescapable.

After discovering six gold Roman coins buried in the mud of the Devil's Dyke, Barnabas Sackett enthusiastically invests in goods that he will offer for trade in America. But Sackett has a powerful enemy: Rupert Genester, nephew of an earl, wants him dead. A battlefield promise made to Sackett’s father threatens Genester’s inheritance. So on the eve of his departure for America, Sackett is attacked and thrown into the hold of a pirate ship. 

Val Darrant was just four years old the snowy night his mother abandoned him. But instead of meeting a lonely death, he met Will Reilly - a gentleman, a gambler, and a worldly, self-taught scholar. For 10 years they each were all the family the other had, traveling from dusty American boomtowns to the glittering cities of Belle Époque Europe - until the day Reilly’s luck ran out in a roar of gunfire. But it wasn’t a gambling brawl or a pack of thieves that sealed Will’s fate. It was a far more complex story that Val would soon uncover.

Clay Bell spent the last six years fighting Indians, rustlers, and the wilderness itself to make the B-Bar ranch the prize of the Deep Creek Range. But Jud Devitt, a ruthless speculator from the East, now threatens everything Clay has worked for. Devitt, holding a contract with the Mexican Central to deliver railroad ties, wants to harvest timber off the land where Clay grazes his cattle. Backing Devitt are shady politicians, a dishonest banker, and fifty of the toughest lumberjacks in the county.

For years, Milo Talon had been riding the outlaw trail, looking for a man who had betrayed his family. Only Hank Rossiter wasn’t the man he had been. Old now and blind, Rossiter was trying desperately to hold on to a small ranch to support his daughter, Barbara. Suddenly Talon found himself in the middle of a range war, siding with the man he’d marked for payback. But had Rossiter really changed? And could his daughter be trusted by either of them? For Milo, getting to the truth meant a long hard fight to separate his enemies from his friends - and forgiveness from revenge.

Dan Killoe - over six feet of tough, raw, lightning-fast man. He had a trail heard and a mass of settlers to get across unknown territory to a new land. Then he gave shelter to a stranger being hunted by Felipe Soto, scar-faced leader of the renegade Comancheros. This time Killoe was borrowing more trouble than he wanted to handle.

Hopalong rode into cattle country just east of the California line looking for his old friend Red Connors. He found Red holed up in a mountain cave with a bullet in his side and a story to tell. The ranchers around Tascotal had been losing their stock, and when Red caught the rustlers in the act, they hunted him down, shot him, and left him for dead. Jack Bolt, a savage, ruthless killer, has brought in a tough band of hardcases to run his operation.

Wounded, dehydrated, and escaping a violent feud with the men of Bob Sutton’s ranch, Trace Jordan is near collapse when he descends from the heat of the desert into a cool, secluded canyon. He wakes to find a beautiful woman gently nursing him back to health. Strong and proud, Maria Cristina has also suffered at the hands of Sutton and his men. The experience has left her hostile and defiant. Trace, intrigued by Maria’s grit and determination, can’t help trying to peel back her layers - but his attraction makes her a target.