501 (c) (3) Organization
The Riders of High Rock
HOPALONG CASSIDY #3
1951
Westward the Tide
First published in London, 1950; first U.S. publication 1976
It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Matt Bardoul was a good man to have as a friend and a bad one to make trouble with. He was also a single-minded drifter—until he met his match in an outspoken beauty named Jacquine Coyle. She was headed into the Bighorn Mountains with her father and an expedition in search of gold. After Matt signs on to join them, he discovers that there is a group of outlaws in the party—gunfighters and thieves that Matt wouldn’t trust for a minute. At first it’s unclear what they are planning, but before long Matt realizes that he’s the only man standing between innocent people and a brutal conspiracy of greed, lust, and cold-blooded murder.
In this first of four classic frontier novels, Louis L'Amour adds his own special brand to the life and adventures of one of America's favorite fictional cowboys, Hopalong Cassidy. In The Rustlers of West Fork, the quick-thinking, fast-shooting cowpuncher heads west to deliver a fortune in bank notes to his old friend, Dick Jordan. When he arrives at the Circle J, he discovers that the rancher and his daughter, Pam, are being held prisoner by a desperate band of outlaws led by the ruthless Avery Sparr and his partner Arnold Soper. Even if Hopalong Cassidy can free Jordan and Pam, he will have to lead them across rough and untamed Apache country, stalked by the outlaws who have vowed to gun him down. But Hopalong is no stranger to trouble, and before his guns or his temper cool, he's determines to round up Sparr and his gang and bring the outlaws to justice ... dead or alive! This classic tale of pursuit and survival is vintage L'Amour and adds new life and luster to the legend of Hopalong Cassidy.
Louis L'Amour
Titles are listed in order of first publication. Series numbers are indicated in red.
The series number is the chronological order, not the order of publication.
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. And now he's sent them out to take care of the one man who stands in his way: Hopalong Cassidy. But Bolt's about to learn the hard way that if you shoot down a man like Cassidy, you better make sure he never gets up again.
Hopalong rides into a firestorm of violence and betrayal. On the rain-drenched trail to the lawless town of Seven Pines, Hopalong discovers two men -- one dead, the other badly wounded. Returning with medical help, Hopalong finds the wounded man has been shot through the temple. Who would commit such a murder? To find out, Hopalong hires on at Bob Ronson's Rocking R Ranch. There he learns that more than a thousand cattle have been run off by men keeping one scheming eye on the ranch and the other on the monthly stagecoach shipments of gold. Hopalong is determined to stop those responsible. But even the best gunfighter needs men he can trust to watch his back, men willing to risk their lives to do what's right. With their help, Hopalong fights to save the Rocking R, only to find himself the target of a ruthless gunman in a life-and-death struggle for frontier justice.
The Trail to Seven Pines
HOPALONG CASSIDY #2
1951
The Rustlers of West Fork
HOPALONG CASSIDY #1
1951
He was etched by the desert’s howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were preparing to rise against the white men. Now the pioneer woman, the gunman, and the Apache warrior are caught in a drama of love, war, and honor.
Hopalong Cassidy has received an urgent message from the dead. Answering an urgent appeal for help from fellow cowpuncher Pete Melford, he rides in only to discover that his old friends has been murdered and the ranch Pete left to his niece, Cindy Blair, had vanished without a trace. Hopalong may have arrived too late to save Pete, but his sense of loyalty and honor demands that he find that cold-blooded killers and return to Cindy what is rightfully hers. Colonel Justin Tradwar, criminal kingpin of the town of Kachina, is the owner of the sprawling Box T ranch, and he has built his empire with a shrewd and ruthless determination. In search of Pete's killers and Cindy's ranch, Hopalong signs on at the Box T, promising to help get Tradway's wild cattle out of the rattler-infested brush. But in the land of mesquite and black chaparral, Cassidy confronts a mystery as hellish as it is haunting—a bloody trail that leads to the strange and forbidding Babylon plateau, to $60,000 in stolen gold, and to a showdown with an outlaw who has already cheated death once... and is determined to do it again.
Hondo
1953
A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
STARRING JOHN WAYNE
Trouble Shooter
HOPALONG CASSIDY #4
1952
Rafe Caradec—gambler, wanderer, soldier of fortune—was as hard a man as the battlefields and waterfronts of Latin America could fashion, but he was as good as his word. As Charles Rodney lay dying in a dank ship’s fo’c’sle, Rafe swore to make sure that Rodney’s Wyoming ranch went to his daughter, Ann. In Painted Rock, Wyoming, Caradec found land for a man to love, miles of rolling grasslands and towering mountains. He also found that one of the most ruthless men in the territory had set his sights on both Rodney’s ranch and his daughter. But Rafe Caradec had given his word, and once he’d looked deep into Ann Rodney’s eyes, nothing short of death would stop him from keeping the promise he’d made.
Tom Kedrick earned his stripes during the Civil War, fought Apaches, and even soldiered overseas. But in the high desert country of New Mexico, the battle-hardened Kedrick is entangled in a different kind of war, fueled by greed and deception. Hired by Alton Burwick to drive a pack of renegades and outlaws off the government land recently set aside for an Indian reservation, Kedrick begins to notice that things are not as they seem. As his suspicions grow, he realizes that he may be fighting on the wrong side of a land swindle. Disillusioned and outraged, Kedrick must take action against the very people who hired him–or be forced to witness the bloody massacre of innocent men and women.
Crossfire Trail
1954
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING TOM SELLECK
Showdown At Yellow Butte
1953
Tom Healy was in trouble. His theatrical troupe needed to get to Alder Gulch, Montana, and the weather was turning. Andy Barker promised Tom he could get them there safely, but Tom was reluctant to trust him: he had the lives of three actresses to consider, and his personal feelings for Janice further heightened his concern. Then King Mabry showed up. Although Tom didn’t like the way he looked at Janice, he could see that Mabry made Barker uneasy. So Tom invited Mabry to join them. Tom was right to be worried, because Barker had a plan. He knew that the wagons carried something more than actors and scenery. He and his men were going to steal it any way they could. And that included murder.
Kilkenny wasn’t looking for trouble when he entered the Clifton House stage station, but trouble found him when a reckless youngster named Tetlow challenged him, drew his gun, and paid for it with his life.
Looking to escape a reputation that he never wanted, Kilkenny settles in the lonely mountain country of Utah, planning to ranch a high, lush valley. But the past is on his trail. Jared Tetlow is a powerful rancher determined to run his vast herd on the limited grasslands there—whether he has to buy out the local ranchers, run them out, or kill them. He’ll cut down anyone who stands in his way, especially a man he already despises: the gunman named Kilkenny—the man who killed his son.
Kilkenny
1954
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. But as Colleen Riley, Devitt’s fiancée, realizes the brutal game he’s playing, her disapproval of his actions, and Clay Bell’s obvious integrity and charm, pull her toward a destiny that will tip the scales in their bloody battle over timber and cattle.
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.
Now Utah has a unique proposition: Have the wealthy Texan play dead, introduce himself as the spread’s new foreman, and take care of the outlaws one by one. The wage to fight another man’s war? A hundred a month plus expenses. The cost of falling in love while he earns that wage? It wasn’t exactly part of the original agreement, but Utah will soon find out–unless the bad guys get to him first.
Guns of the Timberlands
1955
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING ALAN LADD
Utah Blaine
1954
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING RORY CALHOUN
Wounded, dehydrated, and escaping and 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 caring for his injuries. Maria Cristina and her family have also suffered at the hands of Sutton and his men. The experience has left her hostile and defiant. But Jordan sees another side of Maria, and the more time they spend together, the greater his concern for her safety becomes. Sutton’s men are watching and waiting for him to show himself. If he escapes, Maria will be left behind to face their brutality. But if he convinces her to join him, he will be leading her into a heat-blasted, waterless desert. And if that doesn’t kill them, the Apaches will.
Rye Tyler was twelve 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. Tracking her to Robbers’ Roost, Rye is forced to face the man who taught him all he knows about books, guns, and friendship. Two old friends—one woman: Who will walk away?
The Burning Hills
1956
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING NATALIE WOOD
To Tame a Land
1955
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.
The last thing Cates wanted was to be responsible for the lives of thirteen desperate strangers and a shipment of gold. But he knew that if they were to survive, he was their last chance. He also knew that some in the party were willing to die—or kill—to get their hands on the money. If he couldn’t get them to work together, it wouldn’t be the desert or even the Apaches that would do them in—it would be the greed of the very people he was trying to save.
“You’re not wanted in Hattan’s Point,” Matt Brennan was told moments after arriving in town. “There’s trouble here and men are picking sides.” But Matt decided he wasn’t going anywhere. Not until he found out what the dispute was about, and not before he got to know Moira Maclaren. She considered him nothing more than a drifting ranch hand, but Matt was determined to prove her wrong. To do so, he’d have to solve a mystery that was at the center of the growing violence in Hattan’s Point–a secret that could make a man rich . . . or dead. Probably dead.
Last Stand at Papago Wells
1957
Silver Canyon
1956
Wagon trains heading west were forced to defend themselves against Indians, cope with injuries and illness, and struggle to find food. The group of easterners Rock Bannon was scouting for faced another problem. They were being deceived. When he warned them to remain on the Humboldt Trail, Sharon Crockett and the others refused to listen. Mort Harper, a stranger riding a beautiful black mare, had dazzled them with his charm and good looks. The southern route was the best way to go, Harper told them. But best for whom? Bannon wondered. That route led straight to the Salt Lake Desert. The conditions would be brutal. And if Harper wasn’t steering them toward those deadly alkali flats, where were they headed? And what would happen once they got there?
He was born in the swamps of the Eastern States, but he came of age on the frontier. Now, Jean LaFarge finds himself swept up in an epic battle in the wilds of Alaska, where a tyranical Russian has seized control of the fur trade-and the land. But Jean has never backed down from a fight, even one as bold and dangerous as this-a battle that will shape the future of America.
The Tall Stranger
1957
Sitka
1957
East Texas wasn't much of a home for Cullen Baker. Few liked him, and some even tried to kill him. Yet after three hard years of wandering, he's come back to farm the land that's rightfully his.
Only Cullen's in for an unwelcome homecoming: his neighbors have long memories, the Reconstructionists have greedy hearts, and his worst enemy has teamed up with a vicious outlaw. But Cullen isn't about to back down. Instead, he's intent on perfecting a new way of gunfighting—the fast draw. And now, with enemies closing in on three sides and threatening the woman he loves, he'll have to be faster than lightning—and twice as deadly—just to survive.
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 three thousand head of cattle, an outfit of hardcase gunfighters, and winter coming on, she is unwilling to take no for an answer.
But Radigan has worked four hard years building up his ranch. Fighting for it–and, if he has to, killing for it–is something he is more than willing to do. If Angelina Foley and her men think he is the kind of man to give up without a fight, they are dead wrong.
The First Fast Draw
1959
Radigan
1958
Tyrel Sackett was born to trouble, but vowed to justice. After having to kill a man in Tennessee, he hit the trail west with his brother Orrin. Those were the years when decent men and women lived in fear of Indians, rustlers, and killers, but the Sackett brothers worked to make the West a place where people could raise their children in peace. Orrin brought law and order from Santa Fe to Montana, and his brother Tye backed him up every step of the way. Till the day the job was done, Tye Sackett was the fastest gun alive.
Adam Stark had found gold. In the confusion of the mesas and canyons near Rockinstraw Mountain, Stark, his wife, Consuelo, and his sister, Miriam, were quietly working a rich vein while keeping their presence a secret from raiding Apaches. Worried that his wife might leave him, Stark wanted to make enough money to take her to San Francisco, where she could enjoy the style of life she craved.
But when Taggart, a stranger on the run from a vicious bounty hunter, enters their camp, tensions soon mount. Consuelo, against all good judgment, cannot resist testing Taggart. Is he the man who can make her happy? Will he give her the life her husband cannot? With thousands of dollars of gold in his packsadles, the Apaches are now no longer Adam Stark’s only threat.
The Daybreakers
SACKETTS #6
1960
Taggart
1959
Hard circumstances have made William Tell Sackett a drifter, but now he hungers for a place he can’t name yet knows he has to find. South of the Tetons he comes upon a ghost of a trail that leads him through a keyhole pass into a lonely, alien, yet beautiful valley—a valley that holds a fortune in gold.
Then he finds an even greater treasure: beautiful Ange Kerry, a courageous and resourceful woman. Yet the harsh ways it takes to preserve his claim and his life could be the one thing that drives Ange away forever.
He left the West at the age of seventeen, leaving behind a rootless past and a bloody trail of violence. In the East he became one of the wealthiest financiers in America—and one of the most feared and hated.
Now, suffering from incurable cancer, he has come back to New Mexico to die alone. But when an all-out range war erupts, Flint chooses to help Nancy Kerrigan, a local rancher. A cold-eyed speculator is setting up the land swindle of a lifetime, and Buckdun, a notorious assassin, is there to back his play.
Flint alone can help Nancy save her ranch…with his cash, his connections—and his gun. He still has his legendary will to fight. All he needs is time, and that’s fast running out….
Sackett
SACKETTS #9
1961
Flint
1960
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.
Considine and Pete Runyon had once been friends, back in the days when both were cowhands. But when Runyon married the woman Considine loved, the two parted ways. Runyon settled down and became a sheriff. Considine took up robbing banks. Now Considine is planning a raid on the bank at Obaro, a plan that will pit him against Runyon . . . and lead to riches or suicide. The one thing he never counted on was meeting a strong, beautiful woman and her stubborn father, hell-bent on traveling alone through Apache territory to a new life. Suddenly Considine must choose between revenge and redemption—and either choice could be the last one he makes.
Killoe
1962
High Lonesome
1962
He rode wild country with wilder men. He was a loner who owned nothing but his horse and saddle-and his guns. He was a man willing to gamble his life to get the woman he wanted... He was Shalako.
For six long years Orlando Sackett survived the horrors of a brutal Mexican prison. He survived by using his skills as a boxer and by making three vows. The first was to exact revenge on the hired killers who framed him. The second was to return to his father. And the third was to find Gin Locklear. But the world has changed a lot since Lando left it. His father is missing. The woman he loves is married. And the killers want him dead. Hardened physically and emotionally, Lando must begin an epic journey to resolve his past, even if it costs him his life.
Shalako
1962
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING SEAN CONNERY
Lando
SACKETTS #8
1962
When Gaylord Riley walked away from the Coburn gang, he had money and a dream. He worked hard and built a cabin, gathered a herd of cattle, and fell in love with Marie Shattuck. But when he is confronted with false accusations of rustling and murder, Riley is forced to defend his new law-abiding way of life. Outnumbered and facing a lynching party, Riley is surprised when his old friends return to lend him a hand. But how can they help him and keep themselves out of jail? With the local marshal already suspicious of Riley, the Coburn gang will have to plan well and move fast. But that shouldn’t be a problem. Their reputation was built by doing just that.
Pursued by law officers and the Mexican Army after stealing a shipment of gold, Catlow must trek through Seri Indian country where few men have lived to tell about their ordeal crossing the hostile desert.
Dark Canyon
1963
Catlow
1963
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING YUL BRYNNER
They came by river and by wagon train, braving the endless distances of the Great Plains and the icy passes of the Sierra Nevada. They were men like Linus Rawlings, a restless survivor of Indian country who’d headed east to see the ocean but left his heart—and his home—in the West. They were women like Lilith Prescott, a smart, spirited beauty who fled her family and fell for a gambling man in the midst of a frontier gold boom. These pioneering men and women sowed the seeds of a nation with their courage—and with their blood. Here is the story of how their paths would meet amid the epic struggle against fierce enemies and nature’s cruelty, to win for all time the rich and untamed West.
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. He had come to Red Horse to make a quick fortune, but now he might have to pick up a gun and risk his life for a place he never wanted to call home.…
How the West Was Won
1963
A MOTION PICTURE
STARRING JOHN WAYNE
Fallon
1963
Tell Sackett was no ladies’ man, but he could spot trouble easily enough. And Dorinda Robiseau was the kind of trouble he wanted to avoid at any time—even more so when he had thirty pounds of gold in his saddlebags and a long way to travel. But when she begged him for safe passage to Los Angeles, Sackett reluctantly agreed. Now he’s on a perilous journey through the most brutal desert on the continent, traveling with a companion he doesn’t trust . . . and headed for a confrontation with a deadly gunman who also bears the name of Sackett.
Barnabus Pike is no gunfighter and not much of a street fighter. Eddie Holt is a black boxer in a white man's world. They've both taken their share of hard knocks. Now they're looking to survive a brutal winter in a remote Montana line shack, collect their pay, and settle down for good. Then they cross paths with a hardworking Irish immigrant and his beautiful, spirited sister, who've been burned off their land. It's a fight Pike and Holt don't want, don't need, and don't dare turn their backs on—especially when one of the perpetrators might be one of Pike's old friends. Hunted like animals across the frozen countryside, Pike and Holt will risk everything—including their reputations, their dreams—and their lives.
Mojave Crossing
SACKETTS #11
1964
Hanging Woman Creek
1964
He had led the posse for miles through the desert, but now Matt Keelock was growing desperate. He was worried about Kristina. His trip to the town of Freedom for supplies had ended in a shootout. If caught he would hang. Even though Kris could handle a horse and rifle as well as most men, the possibility of Oskar Neerland’s finding her made Matt’s blood run cold. He knew the violent and obsessive Neerland, publicly embarrassed when Matt had stepped in and stolen Kris away, would try to kill them both if given half a chance. Matt tried to convince himself that Neerland had returned to the East. But Matt was wrong. Miles away in the town of Freedom, Oskar Neerland was accepting a new job. In his first duty as marshal, he would lead the posse that was tracking down Matt Keelock.
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. As Mike Shevlin tries to unravel the mystery of Patterson’s death, he is led deeper and deeper into a conspiracy that controls not only the fate of Rafter Crossing but the heart of a beautiful but tormented young woman—and Shevlin’s own destiny.
The Key-Lock Man
1965
The High Graders
1965