No one tells tales of the frontier better than Louis L'Amour, who portrays the human side of westward expansion-the good and the bad-before the days of law and order. Collected here are six stories penned by America's favorite Western author. "Trap of Gold" Wetherton has been three months out of town when he finds his first color in a crumbling upthrust granite wall with a vein of quartz that is literally laced with gold. The problem is that the...

An ex-Marine on the run from the nightmares of war. An American scientist and his beautiful wife on a desperate journey to save their marriage. An aging native shaman trying to teach his grandson one last, all important, lesson. All are headed up an uncharted river into a confrontation with a mysterious warlord trapped by a deadly curse.

Major James Brionne had brought Dave Allard to trial for murder, but his brothers returned to settle the score four years later. Brionne and his son headed West to start a new life knowing there would be another showdown.

Gaylord Riley sets up a cattle ranch bordering Dark Canyon, a tough stretch of country used by rustlers and desperate men when they are in trouble.

Pronto Pike and his partner Eddie Holt follow the trail of rustlers who are raiding the Bar J Ranch and who are so ruthless that they have no qualms about murdering a woman. Pronto Pike had punched longhorns along the Rio Grande and ridden the rails back East, but he'd never been in a spot like this before. It had begun with a bitter standoff between a powerful rancher and a homesteading Irishman. It escalated into missing cattle, overlaid brands,...

Tom Chantry came from the East to buy cattle and get them to the railroad. He was a peaceful man, but when a group of local outlaws mistook him for a victim, there was lead to pay.

Logan Sackett comes to the aid of an untamable lady named Emily Talon, who was born a Sackett.

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...

Ruble Noon, who cannot remember who he is, fights to save Fan Davidge's ranch from the greedy double-dealers and vicious gunfighters who are after a hoard of gold buried on her land.

Logan Cates rode to Papago Wells a few miles ahead of an Apache war party led by the vicious Churupati. There he met a dozen desert-wanderers whom chance had led to the only water around.