Mrs. Meade had been looking forward to a pleasant visit with old friends—but their house party turns to disaster when a fire destroys the house during the night. Even worse, the fire appears to have been...

Was it a joke gone wrong—or something more sinister?It's summer in Colorado, and Sir Edmund Marsland's family are enjoying their visit to the West—though not everyone at the Wellman ranch is quite as...

"I do believe in coincidences, surely," said Mrs. Meade, "but when they coincide with perfect alibis and impossible thefts I tend to doubt them."When the Wellmans receive a letter from their son's boarding-school...

Major Cambert and his grandson Jim were known to have quarreled bitterly over Jim's choice of a wife, so when the Major is found shot dead by his own fireside a few nights later, Jim is the prime suspect—and...

Practicing his quick draw seemed a harmless amusement…until the day a boys' quarrel exploded into gunplay. Sixteen-year-old Lew Kelly grew up idolizing his enigmatic ex-gunfighter father. Everyone thought...

She needed a husband on short notice to save the ranch.They needed a ring to make it official, and his best pal just happened to have a real nice one handy.And they're all about to get way more than they...

Mrs. Meade is not the only one in Sour Springs who is shocked at the news when Clyde Renfrew is accused of a drunken assault on a woman. Clyde, a sober, steady young rancher, seemed the last person likely...

In a small town in turn-of-the-century Colorado, a young woman has disappeared from the boarding-house where she lives. Her distraught fiancé is certain that she must have been kidnapped. But the case...

From the author of "The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories" come six more short stories exploring the joys, heartaches and laughter of life against the backdrop of the Old West. In "Single-Handed," a gunfighter's...

Jeanette Pierpont is out of patience.On the run from hurt and humiliation, she's fled back to her home in the Montana mountains in search of solitude. But to her unpleasant surprise, she discovers she's...

On a snowy December evening during the Great Depression, a high-spirited college student impulsively decides to do some spying on a quiet classmate—with unexpected results. A short story both funny and...

At the bottom of an old trinket-box sits a lump of lead—a bullet from the Civil War. Behind it lies a story—the story of a young girl's experiences in the days surrounding the fateful battle of Gettysburg,...

Three men poised on the brink between honesty and crime. A spunky young woman determined to foil claim-jumpers. Christmas Eve among the wolves and the winds. Rebellion by a brother, and betrayal from...

Her inheritance came with an unsolved mystery.If she can't find out the truth, she may lose more than she gained.Lena Campbell never knew her grandfather—but she always dreamed of visiting Wyoming, where...

A new bride faces questions about her marriage in the shadow of a prairie blizzard. A minister's decision to raise sheep in cattle country stirs up controversy among his new congregation. A spunky ranch...

Crashing thunder! Pelting sand! The whirl of confusion and the winds of madness.Join 13 unsurpassed storytellers to journey through Western storms with tales of perseverance, grit, and courage as vast...