CHAPTER 1. A DESERT MEETING An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong,... more...

THE DEATH VALLEY TRAIL The heat hung like smoke above Panamint Sink, it surged up against the hills like the waves of a great sea that boiled and seethed in the sun; and the mountains that walled it in gleamed and glistened like polished jet where the light was struck back from their sides. They rose up in solid ramparts, unbelievably steep and combed clean by the sluicings of cloudbursts; and where the black canyons had belched forth their... more...

CHAPTER I The soft, muffling dusk settled slowly downward from the darkening blue sky and little by little smothered the weird gleam that rose from the gray-white plain. Away toward the east a range of mountains gloomed faintly, rimming the distance. Another towered against the western horizon. Cactus clumps and bunches of mesquite and greasewood blotted the whitely gleaming earth. In and out among these dark spots a man was slowly riding. Now... more...

CHAPTER I. Glenn and Joe—Their horses—A storm—A black stump—A rough tumble—Moaning—Stars—Light—A log fire—Tents, and something to eat—Another stranger, who turns out to be well known—Joe has a snack—He studies revenge against the black stump—Boone proposes a bear hunt. "Do you see any light yet, Joe?" "Not the least speck that ever was created, except the lightning,... more...

AT THE BEGINNING. She was in the box; he was far above in the gallery. He looked down and across and saw her sitting there fair as a flower and robed like a royal courtesan in flame and snow. Like a red torch flamed the ruby in her hair. Her shoulders were framed in her cloak, white as marble warmed with firelight. Her gloved hands held an opera glass which also glowed with flashing light. His face grew dark and stern. He looked down at... more...

Riding at ease in the lazy afternoon sunshine a single troop of cavalry was threading its way in long column of twos through the bold and beautiful foothills of the Big Horn. Behind them, glinting in the slanting rays, Cloud Peak, snow clad still although it was late in May, towered above the pine-crested summits of the range. To the right and left of the winding trail bare shoulders of bluff, covered only by the dense carpet of bunch grass,... more...

Western Novels byZANE GREY Desert GoldSunset PassForlorn RiverTo the Last ManMajesty's RanchoRiders of the Purple SageThe Vanishing AmericanNevadaWilderness TrekCode of the WestThe Thundering HerdFighting Caravans30,000 on the HoofThe Hash Knife OutfitThunder MountainThe Heritage of the DesertUnder the Tonto RimKnights of the RangeWestern UnionThe Lost Wagon TrainShadow on the TrailThe Mysterious RiderTwin SombrerosThe Rainbow TrailArizona... more...

CHAPTER I. It was the last day of Captain Wilbur Cranston's leave of absence. For three blissful months he had been visiting his old home in a bustling Western city, happy in the happiness of his charming wife in this her first long restoration to civilization since their marriage ten years before; happy in the pride and joy of his father and mother in having once more under their roof the soldier son who had won an honored name in his... more...

FOREWORD It was inevitable that in my efforts to write romantic history of the great West I should at length come to the story of a feud. For long I have steered clear of this rock. But at last I have reached it and must go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring events of pioneer days. Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners of the West without seeing the lives of people still affected by a fighting... more...

THE GRUB-STAKER I "There's gold in the Sierra Blanca country—everybody admits it," Sherman F. Bidwell was saying as the Widow Delaney, who kept the Palace Home Cooking Restaurant in the town of Delaney (named after her husband, old Dan Delaney), came into the dining-room. Mrs. Delaney paused with a plate of steaming potatoes, and her face was a mask of scorn as she addressed the group, but her words were aimed especially at Bidwell, who... more...