"Hey, saddle tramp," said Vernon. "I don't think I like a bum like you coming in here to drink with us men." Matt turned to face Guthry, spread his feet shoulder wide with his gun hand thumb still hooked in his belt, still three fingers from his .44. The men that stood along the bar, drifted to one side, out of the line of fire. The room grew deadly quiet. "I've had just about all the crap I'm going to take from a local loudmouth like you," Matt said. There was a deadly chill to his voice and Vernon shivered slightly from the feel of it. All of a sudden, he realized that he might be biting off a little more than he could chew. Being the braggart that he was, he couldn't back down from the step he had taken. He crouched and went for his pistol. Realization that he didn't even have his gun half way out of leather, and was already looking into the black hole of a barrel, that looked three inches in diameter, he froze and in no time at all he felt the sting of salty sweat in his eyes from the large beads that had popped out on his forehead and trickled down. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple moved up and down but the lump in his throat was just about to choke him and he couldn't swallow it. He lost control of his bladder and pissed down his leg, the warm fluid trickling into his left boot. Dawning on him that he had just pissed in his own whiskey, he sucked in a mountain of air and said with a high pitched, fine toothed comb, squeak, "Ohooo, shit." .

This facsimile reprint of the Winter 1940 issue of FRONTIER STORIES presents "Firebrand" (billed as "A Big Buckskin Novel"), by Walt Coburn; "Mormon Girl," by George E. Magee; "Hawk of the Plains," by Bill Cook; "Conquerors West," by Frank H. Richey; "The Powderhorn Trap," by Ted Fox; and "The Pilgrim Pistolero," by James P. Olsen -- plus features covering Belle Starr, Wyatt Earp, and more

Little Brooks lives, hunts, and rides with the Plains Indians. While with them, he witnesses first hand a massacre of a pioneer woman and her two children. This act spurns hatred and bigotry between the communities of the White Settlers and Native Americans that would be felt for over 100 years. Can Little Brooks lay to rest this social strife with the truth he has witnessed?

When John Stafford, a young man from a wealthy Philadelphia family, graduates from college in the 1860s, he ventures to the lawless Northwest to satisfy his basic urge to put himself to the test in meeting the challenges of a trying environment. Adventure is what he seeks, and adventure is what he gets. Stafford experiences many turbulent twists and turns in his life. He marries, Little Dove, a beautiful Indian woman of Hidatsa descent. He is accepted into her tribe following his ingenious strategy to defeat his wife's wrathful Blackfeet suitor. And Stafford accepts a request by President Abraham Lincoln to form a highly proficient clandestine fighting force to help the Indians defend themselves against the widespread tyranny. His skilled force consists of several relatives and close friends-black as well as white, male and female, along with a number of Native Americans. Their exploits involve confrontations with river pirates, whisky peddlers, a tragic massacre by unauthorized military action an Indian reprisal, and a marauding gang of cutthroats.