Jane Withersteen gazed down the wide purple slope with dreamy and troubled eyes. A rider had just left her and it was his message that held her thoughtful and almost sad, awaiting the churchmen who were coming to resent and attack her right to befriend a Gentile. She wondered if the unrest and strife that had lately come to the little village of Cottonwoods was to in-volve her. And then she sighed, remembering that her father had founded this remotest border settlement of southern Utah and that he had left it to her. She owned all the ground and many of the cottages. Withersteen House was hers, and the great ranch, with its thousands of cattle, and the swiftest horses of the sage. To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave verdure and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple upland waste. She could not escape being involved by whatever befell Cottonwoods.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Joan Randle reined in her horse on the crest of the cedar ridge, and with remorse and dread beginning to knock at her heart she gazed before her at the wild and looming mountain range. Jim wasn't fooling me, she said. "He meant it. He's going straight for the border ... Oh, why did I taunt him " It was indeed a wild place, that southern border of Idaho, and that year was to see the ushering in of the wildest time probably ever known in the West. The rush for gold had peopled California with a horde of lawless men of every kind and class. And the vigilantes and then the rich strikes in Idaho had caused a reflux of that dark tide of humanity. Strange tales of blood and gold drifted into the camps, and prospectors and hunters met with many unknown men.

The residents of Three Corners, Texas are in shock to realize that, even in the time following the Civil War, their quiet town is a lawless place. They are threatened by the news of a gang of desperados who have slaughtered a group of innocent people from another state.

The townspeople know that they may be next, and so they enlist the help of Elias Trace, a man battle-tested from the Civil War. Even though he's seen enough blood to last a lifetime, he knows he must do whatever he can to prevent violence from coming to the town where he's come to live a peaceful life.

Likewise, Elias shudders to think of any harm being done to the beautiful Emma Mann, who recently became a widow. Meanwhile, Emma finds herself battling the feelings she feels for the newcomer.

If he wants to protect Emma and the town, Elias must lead a militia of ranch hands, young boys and women against a band of outlaws. There can only be one outcome in "From Hell to Breakfast,"

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - A FACE haunted Cameron - a woman's face. It was there in the white heart of the dying campfire; it hung in the shadows that hovered over the flickering light; it drifted in the darkness beyond. This hour, when the day had closed and the lonely desert night set in with its dead silence, was one in which Cameron's mind was thronged with memories of a time long past - of a home back in Peoria, of a woman he had wronged and lost, and loved too late. He was a prospector for gold, a hunter of solitude, a lover of the drear, rock-ribbed infinitude, because he wanted to be alone to remember. A sound disturbed Cameron's reflections. He bent his head listening. A soft wind fanned the paling embers, blew sparks and white ashes and thin smoke away into the enshrouding circle of blackness. His burro did not appear to be moving about. The quiet split to the cry of a coyote. It rose strange, wild, mournful - not the howl of a prowling upland beast baying the campfire or barking at a lonely prospector, but the wail of a wolf, full-voiced, crying out the meaning of the desert and the night.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and gazed dreamily through the window. It was a day typical of early April in New York, rather cold and gray, with steely sunlight. Spring breathed in the air, but the women passing along Fifty-seventh Street wore furs and wraps. She heard the distant clatter of an L train and then the hum of a motor car. A hurdy-gurdy jarred into the interval of quiet. Glenn has been gone over a year, she mused, "three months over a year-and of all his strange letters this seems the strangest yet." She lived again, for the thousandth time, the last moments she had spent with him. It had been on New-Year's Eve, 1918. They had called upon friends who were staying at the McAlpin, in a suite on the twenty-first floor overlooking Broadway. And when the last quarter hour of that eventful and tragic year began slowly to pass with the low swell of whistles and bells, Carley's friends had discreetly left her alone with her lover, at the open window, to watch and hear the old year out, the new year in. Glenn Kilbourne had returned from France early that fall, shell-shocked and gassed, and otherwise incapacitated for service in the army-a wreck of his former sterling self and in many unaccountable ways a stranger to her. Cold, silent, haunted by something, he had made her miserable with his aloofness. But as the bells began to ring out the year that had been his ruin Glenn had drawn her close, tenderly, passionately, and yet strangely, too.

Viet Nam, the hippie movement, Roe v. Wade, inflation, OPEC crisis, Watergate...the perceived loss of America's innocence provides the national stage for Into the Second Springtime. Meet Wesley Gallagher, a precocious young man who is prone to making mischief and scheming shenanigans. You'll laugh at Wesley's perceptions of the world and fall in love with the strong and steady influences in his life. With stormy issues facing the nation, you'll cheer at the bright beacons of light guiding Wesley, quietly instilling values that create a healthy and substantial anchor in this tender coming-of-age novel. Written with unpretentious messages of charity, forgiveness, hope, humor, love and respect, you will cheer Hurrah! for America again.

An 1876 Californian tale of a Coast Miwok Warrior named 'Quentin' AKA 'Naked Spurs'. In the present... a YOUNG ARTIST creates a Wild West diorama and tells the seriously tall tale of NAKED SPURS his great-great grandfather. As the streaking inmate of San Quentin penitentiary 'Naked Spurs' must run for his life along with other criminals; this is one story he can not run away from. NAKED SPURS is the plausible tale of the BEAT THE BOUNTY competition, a contest attracting the fastest guns in the west to the largest man-hunt in history.

Colt Horn was born on a pioneer trail to Scottish parents seeking new land they could call their own. But at the age of fifteen, he finds his parents murdered and is set adrift on the dangerous mission of vengeance. He grows to manhood surviving battles, hardships, and struggles, eventually becoming the owner of a large ranch. When he meets Liz Hanes, he wants to marry her and settle down. But none of his dreams can be realized until his parents' murderers are brought to justice. Colt learns that the man who killed his parents and is now leader of the Brazos River Marauders, wants him dead or alive and has posted a large bounty on his head. The attacks on neighboring ranches and on his life provoke him to leave his ranch and work full-time in an effort to eliminate the lawlessness in his valley. He will, at last, bring the leader of the Brazos River Marauders to justice-or die trying. Plenty of action brings the Old West to life in this tale filled with cowboys, love, revenge, and ultimately, redemption.

In a quiet corner of the stately little city of Wheeling, West Va., stands a monument on which is inscribed: By authority of the State of West Virginia to commemorate the siege of Fort Henry, Sept 11, 1782, the last battle of the American Revolution, this tablet is here placed. Had it not been for the heroism of a girl the foregoing inscription would never have been written, and the city of Wheeling would never have existed. From time to time I have read short stories and magazine articles which have been published about Elizabeth Zane and her famous exploit; but they are unreliable in some particulars, which is owing, no doubt, to the singularly meagre details available in histories of our western border.

Life isn't easy in the 1860s on the western frontier as the discovery of gold and silver beckons prospectors, and the promise of cheap land attracts ranchers and farmers from the East Coast. It is a time of greed, lawlessness, self-preservation, and opportunity. The wayward Tom Lawson seizes the moment when he discovers a cache of silver near the town of Ribera in southern Arizona, between El Paso and Tucson. When the Lawson family receives word of Tom's silver strike, his brother Ben must decide whether to begin his medical career as planned or assist his brother. Reluctant but enticed, Ben moves from Colorado to Arizona to help his sibling. On the stagecoach ride from El Paso to Ribera, he and the other passengers are robbed. It becomes all too evident that the territory is under constant threat by Indians, renegade discharged Confederate soldiers, and disenfranchised Mexicans. "Gold, Silver, and Guns" follows the stories of Ben and five others who migrate to Ribera seeking adventure and fortune. As they discover that life in this agitated small town may pose challenges and risks far greater than the rewards, they each must weigh the price of what it takes to survive and prosper.

"Eagle Shadow" tells of a half-Native American man caught in the midst of the conflict between his two peoples and his personal struggle with divided loyalties. His story is filled with action and romance set against the beautiful but unforgiving frontier.

Known for his tenacity in pursuing lawbreakers, U.S. Marshal Frank Marlin follows a dangerous mission to quell a brewing range war on the western frontier. He's told that Cottonwood Valley, a rich fertile land in the State of Texas, is the target of the trouble. The valley's large-ranch owners blame each other for the cattle rustling, ambush killings, and other acts of lawlessness. They threaten to wipe each other out; fury on the range seems unavoidable.

During his mission, Marlin learns that a wily outlaw boss, who strikes ranches and towns from his hideouts in the badlands, perpetrates the trouble in Cottonwood Valley. When the outlaw boss hears Marlin is on his way, he offers his henchmen a large cash bounty to anyone who kills the feared marshal. Marlin must always be on the lookout for those who want him dead.

Encountering life-threatening situations and suffering serious wounds, Marlin never loses sight of his intense desire to stop the killing and cattle rustling.

Jake Harn had served in the Civil War as an officer and upon being discharged he came back to his home near Savannah, Georgia. What he found was that his family, along with others, were living with destruction and devastation caused by the war. On his family's advice he decided to travel west. Early influences helped Jake develop a strong sense of right and wrong. During his adult years he became an individualist who not only took care of himself, but tried to provide comfort to those less fortunate than himself. As an army officer, Jake became an expert with a rifle and while traveling west he began to hone his skills with a hand gun, not to be used as a vocation but as a necessity against the lawless breed that inhabited the Wild West. When he arrived in Burkeville he found himself embroiled in a bloody range war. He became a full-time cowboy by choice and a reluctant part-time lawman when the local sheriff was ambushed by a gang of outlaws.