Ranch foreman Ward McQueen recognizes trouble when he sees it - and trouble is what the Texan sees when he spies the tracks of a wounded man in the middle of the big Tumbling K spread. In town, he learns that a tinhorn gambler has just won the ranch next to the Tumbling K in a dirty card game - and is turning his oily gaze toward the K's pretty owner, Miss Ruth Kermitt.

In these extraordinary stories, we meet a man who is forced to defend himself by taking another’s life - and must pay for his actions in a most punishing manner; a young thrill-seeker who finally finds a place he can call home, and vows to stay there - regardless of the man who tries to stand in his way; and a drifter who honors a deathbed promise to a stranger by embarking on an unlikely mission of mercy.

Johnny Buck is a young cowboy, working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse - and into a hidden cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold.

Colonel Utah Blaine, held captive by the Army of the Revolution, broke out of jail and headed north from Mexico with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then he found new trouble struggling at the end of a noose - and stepped in just in time to save the life of a Texas rancher. The would-be executioners were the rancher’s own men, looking to steal his land.

Once, Frank Morgan had a wife and a future on the land — until a rich man with a grudge drove him out of Colorado. Since then, Morgan's taken up the one skill that always came easy — gunfighting — and drifted to a mining town in the New Mexico Territory. But there's nothing easy about two vicious gangs descending on the town and threatening to wreak havoc. With his reputation preceding him, Morgan is elected to stand in the outlaws' way.

Wagon trains heading west were forced to defend themselves against Indians, cope with injuries and illness, and struggle to find food. The group of easterners Rock Bannon was scouting for faced another problem. They were being deceived. When he warned them to remain on the Humboldt Trail, Sharon Crockett and the others refused to listen. Mort Harper, a stranger riding a beautiful black mare, had dazzled them with his charm and good looks. The southern route was the best way to go, Harper told them. But best for whom?

Clay Bell spent the last six years fighting Indians, rustlers, and the wilderness itself to make the B-Bar ranch the prize of the Deep Creek Range. But Jud Devitt, a ruthless speculator from the East, now threatens everything Clay has worked for. Devitt, holding a contract with the Mexican Central to deliver railroad ties, wants to harvest timber off the land where Clay grazes his cattle. Backing Devitt are shady politicians, a dishonest banker, and fifty of the toughest lumberjacks in the county.

Considine and Pete Runyon had once been friends, back in the days when both were cowhands. But when Runyon married the woman Considine loved, the two parted ways. Runyon settled down and became a sheriff. Considine took up robbing banks. Now Considine is planning a raid on the bank at Obaro, a plan that will pit him against Runyon...and lead to riches or suicide. The one thing he never counted on was meeting a strong, beautiful woman and her stubborn father, hell-bent on traveling alone through Apache territory to a new life.

When Gaylord Riley walked away from the Coburn gang, he had money and a dream. He worked hard and built a cabin, gathered a herd of cattle, and fell in love with Marie Shattuck. But when he is confronted with false accusations of rustling and murder, Riley is forced to defend his new law-abiding way of life. Outnumbered and facing a lynching party, Riley is surprised when his old friends return to lend him a hand. But how can they help him and keep themselves out of jail?

There will never be another Western writer like Louis L’Amour. A legendary author and indisputably the greatest storyteller in his genre of all time, L’Amour captivated millions of readers and has sold well over three hundred million copies of his works, which includes nearly ninety novels and countless short stories. Mistakes Can Kill You highlights an essential selection featuring nine of L’Amour’s earlier short stories, sometimes written under the pen name Jim Mayo, that exemplify the rugged morality of the best Western writing.

Where the real frontier begins...A young cowpuncher stakes a claim that can only be sealed with fists and a .44 Colt.... A gunfighter, tired of violence, finds himself pushed down a trail of bloody revenge.... From purple sage to gambler's gold, from a senorita's tempting smile to a splash of blood in the dust, here are stories with a distinctive L'Amour twist.

A quiet farmer defends his honor in a moment of panic and luck...only to find true courage on the run from the dead man's brothers.

It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes. Shanghaied into forced labor on a merchant vessel, Charles Rodney dies aboard ship from repeated beatings, but not before deeding part of his ranch to Rafe Caradec, whom he hopes will protect his family.

No one more vividly captures the rugged majesty and enduring spirit of the American West than Louis L'Amour. Collected for the very first time are seven unabridged frontier tales from a legendary master of the genre. Volume One celebrates this remarkable voice in American fiction with a captivating blend of some of his best-loved work.

Cattlemen ride alone across the open range under the deadly aim of roving desperadoes.... Gamblers stake their fortunes and their lives on a deck of cards.... Strong-willed señoritas seek independence through an enticing combination of beauty, audacity, and spirit.... Lawmen and outlaws walk the same dusty streets and speak a common language: Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson.

Ross Hardy had made his decision. He sat in the middle of all he owned, a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle, a .44 Winchester rifle, and two walnut-stocked Colt .44 pistols. These were his all. It was a life that had left him rich in experience, but poor in goods of the world. The experience was the hard-fisted experience of cold winters, dry ranges, and the dusty bitterness of cattle drives.

Waylaid by a pack of murdering outlaws, Daniel Strange's lifeless body is left dangling at the end of a rope. Now, a mysterious gunslinger is on the vengeance trail, packing Strange's trademark twin Colts, and answering to the same name. With fiery green eyes and a temper to match, he won't stop until every last man who killed Strange shares the same fate. And as each bullet finds its mark, his victims will die never knowing the truth: that Daniel Strange may be dead and buried, but his daughter is alive - and killing....

Harry Destry was a rough-and-tumble fighter who never lost a battle. But after six years in jail for a robbery he didn't commit, he comes back a changed man. The townsfolk believe he's beaten. They think all the fight's gone right out of him. And that's exactly what Destry wants them to think....

Framed for murder, Dewey "Mac" McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac's never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He's as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun, which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins . . .

Chancy Gantry and Ollie Teal are honest cowpunchers, riding herd on 1,500 longhorns from Texas to Kansas. Their trail boss, Lucas Stout, is tough but fair. He’s never lost a hand on a drive and doesn’t aim to start now. So when a cowhand needs a sawbones badly, Stout sends Chancy and Ollie to escort the man to a town called Prosperity, of which neither of them has ever heard. At first glance, the town looks deserted - but the saloon is full. Chancy and Ollie are about to discover that some towns are a lot easier to ride into than to ride out of....

Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron's men drag two prisoners from Frye's jail and hang them from a high tree, there's nothing the young lawman can do about it. But Kirby's got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscle bargained for. They can beat the boy and humiliate him, but they can't make him forget the oath he has sworn to uphold.

Busted out of prison by an outlaw friend, Flintlock joins a hunt for a fortune - a golden bell hanging in a remote monastery. But between the smouldering ruin of his former jail cell and a treasure in the Arizona mountains there will be blood at a U.S. Army fort, a horrifying brush with Apache warriors, and a dozen bloody showdowns with the schemers, shootists, madmen, and lost women who find their way to Flintlock's side.

Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack thought he’d seen every despicable act of cruelty and murder any man could exact on another. He thought wrong. When he stumbles upon the butchered remains of a scalp-taking massacre, he’s choked with disgust. So Burrack teams up with veteran Sheriff Boyd Tackett, who’s more than willing to help bring these vile rats to justice.

When Kate Thompson's father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the 18-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.

Mauled by a giant grizzly and left to die, 16 year-old Jose Olano's chances for life were remote. Then, like a guardian angel, came Robert "Gray Eagle" McAllister, one-time army scout and sometime outlaw. In his flight to escape a posse, he finds the brutalized body of Jose. Knowing his decision to help Jose may mean his own death, he stays and brings Jose back from the brink of death. Thus began one of the greatest companionships ever known to the Idaho frontier.

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts - mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war - and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains west with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.