In thirty years of prospecting, old Jim had never discovered Amber’s Mirage–a shining cliff above a spring that ran heavy with gold. But his young sidekick took up the search to find the gold–a search that would cost him two years away from wild Ruby, the woman he loved.

Australia brings to mind images of the Great Barrier Reef, great white sharks, huge crocodiles, and friendly people. Zane Grey fished everywhere, but he often found himself lured back to the Pacific especially around Australia and New Zealand.

Most of the fish caught in An American Angler in Australia are sharks: great white, tiger, and even a few carpet sharks. But Zane Grey found that one can’t go big game fishing in Australia and not expect to be teased by marlins.

Betty Zane is the story of the first settlers in the Ohio Valley and their fight for survival during the Revolutionary War. The British have organized and incited the various eastern tribes to attack American “Rebels” in this lesser-known theater of the war.
Betty is a fiery beauty whose quest for romance with Alfred Clarke is interrupted time and again by Indian raids and battles. In an unexpected twist, it is Betty who turns the tide at the final battle of Fort Henry.
Inspired by the life and adventures of his own great-great-grandmother, Betty Zane is Zane Grey’s first novel. This and the other two books in the Ohio River series are considered some of Grey’s best work.

Zane Grey is America’s most beloved author of western novels. Set during the American Revolution, the Fort Henry Saga is based on the lives of Grey’s own ancestors. The war is winding down when the pioneers at Fort Henry must fight off a fierce Indian attack. Their only hope lies with Betty Zane, who must run a deadly gauntlet.

Set in the dangerous West Virginia frontier, this is the story of the heroic Betty Zane, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Isaac Zane, one of the most courageous of the pioneers.

Balanced against the grim incidents of the Indian War is the love story of Betty and Alfred Clarke, a handsome young soldier. Their romance, however, is plagued by troubles and endless interruptions before reaching its stirring climax. The exciting life around Fort Henry, an attack by Indians, Betty’s heroic defense of the beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the fort, and Betty’s final race for life make up this remarkable story–a story filled with the life, color, and spirit of pioneer days.

This novel, based on real people and events, is an evocative historical tale that will capture your heart and your mind.

Zane Grey is at his best in this story of the building of the Boulder Dam, later renamed the Hoover Dam.

Straddling the great Colorado River, a huge structure is slowly rising–a dam that will alter the course of this ravaging river and harness its awesome power. Men from all over America have flocked to the site, laboring at the dam by day and filling the nearby Las Vegas gambling houses by night.

To Lynn Weston, a rich man’s son, working on the dam means independence and the chance to prove his courage. But an even greater challenge faces Lynn: he discovers a girl who has escaped her abductors in the back seat of his car and becomes her self-appointed protector. Suddenly, he finds himself threatened by a pack of ruthless gangsters with a vicious plan to blow up the dam.

This wonderful, dramatic story was written in 1915, but for almost one hundred years it has only existed in a profoundly censored version, “The Border Legion.” Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sends Jim Cleve out into the lawless country of the mining frontier in Idaho Territory to test his mettle as a man. Then, regretting their quarrel, she goes in pursuit of him, in hope of turning him back, only to be taken captive by the notorious mining camp and stagecoach bandit, Jack Kells. Kells is so intent on having Joan to himself that he kills for it, even some of his own men. When a huge gold strike is made at Alder Creek, Kells and his gang move in to loot the miners. Most disheartening of all for Joan is the fact that Jim Cleve has joined Kells’s gang. This powerful tale of tragedy, romance, historical realism, and hope can now at last be heard as Zane Grey wrote it.

Richard Gale, a college football star, travels to Mexico to prove himself after failing in every business opportunity that his wealthy father had handed him. When he arrives at an Arizona border town, a chance meeting with an old friend launches him into an adventure to save a young Spanish beauty from a ruthless Mexican bandit.
Within the mystical beauty of the desert landscape, this extraordinary novel touches on many complexities of humanity, including honor, lust, vengeance, and love. And in this western classic, Zane Grey captures the grandeur of the true Old West as only he can.

Based on some of Zane Grey’s own real-life adventures exploring the rugged West with professional guides, including the Grand Canyon area, he here tells the story of hunters with their hounds that go to the rim of the Grand Canyon in hopes of capturing mountain lions alive. This is one of Zane Grey’s stories that is especially appealing to young listeners.

Rumor has it that a schoolteacher from the East is coming out West to teach school. Three Springer Ranch cowhands have tried to discourage her from coming by forging letters. But their strategy has failed to overpower the more persuasive love letters from a certain mysterious Frank Owens. No one knows who he is.

When Jane Stacey arrives, everyone is amazed to discover not a middle-aged matron but a very attractive young woman. The Springer ranch hands are falling over themselves to impress her. Or maybe it’s because they’ve had too much to drink.

Bill Springer is the only one sober enough to take matters in hand and drive her out to the ranch. But the lecherous Beady Jones has his own idea of how the new schoolmarm should be introduced to the West.

Panguitch is king of the wild mustangs. A magnificent stallion the color of a lion, except for his black mane and tail, he has been unsuccessfully sought for years by a number of horse hunters. Chane Weymer can hardly believe when the Paiute chief, Toddy Nokin, confides in him, a white man, that Panguitch and his herd are on Wild Horse Mesa in Utah. How can a herd of horses be on the insurmountable mesa?

Chane buys horses from the Paiute that he plans to sell to the Mormons, but he is attacked by horse thieves and escapes with only the horse he is riding. Having evaded the thieves, he discovers the wild horses led by Panguitch. Now that he knows Panguitch’s access to Wild Horse Mesa, Chane decides to return to capture the wild stallion.

Chane is near exhaustion when he rides into the Melberne-Loughbridge horse-hunting camp. Amazed to find that his brother is part of the crew there, he accepts Melberne’s invitation to join them. But trouble lies ahead as Benton Manerube, a man associated with the horse thieves who attacked Chane, is in the camp posing as an expert horse hunter.

Zane Grey first presented this brilliant story of the West in a much shorter form as a magazine serial in 1914. Readers were thrilled and greeted it as another masterpiece from one of the West’s greatest storytellers. The manuscript would suffer at the hands of Grey’s book publishers, however. They took the second half of the story, deleted characters, changed the hero’s name, and pasted it with the first half of another Grey manuscript to produce the awkward hybrid published as The Lone Star Ranger. Now, decades after its creation, the complete story finally appears in GraphicAudio as the author wrote it, restored to its original glory.The Law of the RangersDeputy Marshal Russ Sittell is on special assignment from the Texas Rangers to work with Vaughan Steel in putting a stop to the rampant rustling in Pecos County. But everyone knows that local rancher–and mayor–Granger Longstreth doesn’t want any Ranger interference in his town. When Russ takes a job on Longstreth’s ranch, he’s able to learn exactly how the rancher operates–and he witnesses the growing tension between Longstreth and Steele. A tension that can only lead to trouble.

A gentile sage rider is about to be whipped by the Mormons to coerce the rich and beautiful Jane Withersteen to marry against her will. In desperation, Jane whispers a prayer, “Whence cometh my help!” Just then, an unlikely hero, the infamous gunfighter Lassiter, routs the persecutors and is drawn into this conflict on the Utah-Arizona border.
The mysterious loner hires on at Jane’s ranch. Through battles with gun-slinging cattle rustlers, cutthroats, and the calculating Mormons, Lassiter unveils his tale of an endless search for a woman who was abducted long ago.
Judged by critics to be Zane Grey’s best novel, Riders of the Purple Sage changed the Western genre when it was first published in 1912. This novel shows the gritty as well as the gallant in a more candid portrayal of the West than any that had come before it.

The story you’re about to hear took place primarily in what is Southern Utah and has been called the quintessential western, meaning simply it is a top-notch example of quality. It is composed of an extensive list of ingredients; adventure, action, violence, crisis, suspense, conflict, sentimentalism, and sex; they are all there. This classic of the western genre was the kind of story the public clamored for and author Zane Grey had great skill in supplying the desire. Not at the beginning however. One of his early efforts was rejected in 1909 and an editor told him, “I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.” That was shortsighted for the time being and just three years later, Grey produced this story. It was his all-time bestseller and led to his becoming a household name. By listening now you’ll find out why.

Now, for the first time in a century, Zane Grey’s best-known novel is presented in its original form exactly as he wrote it.

In Cottonwoods, Utah, in 1871, a woman stands accused and a man is sentenced to whipping. Into this travesty of small-town justice rides the one man whom the town elders fear. His name is Lassiter, and he is a notorious gunman who’s come to avenge his sister’s death. It doesn’t take Lassiter long to see that this once peaceful Mormon community is controlled by the corrupt Deacon Tull, a powerful elder who’s trying to take the woman’s land by forcing her to marry him, branding her foreman as a dangerous “outsider.” Lassiter vows to help them, but when the ranch is attacked by horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and a mysterious masked rider, he realizes that they’re up against something bigger—and more brutal—than the land itself.

When in the early 1900s Zane Grey took this manuscript to two publishing companies, they rejected it because of the theme of Mormon polygamy, fearing it would offend their readers and subscribers. Then Grey made a special plea to Frederick Duneka, who was vice-president of Harper & Bros. and who had been Mark Twain’s editor at that company. Duneka and his wife read the novel and liked it but they, too, feared it would offend some readers. Harper & Bros. agreed to publish a changed version of the novel and purchased both the book and magazine-serial rights. Given the task of executing the necessary editorial changes, a senior editor of the company made changes in tone, diction, and style as well as content. The novel first appeared in nineteen installments in the monthly magazine Field & Stream from January 1912 to July 1913. Blackstone Audio here presents the original, uncensored, unabridged novel Riders of the Purple Sage, obtained through the Golden West Literary Agency with the cooperation of Zane Grey’s son, Loren Grey, and the Ohio State Historical Society.

Riders of The Purple Sage is undoubtedly the most famous novel of the American West. Grey’s narrative momentum, mastery of suspense, and thorough understanding of the mythic power of the landscape set this genre-defining proto-Western apart from the countless Hollywood movies and pulp novels it inspired.

In 1871 Utah, young Jane Withersteen is courted by Elder Tull, the leader of her polygamous Mormon church. When Jane refuses, the local Mormons persecute her. Meanwhile, Jane’s friend, Bern Venters, is captured by Tull’s posse and faces a harsh sentence. Jane defends him, causing even more friction with the Mormon populace. Enter Lassiter, a friend to Venters and an infamous gunslinger. His appearance causes Tull and his men to release Venters and flee – sparking a conflict that leaves Jane questioning her loyalties, Venters finding love, and Lassiter seeking revenge.

Jane Withersteen is a wealthy, contented rancher in the Mormon village of Cottonwoods, until the churchmen decree she must marry the arrogant Elder Tull. When she refuses, Tull and his band turn nasty, using the valley’s water as his leverage. That’s when Lassiter rides into town, determined to teach Tull and his mob a lesson.

In the days of the frontier West, it was not unusual for desperadoes and fugitives from justice to seemingly disappear from the face of the earth. Shadow on the Trail by Zane Grey, one of the bestselling authors of all time, is the story of one such man who returned to reestablish himself in a law-abiding society.

In Texas, young bank robber Wade Holden, once the toughest, fastest trigger man in the notorious Simm Bell gang, makes a promise to his dying mentor that he will go straight. He is tired of shooting, riding, and fighting. All he wants now is to settle down on the ranch for a nice peaceful life. But with the Rangers on his tail, he struggles to find sanctuary. With the help of a young woman and her family, he attempts to turn his life around in Arizona.

From beloved author Zane Grey come four thrilling tales of the West. The very essence of the American West can be found in the stories of Zane Grey, an author whose popularity has not flagged since his first novel was published.

“Silvermane” is concerned with the efforts of two Mormon mustangers, brothers Lee and Cuth Stewart, to capture a wild stallion in the Sevier range country.

“Tappan’s Burro,” with the text restored from the author’s handwritten manuscript, tells of the life of a desert prospector and his burro, Jenet. Tappan dreams of finding gold–and does. When he is pursued by claim jumpers, it is Jenet who guides him across the floor of Death Valley when it is beset by suffocating gales of nocturnal heat and gas.

“Ca+#on Walls,” also restored according to the author’s holographic manuscript, is the story of outlaw Smoke Bellew, who enters a remote Mormon settlement only a jump ahead of a posse. Finding employment as a ranch hand working for a dowager Mormon, Smoke is able to make her ranch a financial success while simultaneously falling in love with her wanton daughter, Rebecca. But it is too good to last.

“From Missouri,” its text restored as well, is a story about a schoolteacher from the East who is discouraged from coming to Arizona Territory by letters forged by three cowhands. But the mysterious Frank Owens’ love letters convince her she must come anyway. When Jane Stacey does arrive, to the amazement of the three cowhands, she is not the middle-aged matron they had expected but a young and very attractive woman. However, the lecherous Beady Jones has his own idea of how the new schoolmarm should be introduced to the West.

Trueman Rock is a daring young cowboy and rider. Six years ago he had to leave the cowtown of Wagontongue because of a history of gunfights and run-ins with bad hombres. Since then, he’s become a man who only uses his gun when he needs to, on rustlers and crooks. Now, he’s returning to his hometown. But things have changed. The town and its people aren’t what they used to be. He expects to find some of his enemies there to welcome him, but instead finds they’re all dead. In their place is the Preston family.

The Prestons have just about taken over the town of Sunset Pass and reign supreme. But Trueman discovers that there’s a brooding mystery surrounding the Preston clan, centered on Ash, the eldest son. Ash is a cold, vicious, and slippery man. Unfortunately for Trueman, he finds himself falling in love with Thiry Preston, Ash’s sister. Ash holds a jealous love for her and she’ll do just about anything he says, and he’s ruined more than one love-struck cowboy before Trueman came along.

Trueman Rock’s quest to win over the girl he’s fallen for brings him face-to-face with the sinister true face of the Preston clan and their control of Wagontongue, and he must confront them to be with Thiry and save the town he loves. Sunset Pass, first published in 1931, is another dramatic tale of the West by Zane Grey.

Zane Grey, known mainly for his Western fiction and for his own personal adventures exploring the rugged West, was also a prolific fisherman. Once his income from the Westerns gave him free time to explore the world’s oceans, he devoted an average of 300 days a year to fishing, according to his son Loren. Besides the waters of southern California, Florida, and Nova Scotia, he went deep-sea fishing off the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti, with many return trips to his favorite spots. He pioneered the fishing of sailfish, and he established numerous world records along the way.

He wrote many articles for international sporting magazines highlighting the uniqueness of New Zealand fishing, among other places. Tales from a Fisherman’s Log includes notes Zane Grey made while in the midst of exploring his favorite pastime.

Zane Grey, America’s master storyteller of the old West, was a passionate angler. He fished as many as three hundred days of the year. This collection, first published in 1925, describes his fishing adventures in exotic locales throughout the Pacific region.

These stories capture the drama and excitement that Grey experienced in being the first person to fish many waters–from the Galapagos Islands to Cabo San Lucas–and in being the first to catch and document many new species of fish. No lover of Zane Grey storytelling will want to miss these real-life adventures.

The Los Angeles Times listed Tales of Fishing Virgin Seas as one of the best nonfiction books of 2000.

Zane Grey, known and loved primarily for his Western novels, was an avid fisherman. When his writing started paying off, he managed to spend as many as three hundred days a year enjoying the sport. And while he is remembered for his record-breaking catches, such as the 464-pound marlin caught off the coast of Tahiti, Zane Grey also enjoyed freshwater fishing for bass, trout, steelhead, and salmon.

In Tales of Freshwater Fishing, Grey recounts his expeditions on the Delaware River, off the West Coast of the United States, and in British Columbia.

Zane Grey wrote about the West and lived it as well. Tales of Lonely Trails is a collection of true travel tales describing his explorations of uninhabited areas of the West, much of it on pack horses with a guide.

Here are descriptions of his hunting, camping, and exploring trips in the wild and desolate parts of the West, including Arizona territory, Colorado, Death Valley, the Tonto Basin, the Grand Canyon, and more. These adventures gave him the first-hard experience that he later used in writing his descriptions of the landscape and characters of his Western novels.

When not writing his famous Western novels, Zane Grey was an insatiable angler. Tales of Southern Rivers recounts his tales of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, the Everglades, and on remote rivers in the jungles of Mexico. With many of these venues being some of today’s most popular saltwater fly-fishing destinations, no one will want to miss these highly entertaining and informative stories. Armchair fishing will never be the same.

Zane Grey fished up to three hundred days of the year. But, with all that time on the water, there was nothing more exciting or more compelling than the really big fish–the giants of the sea.

In Zane Grey’s day, blue fin tuna were pursued with harpoons and sometimes are even today. There is the story of a swordfish that was hooked at 10:30 in the morning and played until 11:30 that night–only to …!

Tales of Swordfish and Tuna will dazzle and thrill any fishing heart.

This book describes Zane Grey’s hair-raising tales of fishing in shark-infested Pacific waters.

Tales of Tahitian Waters describes Grey’s fishing expeditions to the Tahitian Islands during 1928, 1929, and 1930, in which he claims to be the first big-game fisherman to fish these waters.

He came to this area after having passed nearby on his other fishing trips. Hearing accounts of there being marlin that were thirty feet long and sharks that measured fifty feet in length, he became determined to pursue these fish and add to his many fishing records. It was here where he describes catching a marlin weighing 1,040 pounds, and the catch was recorded as the first 1,000-pound fish ever caught.

In Tales of Tahitian Waters, Grey says that these were the most difficult waters he had ever fished. Yet he claims a special affection for these waters, and he visited them numerous times afterward.

New Zealand is one of the “hot” fly-fishing spots in the world today, known for brilliant, crystal clear rivers. Zane Grey’s account of his adventure in New Zealand conjures up images of huge and mythic trout. In Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, he describes fishing these now legendary streams as well as his pursuit of huge swordfish off the coast of the New Zealand shores. It’s both a fishing story and adventure story from one of America’s favorite storytellers.

“There is always something wonderful about a new fishing adventure trip–for a single day, or for a week, or for months. The enchantment never palls…Fishing is like Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece.”–Zane Grey, from Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand

“Quite by chance, as he was looking for his burros, he struck his pick into a place no different from a thousand others there, and hit into a pocket of gold. He cleaned out the pocket before sunset, the richer for several thousand dollars.

“‘You brought me luck,’ said Tappan, to the little gray burro staggering round its mother. ‘Your name is Jenet. You’re Tappan’s burro, an’ I reckon he’ll stick to you.’”—from the book

Prospecting was a lonely business for Tappan, but his burro Jenet was good company, and more. She knew the trails and waterholes better than Tappan, from the scorching heat and poison air of Death Valley to the blinding blizzards of Arizona’s mountains. Jenet tracked with him, faithful, his only friend. And he repaid her loyalty with a final, supreme effort of heart, will, and spirit.

This is a story about an inquisitive little fish whose mother gave him orders to remain at home while she went away in search of food. But Finspot could not resist temptation. He had to take a look at the area surrounding his home in the coral.

The result of his disobedience was more trouble than he had bargained for–and some very narrow escapes. He barely made it home.

Jim Cleve has been deemed “a good guy” all of his life, and it agitates him to no end. Even his girlfriend, Joan Randle, has scorned him for this “weakness,” telling Jim, “You haven’t it in you even to be bad!” Dejected and hurt, Jim abandons the life he has known for the gold mining camps along Alder Gulch in southern Montana. It is here, among the thieves and murderers, that he must make a new name for himself.
Meanwhile, Joan realizes the danger that she has put Jim in and rushes off to save him. However, when she stumbles across the ruthless desperado gang leader Jack Kells, it is soon Joan who is in need of rescue. When Kells tries to rape her, Joan grabs his gun and shoots him. But something keeps Joan from leaving him to die. In the face of Joan’s loving spirit, Kells experiences his own change of heart. But it is too late; Kells’s outlaw gang arrives and takes Joan hostage.
So begins the border legion adventures of roving bandits, lust, and greed. With Jim’s search for a new identity, Jack’s moral dilemma, and the fight for Joan’s freedom, this thrilling story portrays the epic theme of man’s continual struggle between good and evil.

From the master of the western comes a tale of love tested by the rugged life of the American Southwest. Carley Burch, a beautiful young woman, must leave her glamorous high-society life of New York to follow her fiance, Glenn Kilbourne, to the rugged Wild West. She braves fierce ruffians, brutal elements, and lack of civilization in an attempt to reclaim him. Glenn, suffering from shell shock and the betrayal of his country following World War I, had moved west to recover. He then fell in love with the West, and his perspective on life was changed forever. Glenn now finds his previous high-society life repulsive. Can Carley adapt to the rigorous life of the West? Will she be able to convince Glenn to return to his “home” in New York? Will she be in time before a rival temptress steals Glenn away?

A young veteran of WWI in poor health heads to Arizona to try and recover. He meets young Flo Hunter, who successfully nurses him. However, life gets more complicated when his fiancee, Carley Burch, comes to him from back east. She winds up not liking life in the west and goes back to New York.

Flo gets badly injured in an accident and vet Glenn Kilbourne wants to repay her for her assistance and proposes marriage. As wedding day approaches, Carley decides she made a mistake and returns to Arizona looking for him. Flo realizes they’re still in love, calls off the marriage, and meets another man. The very involved tale of overall compassion affords pleasant listening to details.

From the master of the western novel comes a tale full of romance and adventure. Carley Burch, a young orphaned woman, is living a life of leisure in her family’s New York City home. When her fianc+(r), Glenn Kilbourne, returns from France ill and broken after fighting in World War I, he heads west, drawn to the mountains and canyons of Arizona. Carley, after receiving a series of puzzling letters from her beloved, pays him a surprise visit. There, surrounded by the natural beauty of Arizona, their love will be tested.

Listeners will breathlessly follow the story of their love with keen satisfaction from the very start to the dramatic close.

The Call of the Canyonis another of Zane Grey’s strong and gripping stories, which have made him one of the most popular authors in the world.

Here are four short stories from Zane Grey, the acclaimed author of Western adventures and frontier characters.

Living in the ruthless solitude of the desert, range, or mountains, the men in these four stories are all on personal journeys.

In The Camp Robber, a man has driven his wife away and yearns for reconciliation. Amber’s Mirage reveals an old man’s realization of the corrupting power of gold when up against young love.

In a harsh climate of sand storms and isolation, these tales illustrate the brutality of living close to nature and the need to find real values in life.

Because of the unrestrained slaughter of cougars on Buckskin Mountain, the deer population has increased so fast that they begin to starve. But when Thad Eburne, chief forest ranger, hears the government’s plan to open a massive deer hunt to hundreds of indiscriminate hunters, he worries that it will only worsen man’s dangerous meddling with nature. Then, when Eburne decides to save a deer herd from a cattleman bent on selling illegal deer meat for easy money, he finds himself up against the deadliest outlaw in the West.

In The Deer Stalker, listeners will find all they have come to expect from the great Western author Zane Grey–swift action, magnificent descriptions of the desert and canyon country, plus the added valiant effort of a ranger’s struggle to save the doomed herd of deer on the Buckskin range. Grey makes the listener see this colorful Arizona country, feel something of the awe that is the inevitable reaction of man to the majesty of one of nature’s miracles, smell the tang of mingled pine and sagebrush, and thrill to the heroic struggle of a few dedicated men as they battle to undo the harm of the willful and greedy.

Zane Grey wrote this splendidly thrilling sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage in 1915, but for almost ninety years it existed in a profoundly censored version.

Young John Shefford, escaping from his troubled past in Illinois, heads west to follow up the curious legend of three people living imprisoned in Utah’s isolated Surprise Valley, one of whom is a beautiful girl named Fay Larkin. Shefford, half in love with the girl he’s never met, is determined to find the valley and free her–if she’s still alive.

Shefford is nearly overwhelmed with his experiences of the beauty of the high desert, his first meetings with Indians, his ideas regarding Mormon men and their secret wives, and his encounter with real love, all of which work their changes in him. He comes out a man made true and good, finally freed from the shame he has harbored for so long.

The Desert of Wheat is a thrilling and romantic tale of sabotage in the wheat fields of the Pacific Northwest during World War I.

Young farmer Kurt Dorn is torn between going to France to fight the Germans or staying in America to be with the woman he loves and to protect his wheat crop against saboteurs who question his loyalties. He struggles to come to terms with his deepest beliefs and his place in the world.

In this passionate tale, Zane Grey, one of America’s most popular and enduring authors, captures the anxieties of a young country threatened by a foreign war and poised on the brink of a century of change.

Business ain’t easy when the locals stand to lose it all.

“Molly conceived a resentment against the rich cattleman who could impose such restrictions and embitter the lives of poor people. And as for Traft’s tenderfoot nephew, who had come out of Missouri to run a hard outfit and build barbed-wire fences, Molly certainly hated him.”

Although he doesn’t know cattle or cowboys, Missourian Jim Traft finds himself as the foreman of a tough Arizona outfit tasked with fencing a hundred miles of open cattle range. Brought on by his wealthy uncle, he faces this difficult trial with youthful aplomb.

But Traft faces a community that stands to suffer because of this new drift fence, and he must walk a fine line in order to honor his uncle’s business while not incurring the wrath of longtime residents. The Drift Fence shows how this tender young man struggles to overcome the odds he faces and ultimately wins over the heart of the beautiful young lass, Molly Dunn.

Zane Grey’s bestselling novels have thrilled generations of readers with heart-and-guts characters, hard-shooting action, and high-plains panoramas.

When his brother, Barse, pulled one of the biggest hold-ups Texas had ever seen, Bruce Lockheart took the blame for it, leaving Barse clear to marry the beautiful Trinity Spencer. Bruce takes to the fugitive trail for a crime he didn’t commit and is hotly pursued by a relentless ranger and the woman who loves him, fighting to clear his name. If she failed, he would have to hide for the rest of his life–or die!

“Hezd rope the devil and tie him down…if the lasso didn’t burn,” it was said of “Buffalo Jones,” one of the last of the famous plainsmen who trod the trails of the Old West. Killing was repulsive to him and the passion of his life was to capture wild beasts alive. When he saw that the extinction of the buffalo was inevitable, he labored for ten years pursuing, capturing and taming the noble beasts, for which the West gave him fame and the name Preserver of the American Bison.

In this thrilling story of a hunting trip with Jones, Zane Grey speaks firsthand of the great man’s courage and prowess; how he roped the ferocious cougar and took it, clawing and spitting, back to camp; how he nearly captured White King, the glorious leader of a herd of wild mustangs; and how the whole party made camp under the aurora borealis and hunted polar wolves.

“I want to show the color and beauty of those painted cliffs and the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I want to give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and particularly, I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of that strange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.”—Zane Grey

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts – the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

The Last Trail is the third and final novel in Zane Grey’s Ohio River trilogy. In many ways, this concluding volume of the saga is one of perpetuation. The wilderness along the Ohio has been rapidly disappearing. Forests have been replaced by farms. Woodsmen, hunters, and frontiersmen are becoming farmers. This is true, in fact, for almost everyone except that strange and wonderful character, the “mysterious, shadowy, elusive man, whom few pioneers ever saw, but of whom all knew,” Lew Wetzel.
Known by the Indians as Death Wind, Wetzel and his partner, Jonathan Zane, are hard on the trail of white rustlers led by Simon Girty and Bing Leggitt. One night at their campfire, Helen Sheppard and her father, who have become lost in the forest on their way to Fort Henry, are approached by Wetzel and Zane. For Zane and Sheppard, this accidental encounter is the beginning of a romance that will be fraught with many dangers. Betty Zane, whose dash for gunpowder in the defense of Fort Henry during the Revolutionary War is now legendary, and her brother, Colonel Ebenezer Zane, are also among the characters in The Last Trail-older now, sharing their wisdom and experiences with a younger generation.

After the American Revolution, Jonathan Zane became a celebrated scout on the frontier. His adventurous spirit and love of the wild led him to Fort Henry, scene of countless Indian attacks. Farmers had been murdered, women abducted, cabins burned. Zane teamed with legendary scout Lewis Wetzel to mete out justice to Indians and outlaws, and settlers began to enjoy the lush Ohio Valley in peace.

But one pioneer hoped to end Zane’s career as a tireless protector. Spirited and beguiling Betty Sheppard begged him to give up his lonely border-man existence. Duty commanded, however, that he resist all such charms. Zane could have only one sweetheart: the North Star. Then came the day that outlaws captured Betty.

After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw, a companion of the gunfighters and rustlers who live along the Texas border.

In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner and, in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors. Henceforth, he is forced to live a lonely life, hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.

Then, one day, a big-hearted captain of rangers takes Buck into his camp, wins him a pardon, and makes him a ranger, pledged to fight for the law rather than against it. The girl whom he attempted to rescue also finds good in Buck.

As the son of an infamous gunfighter, Buck Duane has the natural instincts and lightning-quick reflexes of his father. After killing a man in self-defense, he becomes an outlaw living amongst gunfighters and bandits on the Texas-Mexico border.
Despite his perilous position as a hunted fugitive, Duane risks his life as he tries to rescue a young girl held prisoner in a Mexican camp and begins his journey of self-discovery.

Zane Grey’s books shoot fast and straight from the hip, hitting readers dead center with thrilling action. His name has become synonymous with western adventure. Because of his killing speed with a revolver, Buck Duane has lived the lone-wolf life of an outlaw. Every day is a struggle against desperate men anxious to prove themselves-and a bigger struggle to hold onto his basic human decency. So when the Texas Rangers offer to deputize him for a dangerous undercover mission, Buck grabs it as his final chance for redemption. The trouble is, the odds are good that the mission will kill him. In books like The Lone Star Ranger and To The Last Man, Zane Grey takes readers to a time and place where men lived by the speed of their draw and the strength of their convictions. Narrator Ed Sala gives compelling voice to the lonely longing of a Texas outlaw.

With night at hand and a rainstorm brewing, Milt Dale takes shelter at an old log cabin in the forest. It is here he overhears vengeful men scheming to kidnap Helen, the niece and heiress of a prominent rancher in poor health, and take over her uncle’s vast property themselves.

Determined to thwart the men, Milt leaves his wild paradise and springs into action. After narrowly escaping, Milt leads Helen and her kid sister away from manmade danger and deep into the perceived safety of the forest … but the kidnappers are not far behind, and they are set on carrying out their evil plot.

Milt Dale is the Man of the Forest. Living alone in a camp in the wilderness called Paradise Park, he prefers the company of bears, cougars, and wolves to that of the surrounding ranchers and troublemakers. But one day he overhears a conversation that changes his life and convinces him to leave his wild paradise to save a young woman from certain doom.
The pioneer spirit runs in Helen Rayner’s blood, but it may not save her from the nasty end that tough guy Snake Anson has planned for her. To get his hands on her uncle’s ranch, he needs to get rid of Helen-by any means necessary. But luckily for Helen, the Man of the Forest is not about to let that happen.

She was named Columbine, for she had been found as a child, lost in the woods, asleep among the columbine flowers. And now that she had turned nineteen and had finished school in Denver, she had returned to her beloved Colorado range land, where she would have to face the problems—and the people—in her life.

There was old Bill Bellounds, the man who had raised her. There was the wild boy Jack whom people expected her to marry. There was Wilson Moore, the cultured cowboy who she considered her friend. And then there was the mysterious rider who came no one knew from where—a gentle, middle aged man, but so terrible a gun fighter that they called him “Hell Bent” Wade—who would come to play the part of fate in all their lives.

The Mysterious Rider is a romance and adventure story with the breath of the Western plains and mountains in its pages.

Three desperate people who had fled Mormon persecution were being held prisoner in a lost canyon. Among them was a beautiful lady named Fay Larkin, whom John Shefford was in love with.

The secret to the canyon lay in a hidden Mormon village of “sealed” wives, where the penalty for trespassing was death. And the treacherous half-breed Shad and his murderous crew were blocking the way to the village.

The tenderfoot Shefford was desperate to rescue his lady. To accomplish this was no easy task, especially considering he didn’t even pack a gun. He would have to fight his way to the canyon, knowing that his efforts might end in bloody slaughter.

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Ten years after the events of Riders of the Purple Sage, John Shefford, a disillusioned preacher from Illinois travels to Arizona and takes refuge in a village controlled by polygamist Mormons hiding from the federal government. It’s there Shefford learns the story of Fay Larkin: years ago, the infant Fay, along with Jane Withersteen and a gunslinger known as Lassiter, were trapped in Surprise Valley. Intrigued, Shefford decides to track Fay down. Originally published under the title The Rainbow Trail in 1915, it was re-edited and re-released in recent years as The Desert Crucible.

John Shefford rode into Utah’s valley in search of a new life, and when he met Fay Larkin, he knew he had found it. Even when she was charged with murder, he did not care. He had to have her. She was worth life itself.
Breaking her out of jail was the easy part. After that he had posses to worry about, violent bands of Indians to outrun, a murderous trek across a trackless waste, and a brutal passage through white water hell.
Hell, yes. Busting her out of jail had been a cinch. After that it really got tough.

Four tales of love and adventure in the Old West introduce a cast of characters that includes a brave Texas ranger who risks his life against avenging outlaws to rescue the woman he secretly loves; a beautiful seductress comes between two brothers; a desperate fugitive seeks sanctuary with a peace-loving people; and a daring young schoolteacher journeys West to meet the man who has captured her heart.

Included are “The Ranger,” “Canyon Walls,” “Avalanche,” and “From Missouri.”

Texas. They took the most contrary bunch of frontiersmen, ranchers, farmers, cowpokes, shiftless no-accounts, shootists, rascals, and politicians, jumbled them together, and somehow formed a state. They called it Texas, but for defenseless women and children, it was hell.

Texas Rangers. Although they were outnumbered a thousand to one, the Texas Rangers fought a holding action against the complete breakdown of law and order, often paying for peace with their lives. But one county held out against attack after attack, a place so mean that a saint would have turned bad.

Into this valley of death rode Ranger Vaughn Steel, hungering for revenge, thirsting for justice, and determined to wipe out the rustlers of Pecos County.

A soldier returns home to find his parents displaced and their property stolen in this classic Western.

“He leaned propped against the rail of the great ship, in an obscure place aft, shadowed by the life-boats. It was the second night out of Cherbourg and the first time for him to be on deck. The ridged and waved Atlantic, but for its turbulence, looked like the desert undulating away to the uneven horizon. The roar of the wind in the rigging bore faint resemblance to the wind in the cottonwoods at home–a sound that had haunted him for all the long years of his absence. There was the same mystery in the black hollows of the sea as from boyhood he had seen and feared in the gloomy gulches of the foothills.”

So begins Zane Grey’s The Shepherd of Guadaloupe. After surviving the brutality of the First World War, Clifton Forrest returns home to find that his childhood home was stolen from his family. With his parents robbed of their property and the area under the firm control of his old acquaintance, Lundeen, Cliff must fight both his enemy and his ailing body to regain the right to a peaceful life on the land he once called home. The Shepherd of Guadaloupe tells of Cliff’s heroic journey as he battles Lundeen while juggling his love for his parents and the love of Lundeen’s daughter, Virginia.

The American frontier in the 1700s produced some men of utter ruthlessness, and Jim Girty was one of the worst. Living among the Delaware Indians in the Ohio Valley, Girty and his brothers incited acts of savagery and war against the white settlers.

One of Jim Girty’s targets was the Village of Peace, a settlement of Christian Indians who had been converted by Moravian missionaries. Girty and his ruffians, playing on the fear and hostility of surrounding tribes, incited them to gather at the village, where they threw the ominous war club on the ground.

Lewis Wetzel, a lonely, taciturn hunter whose family had been the victim of Delaware atrocities, swore revenge on Girty. The intrepid Wetzel, called “Deathwind” by the Delawares, had saved Fort Henry from Indian attack, but was he any match for the odious Girty?

As the Revolutionary War draws to an end, the violence on the frontier only accelerates. The infamous Girty brothers incite Indians to a number of massacres, but when the Village of Peace, a Christian utopian settlement, is destroyed, the settlers know they will have to hunt Chief Wingenund down.
Lewis Wetzel, known to the Indians as the Death Wind, undertakes this mission of revenge. The stakes increase when he learns of a planned attack on Fort Henry. Armed with only his long rifle and knife, Wetzel sets out to single-handedly turn the tide in this bloody border war.

This was a time that was a major part of western history, a sort of baptism of sweat and blood. Great buffalo herds covered mile after mile, and hide hunters swarmed the plains. They were hard-riding and reckless and killed buffalo by the tens of thousands, bringing on near extinction. The invasion was part of the great western migration, and it caused major confrontations with such Indian tribes as Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, and others. The buffalo existed to furnish food, clothing, and shelter for the tribespeople. This was when the buffalo were said to be “as many as the sands of the river bottoms.” Back then the paleface, who was to drive the tribes into the vastness of the arid hills, was unknown and undreamed of. Only infrequent battles of life marked the serenity of the Indian lives. They were often on the move following the animals for sources of life and many of the encroaching hunters were out-and-out bandits. It was definitely no place to be for the faint of heart. Listen for the wild days of the early western frontier.

Zane Grey, an author synonymous with the daring tales of the Wild West, delivers an exciting tale in this phenominal best-seller, The U.P. Trail. As the country changes around them, a group of Wyoming residents ban together to fight the coming of the Union Pacific Railroad. But railroad engineer Warren Neale, struggling against the terrain, the climate, the populace and even his girlfriend’s abduction, is determined to see his project to completion. A passionate and exciting adventure, The U.P Trail will stay in the listener’s mind for years to come.

Considered one of Zane Grey’s best novels, The Vanishing American was originally published in serialized form in the Ladies Home Journal in 1922. It reveals Grey’s empathy for the Native American and his deep concern for the future survival of that culture.

It is the story of Nophaie, a young Navajo, who is picked up by a party of whites at the age of seven. White parents bring the child up as though he were their own, eventually sending him to a prestigious Eastern college where he distinguishes himself by his outstanding athletic skill. The Vanishing American is about Nophaie’s struggle to find a place in society. On a larger scale it is about all Native Americans and their future in America.

It would seem that the end of every war has been followed in the United States by social and moral changes, mostly for the worse. Zane Grey certainly felt that way about the effects of the Great War, and to show these changes and how to cope with them became the impulse behind what he called The Water Hole. However, before magazine publication, changes were made in his text, including the names of all the characters. Fortunately Grey’s original handwritten manuscript has survived, so now this story can be told with his characters named and presented as he intended them to be.

In 1925 widowed businessman Elijah Winters brings his daughter, Cherry, from Long Island to stay at a trading post in a remote area some distance from Flagstaff, Arizona. Removed from the country clubs and speakeasies, Cherry is at first bored with simple ranch life, and to entertain herself she flirts with several of the cowboys, not realizing they are very different from the young men she knew back east. Also very different is Stephen Heftral, a young archaeologist who is searching for an ancient and lost kiva of a primitive Indian tribe that disappeared centuries before in what became the land of the Navajos.

Heftral believes that this lost kiva is most probably in a desert fastness called Beckyshibeta, the Navajo word for water hole. Elijah colludes with Heftral to awaken Cherry to a new and healthier way of life by taking her, by force if necessary, to the site. Cherry resents being kidnapped but comes to forget the luxury of her past in the beauty and dangers of the canyons–and in the thrill of making an important archaeological discovery.

Hazing became a regular form of initiation, not just for college fraternities and sororities, but also for sports teams. The latter ranged from relatively benign pranks to more physical and mental “put downs.” Therefore, it wasn’t unusual for author Pearl Zane Grey to have such personal confrontations, because he loved the game of baseball and was a good enough player to earn a baseball scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania. He once dropped his surname to preserve his scholarship while playing in lower-level minor league games. His knowledge later led to writing two published books about baseball, including the one you’re about to hear.

Exposed to tales of the Old West, Grey shifted his literary focus and became better known for books about western adventures, leading to a successful writing career that included a total of eighty-nine books. Listen now to the outlandish behavior encountered by youthful Ken Ward as he entered the fictional college baseball arena, so very different from the game of today.

Logan Huett thought he knew the West. Once a scout with the US Army, he was familiar with both the hardships and rewards of pioneer life. But not even Logan could foresee the challenges that lay ahead for him and his young wife Lucinda, raising a brood of headstrong children, struggling to achieve financial security in the wilderness, concealing a long-buried family secret, and, finally, surviving the tragedy dealt them by the advent of World War I.

Through the Huetts’ eyes we see the world grow and change, while the patriarch, Logan, clings to his dream of 30,000 cattle. Despite the difficulties, the family demonstrates an ability to overcome all obstacles, including loss of loved ones and family wealth.

Legendary writer Zane Grey earned legions of devoted fans with his gritty westerns. In To The Last Man, he dramatizes the events of the Pleasant Valley War of Arizona, a bloody feud that nearly wiped two families off the face of the earth. Jean Isbel has settled in Oregon and is growing comfortable with his new home when an urgent letter arrives from his father. Trouble is brewing in Arizona between the Isbel cattlemen and the Jorth clan of sheepmen. Rushing to his father’s side, Jean arrives just before the first bullets start flying. But matters are complicated when Jean and Ellen Jorth, daughter of the sheepmen’s leader, fall in love. Jean will have to balance his love for Ellen with his duty to family. Grey’s depiction of this historical event spares no details in describing the devastation this feud caused. Ed Sala’s dramatic narration carries you back to the old West, when gunmen were determined to fight to the last man.

To the Last Man is Zane Grey’s archetypal tale of a bitter feud between two unforgiving factions: the ranchers led by Jean Isbel and, on the other side, Lee Jorth and his band of cattle rustlers. In the grip of a relentless code of loyalty to their own people, they fight the war of the Tonto Basin, desperately, doggedly, to the last man, neither side seeing the futility of it until it is too late.

In this volatile environment, young Jean finds himself hopelessly in love with a girl from whom he is apparently separated by an impassable barrier–the daughter of his father’s enemy. How Jean battles to overcome his difficult situation makes for a dramatic conclusion to this desperate feud.

Loosely based on actual historical events, this thrilling story of a hopeless romance amidst a sea of violence will keep listeners spellbound.

When Brazos Keene, a haunted cowboy with an honorable streak, comes across Twin Sombreros Ranch, he finds himself dragged into a vicious family feud. A convenient fall guy, Brazos is accused of the murder of Allen Neece, son of Abe Neece. The Neeces are the former owners of Twin Sombreros but lost it to the Surface family when their $50,000 herd of cattle mysteriously disappeared, turning the once-proud Abe into a broken man as he and his twin daughters are kicked off their former land.

Brazos barely manages to avoid a hanging, but when he falls for one of the Neece girls, he decides he can’t just leave without finding out who really killed Allen and what’s at the bottom of this war over the ranch. As he starts to champion the Neece family, all hell breaks loose, and Bezos comes across one violent encounter after another. Brazos becomes an instrument of vengeance, furiously shooting his way through the web of lies and greed that now hangs over Twin Sombreros Ranch.

Zane Grey returns with another grand story of action and romance, a tale from the true master of the Western about a good man doing what he can to right a wrong.

In spite of becoming known as the most successful author of stories of the old West, Zane Grey did get criticized. One New York literary critic said, “Grey possesses no merit whatsoever either in style or in substance.” Another scathingly wrote, “The substance of any two Zane Grey books could be put on the back of a postage stamp.” Such remarks resulted from envy of his success. This book has all the ingredients of cowboys, horses, boots, and spurs, in a period of lawlessness that often brought on gunfights in those days. The cowboy hero is Panhandle Smith, known as Pan, as he grew to be wild and free virtually from childhood. The tale prompts seeing, hearing, and feeling what it was like in those bygone days.

A western adventure becomes a journey of expiation and redemption.

Adam flees to the desert to save his life, and discovers the need to save his soul. In the searing heat of Death Valley, lonely land of prospectors and hermits, he confronts his baser instincts as he struggles to survive, striving to rise above them.

Wanderer of the Wasteland is Zane Grey’s most personal novel: a thinly veiled autobiography written in remarkably poetic language. Filled with colorful characters, and vibrant descriptions of the southwestern desert landscape he so loved, this is the story of one man’s internal battle to save his better self, or die trying.

From the master of the Western comes a novel full of romance and adventure.

Adam Laret–big, young, and headstrong–ran from Ehrenberg to the banks of the Rio Colorado. He was blindly fleeing his scheming, gambling brother and the woman Guerd stole from him. But Adam’s escape wasn’t complete until Guerd, in the company of a sheriff, hunted him down. Then Adam committed the ultimate crime. With the mark of Cain upon him–he traveled into the desert to atone for his sins.

In a vast, harsh world of heat and beauty, of stealthy creatures and gnawing starvation, Adam faced death and madmen, Indians and strangers who lived where life was impossible. But nothing he did–no act of courage, righteousness, or violence–washed Adam clean. Until he met a woman and made a choice: to fight his way back to civilization, the most dangerous place of all.

Here is a story of a young man of eighteen who wandered for years after an accidental shooting of his brother. He felt as though he was a counterpart of the Biblical killing by Cain of his brother Abel. It was written by Zane Grey, one of the greatest western novelists. It came out about a dozen years after Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, one of the most successful western novels ever written. It takes us through a lonely land of prospectors and hermits as it tells of surviving searing Death Valley heat, an area that many consider the deadliest land in the world. Listen now and hear a highly surprising finish.

Wildfire is a glorious beast, a fiery red stallion that is captured and broken by Lin Slone, a horse trainer. A legendary and miraculous horse, Wildfire is also a curse—a horse who could run like the wind but who could also injure those who love him most.

Zane Grey is the master of the Western novel. His works have thrilled generations of readers with brave and noble characters, hard-shooting action, and high-plains panoramas. Truly he symbolizes the spirit of the Old West.

Lin Sloan never wanted anything more than Wildfire, but the stallion almost killed him. Luckily, Lucy Bostil found the horse and the unconscious man who had roped him. But Sloan is not the only man interested in Wildfire, and he may resort to murder to get what he wants. Wildfire is another classic western by American author Zane Grey. The book was first published in 1917.