No one tells tales of the frontier better than Louis L'Amour, who portrays the human side of westward expansion-the good and the bad, before the days of law and order-in these seven stories. In "The Black Rock Coffin Makers," two men in the isolated town of Tucker want the XY ranch: Jim Walker and the ruthless Wing Cary-and one of them wants it badly enough to kill for it. In "Grub Line Rider," Kim Sartain is an easygoing, peace-loving drifter....

Pa came down to the breaks along the cowhouse where I was rousting out some steer that had taken to the brush because of the heel-flies. Come up to the house, boy. Tap has come home and he is talking of the western lands.

Seated over the dying coals, nursing his cup of coffee, he idly sifted some rocks through his fingers. One fragment threw a tiny gleam into his eyes. Gold!