Central Kansas Library System

Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical travel memoir, "Roughing It" was written between 1870-1871 and subsequently published in 1872. Billed as a prequel to "Innocents Abroad", in which Twain details his travels aboard a pleasure cruise through Europe and the Holy Land in 1867, "Roughing It" conversely documents Twain's early days in the old wild west between the years 1861-1867. Employing his characteristically humoristic wit and flare for regional dialect,...

The foreman of a large cattle ranch on the Wyoming frontier lives by the honor code of the West even though it means helping lynch a friend or possibly losing the girl he is to marry.

"For the greatest trapper in the country, there's no place like the Rocky Mountains. Preacher and his son Hawk are riding the High Lonesome when the clear mountain air is split by a girl's savage screams. A gang of ruthless trappers has kidnapped a Crow woman, but before they escape with her, Preacher and Hawk burst out of the tree line, guns spitting fire. They drive the trappers off, only to find that she's not Crow, but white. Caroline has been...

"Wildfire" is the story of Lucy Bostil, the daughter of a stable owner, who happens upon Lin Slone, knocked unconscious while chasing his unruly colt Wildfire through the hills. When Lin convinces Lucy to ride Wildfire in the upcoming race, the villainous Cordts will stop at nothing to make sure that it is his horse that wins the race instead.

In the course of his job as Head of Ranch Security, Hank the dog is asked to guard five chicks, despite the fact that poultry is his favorite kind of dinner.

Ace and Chance Jensen serve on a jury that convicts a killer. The brother of the hanged killer comes to town with plans to slaughter the jurors one by one, but the Jensen boys don't plan to let him succeed.

Young, bright Taylor Greer leaves her poverty-stricken life in Kentucky and heads west, picking up an abandoned Native American baby girl whom she names Turtle and finds a new home in Tucson with Mattie, an old woman who takes in Central American refugees.

"Jake Paynter is a doomed man. Haunted by an abusive childhood and his participation in atrocities of the Civil War, he seeks the isolation of the Plains Cavalry as a white officer for an all-Black buffalo soldier troop. Now, he is in irons and certain to be hanged for killing his captain after refusing an inhumane order. Despite his best efforts to maintain isolation, he starts to make friends on his journey to trial. The people of the wagon train...

Fearless Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security, enters the "dark unchanted forest" to rescue his master's son from Sinister the bobcat.

Fictionalized biography of Colonel Charles Jesse Jones ("Buffalo Jones"), 1844-1919, a frontiersman and wild game hunter. Jones, the last of the plainsmen, and several associates venture into the region of Buckskin Mountain, along the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. In a continuing quest to establish dominion over wild animals, Jones leads his men on a journey to capture untamed cougars and bring them back alive. After several run-ins with Navajo,...