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Top Ten Western Short Stories For August

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Top Ten Beyond the Western Short Stories for August

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Plot Summary from 

Riders of the Purple Sage is a Western novel by Zane Grey, first published by Harper & Brothers in 1912. Considered by many critics to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been called "the most popular western novel of all time."

Riders of the Purple Sage tells the story of Jane Withersteen and her battle to overcome persecution by members of her polygamous Mormon fundamentalist church. A leader of the church, Elder Tull, wants to marry her. Withersteen gets help from a number of friends, including Bern Venters and Lassiter, a famous gunman and killer of Mormons. Throughout most of the novel she struggles with her "blindness" to the evil nature of her church and its leaders, and tries to keep Venters and Lassiter from killing the adversaries who are slowly ruining her. When she adopts a child, Fay, she abandons her beliefs and discovers her true love. A second plot strand tells of Venters and his escape to the wilderness with a girl named Bess, "the rustler's girl," whom he has accidentally shot. Venters falls in love with the girl while caring for her. Together they escape to the East, while Lassiter, Fay, and Jane, pursued by both Mormons and rustlers, escape into a paradise-like valley and topple a giant rock to forever close off the only way in or out.

Plot Summary

A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close.

Plot Summary  

He came to the Belilounds ranch, no one knew from where; a man of middle age, gentle, kindly, but so terrible a gunfighter that they called him "Hell Bent" Wade. He played the part of fate in all their lives, and only when the inevitable tragedy came and teh Mysterious Rider made the great sacrifice did they know - and out of that tragedy came the light of love.

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Buck Duane is the son of a famous outlaw. Though an outlaw is not always a criminal, if the Rangers say he is an outlaw, it's just as bad – he's a hunted man. After killing a man in self-defense, Duane is forced to 'go on the dodge'. Duane turns up at an outlaw's hideout, still revolting at the idea of outlawry. Worse still, all the men he kills haunt him, for years. At the outlaw hideout, he meets a kidnapped, beautiful young woman and desires to see her free.

In the second part of the book, Duane joins the Rangers, who want him to help to clear the frontier of major cattle rustlers and bank robbers, in return for the governor's pardon of his illegal deeds.

Plot Summary  

A woman is kidnapped from Fort Henry by a band of renegades and hostile Ohio Valley Indians. Now, Lewis Wetzel and Jonathan Zane take pursuit. With no hope of survival, they follow the trail into the unknown wilderness, vowing it to be their last venture. At trail's end, they will face their bloodiest battle.

In this classic, Milt Dale, a lone camper in the forest overhears a a plot to kidnap the niece of a prominent rancher. Milt leaves his wild paradise to save the young woman from certain doom. He leads her and her younger sister away over rugged mountain trails as he imparts his just as rugged philosophy. 

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. Breaking her out of jail was the easy part. After that he has posses to worry about, violent bands of Indians to out run, a murderous trek across a trackless waste, and a brutal passage through white water hell. This sequel to Zane Grey's enormously popular Riders of the Purple Sage picks up ten years after the events of the previous novel. 

Which is the true treasure, love or money? Prospecting in an Arizona border town, Richard Gale sees the possibilities of passion and gold when he finds himself trying to save a beautiful Spanish heiress. Desert Gold contains the best of what made Zane Grey one of the most renowned writers of Westerns -- sweet romance, action-packed thrills, heartrending descriptions of the Western landscape, and plenty of thought-provoking talk about the virtues and travails of frontier life.

The gripping tale of a man, a woman, and a remarkable horse. The three are thrown together through a series of circumstances that give rise to a once-in-a-lifetime bond. The story revolves around Lucy Bostil, a stable owner's daughter who one day happens upon an unconscious Lin Slone. When he comes to, Lin convinces Lucy to race his horse, Wildfire in an impeding race. However, there are others who would see that the pair fail in their endeavor to win. A classic tale of adventure and daring-do, "Wildfire" constitutes a must-read for lovers of Western fiction.

The Young Forester is the story of the adventures of a boy who goes to Arizona to join a friend---a government ranger--in the forestry service. One of the many brave souls who laid his own safety on the line to make the wild terrain of the region safe and inhabitable.  

Inspired by the life and adventures of his own great-great grandmother. This was Zane Grey's first novel and launched his career as a master writer of rousing frontier and Western adventures. The story revolves around Grey's great-grandmother "Betty" Zane, who was a heroine of the Revolutionary War on the American frontier. 

The U.P. trail weaves a grand narrative of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad line, which serves as the backdrop for a tender romance that blooms between the virtuous Allie and the mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Warren Neale.

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canons and giant pines."