Western Short Stories
Zane Grey 1872-1939
western short stories Bio. of Zane Grey
A minor league baseball player with one game in the major league to his credit. A practicing dentist in New York, City. Avid fisherman and prolific writer with over 90 books in print.
Zane Grey is best known as one of the worlds greatest western authors.
These first five stories are from his book titled Tales of Lonely Trails. These stories are long. I've added the word count next to the titles for you.
Western Short Stories by Zane Grey
Nonnezoshe (4,726 words)
Zane Grey
John Wetherill, one of the famous Wetherill brothers and trader at Kayenta, Arizona, is the man who discovered Nonnezoshe, which is probably the most beautiful and wonderful natural phenomenon in the world. Wetherill owes the credit to his wife, who, through her influence with the Indians finally after years succeeded in getting the secret of the great bridge. Read more of Nonnezoshe here>>
Colorado Trails (13,177 words)
Zane Grey
Riding and tramping trails would lose half their charm if the motive were only to hunt and to fish. It seems fair to warn the reader who longs to embark upon a bloody game hunt or a chronicle of fishing records that this is not that kind of story. But it will be one for those who love horses and dogs, the long winding dim trails, the wild flowers and the dark still woods, the fragrance of spruce and the smell of camp-fire smoke. And as well for those who love to angle in brown lakes or rushing brooks or chase after the baying hounds or stalk the stag on his lonely heights. Read more of Colorado Trails here>>
Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon (34,796 words)
Zane Grey
The Grand Canyon of Arizona is over two hundred miles long, thirteen wide, and a mile and a half deep; a titanic gorge in which mountains, tablelands, chasms and cliffs lie half veiled in purple haze. It is wild and sublime, a thing of wonder, of mystery; beyond all else a place to grip the heart of a man, to unleash his daring spirit.
On April 20th, 1908, after days on the hot desert, my weary party and pack train reached the summit of Powell's Plateau, the most isolated, inaccessible and remarkable mesa of any size in all the canyon country. Read more of Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon here>>
Tonto Basin (68,326 words)
Zane Grey
The start of a camping trip, the getting a big outfit together and packed, and on the move, is always a difficult and laborsome job. Nevertheless, for me the preparation and the actual getting under way have always been matters of thrilling interest. This start of my hunt in Arizona, September 24, 1918, was particularly momentous because I had brought my boy Romer with me for his first trip into the wilds.
It may be that the boy was too young for such an undertaking. His mother feared he would be injured; his teachers presaged his utter ruin; his old nurse, with whom he waged war until he was free of her, averred that the best it could do for him would be to show what kind of stuff he was made of. His uncle R.C. was stoutly in favor of taking him. I believe the balance fell in Romer's favor when I remembered my own boyhood. Read more of Tonto Basin here>>
Death Valley (7,045 words)
Zane Grey
Of the five hundred and fifty-seven thousand square miles of desert-land in the southwest Death Valley is the lowest below sea level, the most arid and desolate. It derives its felicitous name from the earliest days of the gold strike in California, when a caravan of Mormons, numbering about seventy, struck out from Salt Lake, to cross the Mojave Desert and make a short cut to the gold fields. All but two of these prospectors perished in the deep, iron-walled, ghastly sink-holes, which from that time became known as Death Valley.
The survivors of this fatal expedition brought news to the world that the sombre valley of death was a treasure mine of minerals; and since then hundreds of prospectors and wanderers have lost their lives there. To seek gold and to live in the lonely waste places of the earth have been and ever will be driving passions of men. Read more of Death Valley here>>
