The only hope of finding a US marshal who suspiciously vanished in the desert is rotting in a New Mexico jail!Because of reports of a potential range war in Peñasco County, New Mexico, US Commissioner Guilford dispatches Deputy US Marshal Ed Church to help clean up the mess. But after arriving in Agua Verde by stagecoach and renting a horse to ride to the troubled area, Church disappears. At the same time, two top men from rival ranching operations are found killed outside town the day after Church arrived in Agua Verde, apparently the deadly result of a shoot-out.Guilford knows that Ed Church's best friend, Streak Mathiot, is currently sitting in the Pleasant City jail. Guilford visits and offers him the job of deputy US marshal to investigate Church's disappearance. If Streak will accept it, the commissioner's assignment will take precedence over any local charges against him, and the prisoner would be released into Guilford's custody. Streak accepts...

Dan Gentry's military career lies trampled in the dust beside the arrow-pierced bodies of the men who served under him. Deliberately cloaking a dead lieutenant's foolhardiness with his own silence, Dan Gentry is court-martialed and disgraced. An outcast, he finds pretty Faith Tipton, wounded and unconscious, the sole survivor of an Apache raid. In love with this girl, Dan tries to protect her from the sinister designs of greedy, furtive Caleb Ash—and Dan and Faith are plunged into a maelstrom of deadly perils as the ex-soldier becomes first the hunter, then the hunted.

Can Frank Rivers clear his name of his father's murder?Frank Rivers had served four years in the penitentiary for the murder of his father in the commission of a stagecoach robbery. There had been a witness that could not be found at the time of the trial but whose testimony four years later was sufficient for Rivers to receive a full pardon.But for Rivers the matter is scarcely ended. He wants to find the real culprits behind the crime. His search leads him to Ute Springs where he immediately comes to the notice of Sheriff Jim Echols, who believes that Rivers committed the crime and that he bribed his way into being granted a pardon. When Rivers witnesses the murder of his prime suspect, he has a tough decision to make. Flee and be blamed or stay and be blamed.Rider on the Buckskin once again shows off Dawson's writing chops, justifying his reputation as one of the most respected Western writers of all time.

After five years of virtual banishment because he sold out his small outfit to the Middle Arizona Cattle Company, giving it a foothold on the Mesa Grande range, violent-tempered Joe Bonnyman is summoned back to Lodgepole by his father when it appears that a cattle war between the syndicate and the various rangers is imminent.During his short stay in town, Joe has an unpleasant meeting with Ed Merrill, the brother of a girl Joe had once courted. Warned by Merrill to stay away from his sister, Joe whips the man in a fist fight. Later that same night Ed Merrill decides to ride out of Lodgepole to his ranch, rather than face humiliation the next day over the fight. On his way to the stable to get his horse, he sees a light in the Acme Land Company's office and realizes that someone is opening the safe. While he is deliberating what to do, the hold-up man comes out, sees him, and brings down his gun on Ed's head with a vicious blow. From a piece of evidence found at the scene of...