Blood of the Mountain Man — William W. Johnstone

BLOODY MONTANA GOLD

Major Cosgrove not only owned the small gold mining town of Red Light lock, stock and barrel, he thought he owned everyone in it -- until Smoke Jensen rode in to prove otherwise. All Smoke wanted was to settle up the estate of his late sister, but the ranch that came with it was smack dab in the middle of the gold fields, and there were some who suspected the ground below was worth a sight more than the cattle graze on top. It wasn't long before a hundred imported gun-toughs galloped in, and all that stood between Major Cosgrove and a brand new gold dig was six-feet of lean, hard danger who was reputed to be the fastest gun alive.

Raised in the high lonesome of the rugged Rockies by an old mountain man named Preacher, Smoke Jensen had felt the biting sting of an outlaw's bullet more than once. He knew that out here in the western Montana gold country, the only law that counted were the men and the guns they carried. But he also knew if Cosgrove figgered 100-1 odds were good enough to drive Smoke off the land, then the man who owned the town of Red Light stood a better'n even chance of ownin' no face at his funeral!