South of the Law Line — Walt Coburn

Three of Walt Coburn's finest Western short novels appear here in book form for the first time. "Riders of the Purple" concerns two ranches that have worked together and co-operated for twenty years before someone else managed to split them into feuding factions, just preceding the bitter winter of 1886 that swept the cow country in Montana Territory and added disaster to the range feud. In "South of the Law Line" a Texas Ranger has crossed the border to Mexico in pursuit of an American outlaw who calls himself the Hawk. An American named Slats has crossed the border to die from consumption. He was being treated for the disease by a doctor who has been buying morphine illegally from the Hawk and turning his wealthy patients into addicts. Of course, Slats only comes to this knowledge after he is taken prisoner by the Hawk. In "High Jack and Low" Chavez has been wooing the daughter of a criminal, and is wanted by the rurales for being a revolutionary leader and outlaw, but he finds an ally who is working under cover. The tension constantly builds as these various forces inevitably collide in the Sonoran desert.