The Floating Outfit

Dusty Fog knew it was big trouble this when he agreed to become marshal of Mulrooney, Kansas—knew it and accepted it because he had good men at his back. Yet it seemed that not even the combined talents of Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid, Waco and gambler Frank Derringer could handle the feud between Freddie Woods and her chief rival in the saloon business, Buffalo Kate.

When the beautiful daughter of an English Lord is chosen Mayor of a wide-open Kansas cowtown, she needs a Marshal who can think as well as shoot--and who can shoot better than any man alive. Waco was her man...armed with a brace of Army Colts and bore a log-sized chip on his shoulder. Then fate stepped in and that's where Dusty Fog and the Floating Outfit come in...

With the coming of the British Railroad Commission to town, Freddie Woods' past is exposed and is threatened with extradition to stand trial for murder. Dusty Fog has to face the decision of his life. As Town Marshal, should he arrest the woman he loves? Or should he betray his oath of office and prevent the course of justice?

When Miss Olga Chernyshevsky was shown how easy it was to make diamonds she demanded that she too should attempt the experiment—and accidently produced emeralds. The mistake meant she had to run for her life, straight into a poker game which resulted in the fight of a lifetime.Ole Devil Hardin’s floating outfit were trying to keep the peace in Mulrooney—against heavy odds.

When Dusty Fog was ambushed and nearly killed by a band of hired killers, only the intervention of a friendly stranger saved his life. From then on, Dusty knew he had to obey the Texan code of honor and repay his debt to Raymond Sangster. However, Fog did not envisage the cost of settling his debt of gratitude—for the price was the building of a railroad across Floating Outfit land!

Few men were able to match Mark Counter’s Herculean strength. And then Tiny Crumble came along...Then a robbery took place—one that could only have been committed by a man of exceptional strength. As Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, and the Ysabel Kid looked down at the shattered skull of the victim of the crime, they began to wonder if the ‘Gentle Giant’ was really as gentle as he seemed...

When a cowhand was set a-foot, there was usually trouble … and gunplay. Dusty Fog knew this, but he still set a-foot the man he blamed for the loss of an OC Connected trail herd and the injuries to some of his crew. He knew too that the cowhand he was disgracing was real fast with a gun—and knew that gun might be turned against him. The cowhand’s only name was Waco …

A big-city detective had a lot to learn in Texas. Even a tough one like Ed Ballinger. He'd tracked the Big Man to Jack City, where he owned the local law and was surrounded but hired guns. Ballinger was in trouble. The mobster from Chicago was riding high--until Dusty Fog and the Floating Outfit rode into his life. Then his trouble really began...

During the War Between the States, Belle Boyd had rendered loyal service to Dixie. At its end, she had taken the oath of allegiance to the Union and was now a trusted member of the U.S. Secret Service. Any clash of loyalties was averted when the Frenchman, a leader of the Brotherhood for Southron Freedom, caused the deaths of two of Belle’s friends. The Rebel Spy swore that she would avenge them.

To be made welcome at the town called Hell in the Palo Duro, a man had to have a price on his head and be willing to share his loot with the mayor. Determined to wipe out the outlaws’ stronghold, the floating outfit set off on another dangerous assignment. Not only did Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Waco have to get by the Kweharehnuh, they had to try to stay alive once they reached Hell!

THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN! That was the message from the Brotherhood for Southron Freedom who had gathered a band of desperate, dangerous men and armed them with repeating rifles. Belle Boyd, now working for the U.S. Secret Service, was on their trail. She knew that she would need help to defeat them. Her message to her superiors was simple: "Send me three regiments of Cavalry... or Dusty Fog!"

The task had seemed simple enough to the Ysabel Kid. All he had to do was ride into Mexico, find the man who had killed James Bowie at the Alamo and ask him to return Bowie’s legendary knife to its rightful owners. Nothing simpler ... or so the Kid thought ... But before the job was through he had locked horns with some mighty bad hombres.

Acknowledged as Europe’s premier assassin, Beguinage came and went unnoticed by all except the victims. And had never failed in an assignment. The Governor of Texas calls in the help of the Ole Devil Hardin's Floating Outfit. The only way Dusty Fog saw of saving a European Crown Prince was to use himself as bait for a trap—knowing that when it was sprung, either Beguinage or he would be dead...

In 1873 the Colt factory produced a new revolver. They called it the Model P. In Mexico there was trouble: an old friend of the Ysabel Kid disappeared, believed murdered by the revolutionaries. That brought Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco into Mexico. When they returned, the Model P Colt guns bore a new name—men called them the Peacemakers....

Hell - Palo Duro: Dusty Fog had ridden in and shot his way back out again. But had left behind men and women at the mercy of the Kweharehnuh Comanches. So he decided that he must go back. Despite all the dangers it entailed, the Ysabel Kid and Waco insisted upon accompanying him. The mysterious man called Break O’Day rode with them but he intended to be the only one to come out of Hell alive.

Assigned to protect Crown Prince Rudolph of Bosgravinia while he was on a hunting expedition in Texas, Ole Devil Hardin’s Floating Outfit knew that their task would be anything but easy. Dusty Fog thought he had killed top assassin Beguinage, but soon they concluded that “Beguinage is very much alive!” Now it was guns blazing in a bloody outcome.

Three men rode down the hill towards the body of the dead cavalry officer. On the right: a Texan-small and insignificant-looking-called Dusty Fog. On the left: Mark Counter, known and feared acros the Southwest. In the middle, hands never far from the butts of his guns rode the Ysabel Kid, six feet of slim and deadly manhood. Three men with purpose in their hearts and death in their holsters.

“Buffalo are coming!” This was the message that the Comanche medicine man spread through the tribes of the Plains Indians. Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, Waco and the Ysabel Kid had been sent to persuade the Kweharehnuh to join the other Comanche bands on the reservation. But if the medicine man’s prediction came true, then not only would their mission fail, but blood—both red and white—would be shed.

Dusty Fog and his men have to round up a rich dead man's friends and relatives and bring them to the old home place for the reading of his will. But this is no reunion, or even a wake--it's an all-out shootout. Because, according to the will, the last one alive inherits everything!

The KH were the only outfit in the Azul Rio basin that hadn’t joined Lanton’s cattle syndicate, and the ruthless boss of the S Star was bent on making things difficult for the rival spread. The S Star hired killers were having things all their own way until three Texans rode into town. Their leader’s name was Dusty Fog ...

They were all at Tombstone to try and win a matched pair of gold-inlaid Colt Cavalry Peacemakers. Bat Masterson; Tom Horn; Burt Alvord and Wyatt Earp. On the contest eight men stood tall, and who could draw and shoot in half a second. The ninth man was a small Texan against whom the bartender of the Bucket of Blood Saloon gave odds of ten to one. His name was Dusty Fog.

When the gunplay started the five Texans were in there, fighting to a man. And when the gunsmoke cleared, they were the ones still on their feet, If you were lucky enough to be their friend you were a friend for life. If you called down one of them, you called down all five. That was the way things were with the legendary Floating Outfit.

Here, in one volume, is the story of Mark Counter’s famous kin: James Allenvale Gunn, better known as Bunduki, Chief Game Warden of an African Wildlife Reservation; Brad Counter, Deputy Sheriff in Rockabye County; Sergeant Ranse Smith, member of the elite Company Z of the Texas Rangers and Jessica and Trudeau Front de Boeuf, two of the most likeable rogues who ever trod the Old West.

The hired guns met him in the Texas town of Escopeta--and walked right past him. They had some killing to do. They had no time to fool with a soft-spoken, insignificant-looking cowhand. They had no way of knowing that he could fill his hands with two tickets to Hell quicker than a snake could blink. That he was Dusty Fog...

Rancher Sam Catlan and his two sons had been murdered—shot in the back by person or persons unknown. Sam Catlan had many friends—all of whom wanted to see his death avenged. But one young man in particular, to whom Sam had been like a father, swore he would hunt down the killer and pay the debt he owed the kindly old man who had raised him. It was no empty vow. For the young man’s name was … Waco.