The Floating Outfit

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!

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.

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...

An Apache warhorse gone wild, he was the magnificent prize in a fierce mustanger range war on the west Texas plains. On one side was a small army of hired killers armed to the teeth. On the other side was a proud Scot and his Texas woman, backed up by three cowhands from the Floating Outfit: Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Dusty Fog. Just about an even match!

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.

When Mavis Dearington was kidnapped, and a ransom demanded by Ramon Peraro, the bandido’s leader., her uncle gathered a force to cross into Mexico to rescue her. The town's newcomer knew there was only one way to prevent such a foolish attempt—cross the border and rescue the girl himself! An impossibly dangerous mission for one man...except when the man in question was the Ysabel Kid!

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...

The cities of the eastern States were hungry for beef. The problem was how to get it to them. Colonel Charles Goodnight had a plan that might work—if he had all the luck he needed. Things seemed to be going well, especially with the Floating Outfit on his side—Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Dusty Fog, the small Texan who walked tall. But what Goodnight didn’t need was an enemy like John Chisum.

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.

A short-story collection featuring the men sworn to serve Ole Devil Hardin, the crippled Texas rancher. The fastest guns and the fiercest fighters in the Southwest, they were known as Ole Devil's Hands and Feet. Dusty Fog, Waco & Doc Leroy, and Mark Counter, all fast with their guns, possessing special skills to help with any situation, they were a force to be reckoned with.

You're in that untamed stretch of hot, naked land known as Texas. All you need is a gun. And the skill to shoot it at the right time and the right place...and, of course, the right man. A little advice: Don't aim your gun at a guy named Dusty Fog, the Rio Hondo Gun Wizard. They say he's the fastest draw in Texas. That just might be idle hearsay--but are you fool enough to take that chance...?

Grattan, Texas is a bad place to get an education-and a worse place to be a teacher. One by one, the school masters and marms were given a choice: Take a permanent recess or a bullet in the brain. In no time at all, the schoolhouse was empty. But now there's a new instructor in town. He's packing a six-shooter in his primer. He plans to teach a deadly lesson in revenge. And his name is Dusty Fog.

Ole Devil Hardin's O.D. Connected Ranch was watched over by an elite crew of top hands called the Floating Outfit. Most of them were veterans of the War Between the States. They were skilled with rifle, revolver and knife. Folks in West Texas knew better than to trifle with them. And the biggest man among them was the smallest, a range-toughened ex-Rebel cavalry officer called Dusty Fog.

They came from the East—well-heeled city men with money in their wallets and greed and hate in their hearts. They aimed for the cattle country of the Rio Hondo, which they thought to take over with the aid of their hired gunmen. In choosing the Rio Hondo country, they chose wrong, this country meant an outfit called the OD Connected, and that meant a man called Dusty Fog.

A phony doctor, a murderer headed for the stockade for life, a bare-knuckled lady boxer and her two beautiful daughters ... an odd assortment was holed up in Baptist's Hollow taking refuge from Lobo Colorado's rampaging warriors. Four Texans were with them. Three of them were big. bold-looking cowboys. The fourth was their leader-a soft-talking little man named Dusty Fog.