The Floating Outfit

Ranch-owners in the newly formed Comanche range banded together to organize a great round-up. John Chisum, the Cattle King, planned to gain control by making sure that one of his men was picked as the roundup captain. But the job went to a passing stranger. Removing him should not have been any great problem. However, there was one small detail: the name passing stranger was Dusty Fog.

Things were looking bad for Red Blaze. First somebody put an arrow into his partner; then somebody put a bullet into a friendly Apache girl from the reservation. Somebody wanted the Apaches on the warpath, and to do it they had to get Red out of the way. But Red had a friend, a certain small Texan with a tall reputation. Name: Dusty Fog.

Hell's Doorway - that was Triblet, the meanest kind of trail-end town, where the corrupt grew fat on the sweat and grit of honest people. At least, that's how it was till the Floating Outfit started cleaning things up. They were the toughest bunch of town tamers the West ever knew, led by a small Texan named Dusty Fog--who wouldn't stop till there wasn't an argument left standing.

Other States were carved or born, Texas grew from hide and horn. Charles Goodnight thought he had the answers and aimed to prove it. Backed by Ole Devil Hardin’s already legendary floating outfit, he set off with three thousand five hundred head of cattle for Fort Sumner. With Dusty Fog as his segundo, Goodnight meant to deliver his herd and so pave the way for Texas to grow from hide and horn.

None of the peace officers available struck the Governor of Kansas as suitable to clean out the worst, most corrupt town of all. So he called on five Texans who had already brought law to two tough towns. Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid, Waco and Doc Leroy pinned on their badges. Then they went to work in the face of opposition from the corruption destroying Trail End.

WANTED – DEAD $5000 It might have been the normal poster put out by a law enforcement office that the Ysabel Kid held out, until the others read the name of the wanted man – Dusty Fog! “For five thousand dollars, every bounty hunter and two-bit gun slick west of the Pecos’ll be after your hide,” the Kid growled. “What do you aim to do about it?” Doc enquired. “Stop them,” answered Dusty Fog.

The first book in a trilogy this sets the scene. When he inherited an Arizona ranch from an uncle he barely knew, Stone Hart packed off with a rambunctious support of Texans Dusty, Mark and Lon and a thundering herd of longhorns. But in the wilds of Arizona, some of Hart's new neighbors were hell-bent on claiming the ranch as their own.

Spanish Grant County is open for the taking, and the East Coast sharpies are moving in. But the one man standing in the way is rancher Stone Hart, who has friends by the name of Fog, Counter and Ysabel. And when the members of General "Ole Devil" Hardin's floating outfit are joined in Arizona by a lady named Calamity, the land grabbers, bushwackers, and bank robbers have a wildcat by the tail.

The forces of greed aren’t going to let go of Spanish Grant County without a final fight, and an army of hired gunslingers take on a bantam-fighter-turned-sheriff named Fog, the fists of a blond giant Mark Counter, the honed steel of a silent killer, the Ysabel Kid. And what the outlaws can’t win with Colts and Winchesters they’ll try another way earning the ire of a shootist named Calamity Jane!

There were some strange goings-on in Roberts County, New Mexico. Men had been disappearing without trace and all attempts to find them had failed. When Mark Counter disappeared, Dusty Fog, and the Ysabel Kid went looking for him. Mark was their friend and they aimed to find him, even if it meant taking on the whole of the county, it would be just too bad for anyone who tried to stand in their way.

Belle Starr, lady outlaw, had been murdered, cut down from behind by a double charge of buckshot. Nobody knew who had killed her. But Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid swore they would bring in the murderer. Getting whoever killed Belle meant a lot to the three Texans. It meant more than ever to Mark, for he had planned to ask the girl to be his wife.

Colonel Goodnight's cattle drive to Kansas could save war-torn Texas, but it would ruin the slaughter-house owners who stayed rich but keeping the ranchers poor. The 'hide and tallow men' hired an army of gun-hung toughs. Goodnight had the help of the Floating Outfit. And Fort Worth had itself a war!

The slaughter-house owners were marking stolen longhorns with the Floating Outfit's brand in a vicious scheme to stop the cattle drive to Kansas. Mark Counter tracked them to their headquarters, then levered his Winchester into lightning action...

They didn’t have any law in Quiet Town—except that of the gun. Three good men had the badge of Sheriff and died wearing it. The good citizens felt that their town needed a real lawman, someone who would play the killers and hard cases at their own game. They knew of one man who could do the job. His name was Dusty Fog.

When young Wes Hardin stepped up to a wrestling booth to try his strength against big, brawny Negro Sam. Within a few minutes a vicious gunfight had developed, and then Wes was on the run, branded a murderer and without a single witness left alive to testify to his innocence. Then he met his cousin, Dusty Fog along with others of the Floating Outfit took up the fight against those against Hardin.

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...