Böcker av Bradford Scott

It was Texas Ranger Walt Slade's strangest mission: arrest the "dead man" who had suddenly come back to life -- and become the power behind a killer gang terrorizing the border!In this desperate, action-packed manhunt, Slade found himself playing the deadliest hand Fate had ever dealt him. A classic western!

Welcome to a Texas Boom Town -Where outlaws ride roughshod and lawmen are laid low!Where a vicious gang, greed-crazed for gold, guns down anyone who stands in their path!Where Walt Slade, undercover ace of the Texas Rangers, is marked for death because he alone knows the twisted trail that led to their deadly secret!This is another in the long-running series of exciting Westerns about Walt Slade, the most fearless of the Texas Rangers.

The street was deserted except for two shadowy figures-tall and menacing. The sun was high, and the hot, dry air held the secret of what was about to happen.…Walt Slade, ace Texas Ranger, walked toward the center of town. Suddenly the two willowy forms materialized, shouting, "Slade, you're gonna die!" The Ranger whirled……sunlight flashed on three guns-the street vibrating to the bellow of gunfire-and facing two of the deadliest rustlers in Texas border country Slade knew only one man would live to tell of the terrible time he was caught-in a GUNDOWN!

One by one they faced him. One by one they died… Only four hours after Walt Slade landed in Los Angeles, he was locked in a desperate life-and-death struggle with the gang of killers he had trailed over a thousand miles. One by one they faced him. One by one they died-until at last he was up against the vicious, deadly remnants whose orders from their leader were- "KILL SLADE-ANY WAY YOU CAN!"

The hooded Faceless Riders had spread a trail of terror and death along the Rio Grande. Striking where they were least expected, the outlaw band had thrown the whole territory into panic. And the toll from their guns was overflowing Boot Hill.As the ace undercover Ranger Walt Slade rode into the Border country, he knew that only one man could rod a gang so ruthlessly. And that man was Slade's bitter arch-enemy Veck Sosna, the cleverest, most notorious outlaw Slade had ever faced!Slade knew that the stakes were high. For if he didn't beat Sosna the whole Border country would crumble from law and order into the chaos of gun justice. And he knew, too, that if he lost this battle it would be his last. For there was another tombstone waiting in Boot Hill, marked with an S -- Slade or Sosna!

They called Amarillo "the Cowboy Capital"- but "Corpse - and - Cartridge City" would have been a better name after Veck Sosna and his Comancheros rode In!Walt Slade, undercover ace of the Texas Rangers, tried every dodge he knew to trap Sosna, but the tricky, vicious outlaw was always one step ahead of him ... until the bullet-filled night when Ranger and bandit chief met face to face at the end of The Hate Trail

"Black gold" was replacing green grass as a source of profit in Gunlock, Texas, when Wait Slade rode in to investigate a case of cattle rustling. Like the Comanches of old, a vicious gang of renegades had suddenly swept out of the barren Cito Hills, and Slade's orders were to track them down -- single-handed! The Ranger ace took one look at the tall derricks dotting the blue skies of Gunlock and knew that the stakes were far higher than local short-horners imagined. His suspicion fell on a smooth-talking businessman from back East. When lead slugs hammered into his blanket one night and a heavy beam barely missed his head the next morning, Slade figured he was right. But the Ranger had to match bullets against five outlaws on a shaky oil rig before peace came at last to Outlaw Land!

The terse command cracked through Texas Ranger head-quarters like a rifle shot -- and no one had to be told that the most dangerous assignment ever handed out was custom-made for the coolest lawman of them all, Walt Slade! For a hot, bloody week Slade haunted the trail of the vicious outlaw whose senseless cruelties shocked El Paso. One by one he whittled down Juan Covelo's gang of killers, but always the black-hooded leader escaped his blazing irons. Now Slade knew that he was up against an outlaw every bit as fiendish and elusive as his arch-enemy Veck Sosna. When the Ranger ace fingered his guns and stepped into Coveto's hillside hideout he was grimly prepared for a deadly duel in the dark that meant either his own death or a killer's doom!

Ghosts on the range -- fearsome figures in gleaming armor, spirits of the conquistadores --striking terror into the herdsmen of Texas' Matagorda Bay country.... But maybe, Slade told himself, they're not ghosts -- just smart owlhoots wrapped in tin plate.... So the Ranger ace went "ghost"-hunting -- with hot lead and fighting fury! But Slade didn't know how close he himself would come to being made a ghost....

El Paso was ready for trouble, as Ranger undercover agent Walt Slade found when he rode in -- and was nearly gunned down by quick-triggered citizens, suspicious of any stranger. For a stranger might be one of the dreaded Starlight Riders, who raided and burned from their mysterious mountain hideout, threatening to destroy the Texan ranchers and farmers who refused to pay "protection money." In his role of the "outlaw" El Halcon, Slade prowled the Border Hills and the back streets of El Paso, hunting the Riders' brilliant mastermind -- and keeping his hands close to his guns, because when the Ranger and his quarry met it would be time for gunsmoke talk!

The mighty bridge crossing the Rio Grande was to be the final step in the completion of the railroad and the taming of the West. But when Ranger Walt Slade saw the plans, he knew there was a sinister enemy at work -for the bridge was being built deliberately so that it would collapse at the first flood!Tracking his hidden adversary, facing ambush, arson, and dynamite blasts, the undercover ace of the Texas Rangers fights through until he and his quarry come face to face in a GUNSIGHT SHOWDOWN

Violence and rumored rebellion had turned the border country into a powder keg primed to explode at any second. The mysterious "Liberator" called for war - and men who spoke against him died suddenly!Walt Slade, undercover ace of the Texas Rangers, rode into Matamoros, a one-man task force with the deadly job of stopping a revolution before it started. For Slade knew that "The Liberator" was none other than Veck Sosna, the most ruthless outlaw Texas ever spawned!Danger lay ahead - but even Slade could not foresee the terrible ordeal that faced him on the TRAIL OF BLOOD AND BONES

Harlow's gaze dropped to Slade's cartridge belts..."Two-gun man, eh?" he said. "Reckon the Bowmans brought you in to do their fighting for them. Just want to tell you that'll be a hefty chore even for -- Walt Slade!"There was a stir at the bar as Harlow pronounced the last two words. Men turned from their drinks to stare. Dealers looked up from their cards. Poker players seemed to forget the hands, they held. Even the bartenders paused over their bottles to regard with awe the almost legendary lawman whose exploits were the talk of Texas and the Southwest.Here was the man who backed down Doc Holliday, Curly Bill Brocius and even Wyatt Earp.No one in the bar knew Slade to be a Texas Ranger, but to a man they could guess that his appearance in town meant excitement -- and even death!