Black Fury #55

When a Pony Express rider is ambushed by a ruthless outlaw, Black Fury the wild stallion makes an unexpected choice—instead of fleeing the gunfire, he charges downhill to save the injured man's life. With the rider badly wounded and a crucial mail delivery hanging in the balance, Black Fury becomes the mailman's only hope, using his strength and intelligence to get both himself and Jody Jeffers across the desert to Fort Tate before sundown. It's a thrilling test of trust between man and wild horse as they race against time and a killer who refuses to give up.

Wild horse hunters led by Luis Verduz set a carefully laid trap for Black Fury and his herd, driving the great black stallion into a dead-end canyon. After a fierce struggle, Black Fury manages to break free—but his family remains captured, setting the stage for a daring return to save them from the hunters who won't give up their prize without a fight.

This nonfiction account traces the rough origins of the American cowboy back to the Aztec slaves who first herded cattle for Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés in the Southwest, armed only with bows, arrows, and lassos to manage vast herds and dangerous wildlife. The story then follows the evolution through later frontier figures—the cholero hunter and the comanchero trader—each adding layers of toughness and daring to a legacy that would define the 19th-century West.

The mountain man of America's early frontier lived free and unbounded, trading with Native peoples and harvesting furs from pristine wilderness—his only tether a yearly trip to civilization to exchange his prized skins. As the nation expanded westward, the wild lands that sustained him vanished beneath settlement and progress, until the mountain man and his way of life faded into history. This piece traces the rise and decline of one of the Old West's most independent figures.

Lew Rollins, the West's most famous varmint hunter, is hired by a wealthy rancher to kill the magnificent stallion Black Fury for a hefty fee—but when a savage killer-cat begins stalking the high meadows, Rollins finds himself torn between the job he was hired for and the code he lives by. As the puma threatens not just Black Fury but the entire herd, the hunter must decide what kind of man he wants to be.

In the early days of American expansion, the government opened vast territories to settlers through organized land rushes, offering land grants to anyone willing to stake a claim and cultivate it. Rugged frontiersmen and immigrant families converge on the starting line, driven by the promise of owning a piece of this growing nation. When the signal sounds, the stampede begins as hundreds race to claim their futures in the untamed land.