The heart of the American West lives in Peter Dawson’s stories, with characters that blaze a trail over a land of frontier dreams and nightmares and across a country coming of age. Sometimes, as in A Tinhorn Takes a Tank Town, the conflict has to do with murder and power, as when High-Card Stevens goes up against a crooked saloon owner. Sometimes, as in Unwanted Gold, it is brother against brother, as when Dave Sanders finds his older brother, whom he hasn’t seen for ten years, and is unwittingly drawn into an enterprise that leads to dire consequences.

In Hell for Homesteaders, the trouble is between two former cowhands who file on newly opened reservation land only to find unexpected conflict and greed. Back-Trail Betrayal starts out with a scheme of turning a charitable loan into something to work for the advantage of the one who was asked to deliver it. In Showdown at Anchor Ed Nugent has enough money to buy a small ranch and get a start, only to find himself embroiled in a battle of wills between John Worth, owner of the great Anchor Ranch, and his daughter, Laura Worth, who has decided to back a disenfranchised former Anchor rider.