A WORD FROM LOUIS L'AMOUR';Almost four decades ago, when my fiction was being published exclusively in ';pulp' western magazines, I wrote a number of novel-length stories, known back then as ';magazine novels.' In creating them, I lived with my characters so closely that their lives were still as much a part of me as I was of them long after the issues in which they appeared went out of print. Proud as I was of how I presented the characters and their adventures in the pages of the magazines, I wanted to tell the reader more about my people and why they did what they did. So, over the years, I revised and expanded these magazine works into novels that I published as full-length paperbacks under different titles.';These particular early magazine versions of my books have long been a source of considerable speculation and curiosity among many of my readers, so much so of late, that now I've decided to bring four of my ';magazine novels' back into print in this latest volume of my short fiction.';I hope you enjoy them.'FEATURING*; Showdown Trail*; A Man Called Trent*; The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon*; The Rider of the Ruby HillsFrom the Paperback edition.