The Gauntlet: In the short novel that opens this new Western Trio, we encounter the legendary friendship of "Red" Harringan and "Black" MacTee. Back-to-back, they can take on a whole saloon full of tough frontiersmen.

Only one person ever came between them: beautiful Kate Malone, who admitted she loved one more than the other, then fled into hiding. And then Reata returns, the master of the rawhide rope who doesn't carry a gun. His third and last labor for the king of the rate, Pop Dickerman, in exchange for his help breaking out of jail, brings him close to Miriam, the gypsy girl he loves. But he is bound by his task and she by her fearsome band of gypsies. In the final story, Joseph Stillwater Larrimee has made a gold strike that may, at last, prove his worth to his family. But then he finds a lady's riding glove that conjures in his soul the image of its owner. When he finds that just such a woman has passed that way surrounded by a gang of toughs, he leaves his cache of gold and sets out to find his mysterious lady.