Gunsmoke Yarns

This Dell Books collection, Gun Smoke Yarns, was selected by Gene Autry and features ten Western stories. The opening selection, Eugene Cunningham's "Ranger Luck," follows Texas Ranger sergeant Burr Daley, who returns to Blanco County and finds himself competing with wealthy deputy Alf Quern for the affections of Lou Barron, a rancher's daughter. Daley, who owns almost nothing, fantasizes about purchasing the Rockin Chair ranch but lacks capital. When his vaquero friend Mig' Aranda offers him a Yaqui charm talisman that supposedly brings luck, Daley accepts it skeptically while lending money to Mig'. The collection also includes stories by Henry Herbert Knibbs, Ross Santee, S. Omar Barker, J.E. Grinstead, Charles Tenney Jackson, William Corson, George Pattullo, William Byron Mowery, and O. Henry—works reprinted from various pulp magazines and contemporary periodicals dating from the 1920s–1940s.