The Third Rider

Five years of hard times had left their mark on Mel Rawlins. He had left the Stirrup ranch a boy and came back a man, bitter, tough, gun-easy and law-shy. But the Stirrup had changed more than he had. The desert wind seemed to have sucked all life from the prosperous ranch of his childhood. His father was murdered, his two brothers gone, and the lawman who had married Mel's sister carried a warrant for his arrest. Like his brothers, Mel headed south across the desert, to the sea. There, in the strange coast town of Manoas must lie the answer to the plunder of the Stirrup. The riders had come from there, burning barns, killing and slaughtering the cattle they didn't steal in a senseless orgy of violence. Now Mel rode rode for vengeance.