A WORD FROM LOUIS L'AMOURAlmost four decades ago, when my fiction was being published exclusively inpulp' western magazines, I wrote a number of novellength stories, known back then asmagazine 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 fulllength 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 mymagazine novels' back into print in this latest volume of my short fiction. I hope you enjoy them. FEATURINGShowdown TrailA Man Called TrentThe Trail to Peach Meadow CanyonThe Rider of the Ruby Hills