Western Short Stories Collection

Gradually the proximity of death drove all other thoughts from Lee’s head. He rode in a red nightmare of pain, fast because he could see the cloud which marked the pursuit behind him. Somehow he had to get into the mountains. Many times, as a boy, he had ridden over this terrain. And it was only because he knew it so well that he was able to reach the canyon mouth which led upward into a tangled labyrinth of ravines and peaks. Somewhere ahead, he knew, there was a stream and on its banks there was an old trapper’s cabin, so well hidden that few punchers, interested mainly in the flat range, had ever come upon it. That place, where he had once spent happy weeks fishing for trout, was his only chance of life—providing he could remain conscious long enough to reach it. —L. Ron Hubbard