GDMSL-52. When two cowboys approach each other on the trail, both are expected to keep course and perhaps pass a friendly word; to veer off is to suggest furtiveness --- or even danger. A wave of greeting is bad form --- it may scare the horse.

THE OLD WEST

Dear Reader:

Someone once had the guts to ask Clay Allison what he did for a living. He must have been smiling when he asked the question, because he lived to repeat the answer. Allison said, “I am a shootist,” and with those four words he eloquently summed up a long career dedicated to blasting his fellow men to smithereens.

Allison and men like him lived (and usually died) with six-gun in hand. They were seldom the glamorous figures the movies and television later made them, but lonely, bitter, frequently psychotic killers who belonged on a psychiatrist’s couch. Some were outlaws and some were lawmen; frequently

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it was hard to tell the difference. But they all had one thing in common --- they were bad news.

But there were good guys, too. Sheriff pat Garrett, six feet four and fast on the trigger, who killed Billy the Kid with a shot in the dark. Wild Bill Hickok, a lawman known occasionally to exaggerate his own prowess. Dodge City lawman Bat Masterson, who eventually fell from public favor for excessive gunplay. And Wyatt Earp, whose reputation rests mistly on 30 seconds of gunplay at the O.K. Corral.

In The Gunfighters you’ll ride with Jesse and Frank James when they pull off the first daylight bank robbery in American History, and feel the frustration of Allan Pinkerton and his detectives as they fruitlessly chase the outlaw band around the Midwest for years. You’ll walk the streets of Tomstone with the Earps and Doc Holliday as they stalk the Clantons and McLaurys in the most famous shoot-out in the history of the West.

I could go on and on, but I’ll let the book do that. The Gunfighters is big, beautiful and brimming over with enjoyment: 8 ½ by 11 inches, 240 pages, 40,000 words. It’s a book to lose yourself in --- and to rediscover a part of America that has long since vanished. There are more than 250 photographs, paintings and drawings, many in color, to help you understand the era of the gun.

A series as big as all outdoors --- THE OLD WEST

Gunfighters, good and bad, played their role in America’s development. And the West of 70, 90, and 150 years ago was full of other interesting people and places. So full, in fact, that we’ve filled a series of fascinating books with them and called it THE OLD WEST.

Here are volumes crackling with the excitement of men and women pushing out beyond the frontier, raising children and Cain, busting sod and staking out ranches in a land as wild and rugged as the open sea, hunting buffalo and bear, building the railroads, and finally becoming that marvelous blend of fact, legend and myth that has fascinated all of us since two men named Lewis and Clark first crossed the country.

The Gunfighters --- which you can now examine without cost for 10 days --- is the introductory volume of THE OLD WEST. Hard on its heels

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comes The Pioneers, the story of the men, women and children who started pouring out of Independence, Missouri, in 1841. They were headed west, walking beside the covered wagons that held their possessions, going across 2,000 miles of country to the Pacific coast. Mostly American born, they were home seekers, determined to find the fertile paradise that missionaries and mountain men had sworn existed on the other side of the Continent. They were innocent, and braved the wilderness because they did not know its hazards --- its forbidding mountains and pitiless deserts, ruinous fires and frequently predatory Indians. But they met the perils with courage, and most of them won through to become the West’s new settlers. The Pioneers will make you proud to be an American.

In The Indians, A book that will be a revelation to most readers, you’ll see the first inhabitants of this country as they really were: men and women with complex cultures thrown into conflict with strangers who took their land and livelihood and left them beaten, bewildered and bitter. In this sensitively written, magnificently illustrated volume, you will find out about the great diversity of Western Indian life --- how many tribes there were, where they were located, how they were organized and how they lived. You’ll observe how a buffalo hunt was conducted; how a hide was tanned; how a tepee was made. You’ll find out about the great variety of religious practices, tribal taboos, idols, fetishes, superstitions, Indian sign language. You’ll meet the great warriors of the various tribes, including such famous Sioux leaders as red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Crazy Horse and many others. You’ll study the Indian’s concept of land ownership and land use, as well as his methods of warfare, and you gain an rntirely new perspective on the conflicts of the old West.

Later on you’ll meet The Trailblazers --- a bold, strong-willed breed of men who, in their quest for fame, fortune, knowledge and adventure, helped open the West. There were those two bright, young early explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, with their 30-man, $40,000 Corps of Discovery, changed the course of history. Sweaty, grizzled mountain to their fur trading helped fill in the holes of the map. General William Ashley, who, after some botched and bloody forays with the Arikaras, sent his men overland, invented the rendezvous and turned fur trading into a wheeling-dealing business. Big Joe Walker, the best nuts-and-bolts trail-blazer, who sighted and followed the Humboldt River southwest, scaled the Sierra passes, discovered Yosemite and painted the image of California as the promised land.

You’ll delight in The Cowboys, to understand perhaps for the first time these intriguing, complex men --- products of a particular time and place, living by a code compounded of hard-fisted frontier desperation and Victorian-era social values. They were tough because their life was hard. And they unbent once in a while because they had to. Sure, they were a hard-driving lot… but there was humanity in them and a great love of the big country. So judge them and their way of life, if you must, but do it by their standards. You can do just that with The Cowboys.

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The introductory volume comes to you in a 10-day FREE trial

To receive your copy of The Gunfighters for 10 days’ FREE examination, just affix the book token to the enclosed postage-paid card and drop it in the mail. When your copy arrives, look it over, show it to your family and friends. Then, if you don’t find yourself caught up in this book… if you don’t learn hundreds of new and fascinating facts...and meet some mighty interesting people, just return The Gunfighters within 10 days and that ends it.

If you decide you want to keep this introductory volume, the price is $7.95 plus shipping and handling, which for a book of this high quality and content is exceptionally low.

If you keep The Gunfighters, then forthcoming volumes in THE OLD WEST will be sent to you, one at a time, approximately every other month. Each volume, of course, will be sent on the same 10-day free-examination basis and at the same price of $7.95 plus shipping and handling. But each volume will have to stand on its own merits. You may reject any book within 10 days simply by returning it. You are never under any obligation to purchase any minimum number of books and you may cancel this free-examination privilege at any time simply by writing to us. No further books will be sent.

I do hope that you will take this opportunity to be introduced to The Gunfighters. In 240 pages, 40,000 words and over 250 fascinating pictures, it will plunge you into a part of our past that’s well worth poring over. Just mail the enclosed postpaid card today. Send no money. There’s no risk, no gamble --- just the promise of good, down-to-earth, hearty adventure.

Sincerely,
John D. Manley
Publisher

JDM/GFE